So Cal ... love it but whammy bar woes

[DHardmanJr]

So ... let me first start by saying I'm just about as pleased as I can be with my So Cal. I just got it yesterday and in a testament to how well it was setup ... I took it with me to the studio today where I'm recording with my band and used it on a couple of tracks. All I had to do was a little fine tuning and it was ready to go. So ... out of box ... tweak the fine tuners ... ready to play in all aspects ... I've never had that happen with a new guitar before. Either the dealer or the factory did a great job.

When I plugged it in to double the rhythm part of a chorus the engineer commented on how loud and full the guitar is ... plenty of growl. Lot's of "that sounds great" from my band mates.

All that said the whammy bar makes the whole tremolo feel cheap so I put one from an OFR on there and it made a huge difference in the feel of the floyd. So ... for those of you who feel like the floyd just isn't right ... throw another bar on there and see if it makes a difference. Made a big difference for me.

With the little tweak of repacing the whammy bar this guitar is smokin hot.

So, here's the question ... are the bars that come on the guitar defective? Even with the collar very tight the stock bar still jiggles around a bit in it's socket which drives me nuts.

Also, the bar that comes with these is bent at a shallower angle than the ones I have on OFRs ... meaning it sticks up higher off the face of the guitar which I didn't much care for either.

[Trem]

I don't like the sleeve design on the floyds (now?)
i can't fully remember but back in the day my floyd had the bar that just screws into the plate, and the bar was basically straight, it prolly had a little arch to it, but not like the ones i have now, i really don't care for them either, i don't know if the floyd on my old fernandes was an OF, but it was solid as a rock, and the feel was exact.
this sleeve design doesn't feel solid, in fact, i don't even use it now, because i hate the feel of it. which sucks, because all of my guitars have them, lol.
You can stick a screw under the bottom of the bar insert assembly, it helps, but still a pain, and not quite right.. Seems like a bad design decision to me, have OF always had this sleeve design??
With the screw into the plate kind, even if you have it one twist loose so that it freely swings, it still was solid.
it's quite possible my old fernandes did have a liscensed floyd, but it was the best one i ever had.

[Bengal65]

Even some of the new OFR's have loose arms. Seems to me like a quality control problem. Possibly, they are not using Go-No-Go guages at the factory. Seems to me they need to look at this. I have several new OFR's that are tight and some new ones that are also loose. I just wrap a piece of teflon tape around the trem bar once or twice then push the bar in and tighten it. Works very well. I hate the floppy, loose feel as well.

[Foulacy]

loose whammy bars are the worst thing ever. a quick fix, but not ideal, is to coat the part of the bar that fits into the hole with clear nail polish, as thick as to your liking, but too thick and you wont be able to get it in the hole. it helps some.

[Newc]

Older 80's Floyds did indeed have a flatter bar, which made deep dives difficult. The tradeoff was to raise the action, but at least with a bolt-on neck you could shim it at a steeper angle, but then you were having to raise the pickups to keep their relationship to the strings.

I had to do that on my Kramer Focus 1000. I could slide my hand under the strings.
After everyone started bending their bars, Floyd took notice.

As for wobbly collars, I get them more with my Schallers than my OFRs that Schaller makes. Maybe Schaller can't use the exact dimensions for theirs as part of the license deal? Seems reasonable to me.

But I did stick a Schaller bar on my Charvel last night just to see, and it does work a lot better.

[XSSIVE]

that's the same thing i did with mine. swapped the bar for a spare real german made OFR bar and it's all good and staying stiff and not coming loose even after lots of abuse.

-Mike

[Dolan]

Changed mine as well.

[ADR]

I may have to try this,I'm having the collar loosen as well.I have a Schaller Floyd on my 92 Dinky Rev i'll try it.

[ADR]

Yes, the bar from my Schaller Floyd works much better and stays tight,it's staying on there. My Dinky Rev has been put away for now.

[Big Al]

+1 on the Schaller or at least the ones I have. Snug fit, great for flutters and string rattling divebombs.

[roodyrocker]

I don't like the sleeve design on the floyds (now?)
i can't fully remember but back in the day my floyd had the bar that just screws into the plate, and the bar was basically straight, it prolly had a little arch to it, but not like the ones i have now, i really don't care for them either, i don't know if the floyd on my old fernandes was an OF, but it was solid as a rock, and the feel was exact.
this sleeve design doesn't feel solid, in fact, i don't even use it now, because i hate the feel of it. which sucks, because all of my guitars have them, lol.
You can stick a screw under the bottom of the bar insert assembly, it helps, but still a pain, and not quite right.. Seems like a bad design decision to me, have OF always had this sleeve design??
With the screw into the plate kind, even if you have it one twist loose so that it freely swings, it still was solid.
it's quite possible my old fernandes did have a liscensed floyd, but it was the best one i ever had.

The thing I don't like about the older ones though is that the part that goes into the plate has a plastic type washer on it and when those go bad, try finding a replacement for it. I had one like this on an older Soloist that I bought used and it arrived with this washer mangled. I tried to find a replacement washer everywhere even posting on here at the time. Could not find one. Ended up taking that part out and replacing it with the late model collared type which has none of those plastic washers to wear out.

[Trem]

Ok, i've found this, this is what i remember my floyd like as you can see the bar screws down into the nut assembly making it stable as if
it was part of the base plate itself.



The ones now with the sleeve, the hole of the sleeve the bar slides thru is a bit wide, the bar slides down into the shaft, which is just a tad too wide, and the sleve screws down onto little pins machined into the bar itself. Which if these wear out, the bar would become loose no matter how tight you have the sleeve, or eventually even completely useless...
OFR bar circa 2000 - now - also same as my jt-590



And an allen nut lock type screw into the bottom of the bar assembly, for added stability.... Which on this one here is worn so that it cannot butt up against the bar anymore, i just tried to take it out it's seized in there, need some wd40... this is also it's key for stability..



I still prefer the old style screw in, finding another washer doesn't seem like it would be too difficult, but maybe so, in a pinch you could use a standard metal washer, however i had mine for 6 years and it was older than that and hadn't worn out.
Also the posts were the screw right into the body wood kind...
which is kinda scary, but i wonder if it affects sustain or resonance in any way compared to the metel insert kind, (in a perfect scenario) ..to many
variables to test completely accurate.
hey,
I just saw one on ebay, original old style screw in floyd for only 169 buckaroos

[DHardmanJr]

Ended up taking that part out and replacing it with the late model collared type which has none of those plastic washers to wear out.

+1 ... had to do this on an older guitar as well. The collard type is also much better for when you transport the guitar in a case since it's so easy to remove the bar.

[Ripley7t]

I have had that problem with a couple of mine. All I did was put a quick round of teflon tape on the threads and no more loosie goosie.

[roodyrocker]

Ok, i've found this, this is what i remember my floyd like as you can see the bar screws down into the nut assembly making it stable as if
it was part of the base plate itself.

You can actually see the plastic washer in the picture you posted above. Its the white round thing on the underside there. I have not found a source for these yet. And BTW, I didn't wear mine out, it was messed up when I bought the guitar used. The arm was so tight in there I had to remove the whole thing and replace it with the collared type. The washer was flattened out and squeezing out from the underside making it unuseable again. Another thing to consider is that the screw in arm height changes depending on how you prefer the bar, loose vs. tight whereas the collared type stays pretty much as a uniform height since you only tighten/loosen the collar and not spin the whole bar.