Schaller intonation bizarreness

[Forrest]

I've been having a strange problem with 2 of my Schaller bridges.
I went ahead and swapped in an oversized sustain block onto one of them, reinstalled it into my 91 USA soloist, and tried to set the intonation.

No matter how far back I moved the saddles, (away from the neck) the fretted note at the 12th fret is much sharper than the open note or the harmonic. It's the worst on the low E string, but even on the high E, it's still slightly sharp moved all the back.

I have a spare bridge (disassembled.) I compared them and they're very slightly different, as the post knife edges and saddle length.

So I took the spare base plate, and swapped the saddles over (because I spent a long time figuring out the right amount of shims to use), put it back together, tried again, same problem. Then I tried again using only parts from the spare bridge, reshimmed the other set of saddles for an 18" bridge radius. Still have the exact same problem.

I'm blocking the tremelo with a piece of clothespin between spring-side of the block and the body, and using 4 tremelo springs. This is per the advice of floydupgrades.com.

I just did this exact same thing on my 93 soloist with another schaller, in the exact same manner, with no problems. I've never had this problem setting the intonation on any guitar I own, which I've done several times. I'm confused. I put a new set of strings on 5 weeks ago and stretched them out, and let them sit until now. Anyone run into this?

[sully]

Was that the original bridge for the guitar? Schallers and OFRs aren't completely swappable from an intonation standpoint. Something else that comes to mind are the posts; is there any chance that they're leaning forward? If there's any play in the post/bushing coupling, it could be moving forward under string tension.

If it's the same bridge you started with, to completely isolate the issue, I'd say reassemble the original bridge and check your intonation. If it intonates (and your posts don't move), there's something off with the upgrade.

Sully

[Tommie]

Are you saying you've used this same bridge before, prior to replacing the block, and it intonated OK?

Can you measure from nut to 12th fret, and then measure the same length from 12th fret to bridge, and tell is where about in relation to the saddles this gets you? Normally it would co-incide with the string take-off point of the saddle, if the saddle were placed almost but not quite as far towards the nut as it can go.

[Tricky]

Other than the trem itself, it could be a nut issue, Neck problem, studs not drilled correctly, or even strings.
Like Tommie said, do some measuring.
How is the action?

[Forrest]

Was that the original bridge for the guitar? Schallers and OFRs aren't completely swappable from an intonation standpoint. Something else that comes to mind are the posts; is there any chance that they're leaning forward? If there's any play in the post/bushing coupling, it could be moving forward under string tension.

If it's the same bridge you started with, to completely isolate the issue, I'd say reassemble the original bridge and check your intonation. If it intonates (and your posts don't move), there's something off with the upgrade.

Sully

One of them is the original bridge. I've set the intonation with that bridge before without having this problem. The other one is a spare I had, but it's been in use on this guitar for several years. I let a "pro" set up the guitar and he said one of the holes was stripped out (not true), so I gave him the spare to use. He said it was fine, but I didn't check his work with a good tuner at the time. Soon after that I put the midi pickup on the guitar and it collected a lot of dust, and I never tried to set it up myself after that. More in a second.

[Forrest]

Are you saying you've used this same bridge before, prior to replacing the block, and it intonated OK?

Can you measure from nut to 12th fret, and then measure the same length from 12th fret to bridge, and tell is where about in relation to the saddles this gets you? Normally it would co-incide with the string take-off point of the saddle, if the saddle were placed almost but not quite as far towards the nut as it can go.

Yes, several years ago, everything was fine.

Can you tell me exactly what points to measure from? The inside of the nut? Which side of the fret?

If I measure from the inside of the nut and the bridge side of the 12th fret, the point I get is about 1/8" in front of the current string/saddle contact point. The saddles are currently almost as far back as possible. What does that mean?

[Forrest]

Other than the trem itself, it could be a nut issue, Neck problem, studs not drilled correctly, or even strings.
Like Tommie said, do some measuring.
How is the action?

The action is fine. I am not 100% ruling out a nut/neck problem but I don't think it's been a problem until now. How could the strings be a problem? I'm using a new set of Dean Markley blue steels, which is what I've been using for years. I can see if they were dead, there might be a problem. But these have only had about an hour of playing on them and I let them sit for around a month on the guitar. They should be just about right.

[Tricky]

If their new, I doubt their the problem.
I have had new strings that were bad, but never more than one out of a set.

[Tommie]

Yes, several years ago, everything was fine.

Can you tell me exactly what points to measure from? The inside of the nut? Which side of the fret?

If I measure from the inside of the nut and the bridge side of the 12th fret, the point I get is about 1/8" in front of the current string/saddle contact point. The saddles are currently almost as far back as possible. What does that mean?

Start your tape measure exactly where the string starts at the nut - you're measuring the vibrating string length - to the top of the 12th fret - right on the crown, where the string takes off. Write this down. Then measure again from the same point on the fret to the exact point where the string comes off the saddle, and do this once with the saddle set as far towards the nut as possible, then again with the saddle all the way back towards the rear of the tailpiece. Write both measurements down and report them all back here.

Your soloist should be a 25.5", so nut to 12th should be exactly 12.75" and 12th to bridge saddle adjustable either side of that measurement, but more on the longer side than shorter.

The bridge block can't be a factor here, the only thing that can ruin intonation in the way you described is if the bridge plate is sitting too far towards the neck, and the only way that can happen is if the bridge posts are too far north, the baseplate is incompatible, or the strings are weird. There's a wide range of adjustment in a Floyd Rose.

Are you in standard tuning? How hard do you fret the strings? Down tuning and playing too hard make the strings sharper when fretting.