Floyd Rose off center?

[zslane]

I have two Jackson USA guitars, an RR-1 and an SL2H, with original Floyd Rose trem systems. In both cases I have found that the strings appear to drift towards the treble side of the guitar as they approach the bridge saddles. This makes doing string bends and pull-offs tricky on the high E string since it has a tendency to drop off the fret ends at the higher frets.

I've attached a photo of the situation below. Is this a common problem with Jackson guitars? Or did I just get incredibly unlucky with two such guitars in a row?

[Musician78]

Weird. None of mine are like that.

[toejam]

I've seen worse. Your high E doesn't really seem like it's that far over to the edge, though.
Unscrew the nut and see if you can maybe move it over a little more to the low E side.

[Axewielder]

I see it a lot on the imports, and it drives me batty. +1 to moving the nut. At the bridge end, there isn't a whole lot you can do.

[z1n]

you could also try an R2 nut.

[Inazone]

Are both guitars from around the same time period? I had a USA RR2 from 1996-7 with that issue. I took it to a tech, and he suspected that they used the wrong size of locking nut. He replaced it with a different one, and the problem was solved.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I've seen worse. Your high E doesn't really seem like it's that far over to the edge, though.

I'd hate to see worse. :think:

The nut spacing is way wide compared to mine. Take the nut off and see if you have an R4 nut on there or something.

At the bridge end there is very little wiggle room and movign the nut end is not going to get that moved on-center. Additionally the nut looks centered fine.

At the bridge end, you can angle the saddles a tiny bit, but that will only compensate for what I would call a cosmetic level of centering error (i.e. it won't affect playability, but bugs guys like me.)

Dude, that pic is what I'd call fucked. I'd like to say this is uncommon, but it's not. On a bolt-on you can correct for this very easily by rotating the neck in the pocket slightly but on a neck-through you have to be DEAD ON with the tremolo posts and unfortunately that's not always the case. In fact, it's the first thing I look for when I look at any neck-through Jackson. I've even specifically asked dealers for a pic such as what you show before even bothering to buy the guitar and look at it up close, and I'd have passed on yours for sure, sorry. :dunno:

How long you had it? That's a warranty issue if you're the original owner.

[J_A / 540s]

If that was an older one with the binding over the fret ends it would be a lot worse to deal with..

It looks like the issue isnt really with the nut as much as the bridge positioning. If you loosen the nut.. push it towards the bass side & retighten it in that position it may help a little bit on the lower frets.. but im guessing the problem gets worse the higher up the neck you play. Hopefully youre the original owner & can get Jackson to deal with the problem... believe me its not gonna be the 1st time theyve heard about this problem. I think they know the cause & its not hard to prevent.

Ive seen enough like this that a few times i've considered making offset drilled inserts for the posts that would make correcting something like this very easy to correct.

[jackson1]

Apart from focusing on the nut, how about swapping the OFR for a Floyd Rose Pro? It has a narrower string spacing compared to the OFR and should therefore have a narrower E-to-E width. Pure speculation but it might work. Judging from your pictures, that alignment is unacceptable.

[jackson1]

Ive seen enough like this that a few times i've considered making offset drilled inserts for the posts that would make correcting something like this very easy to correct.

This solution I really like.

[zslane]

Unfortunately, I am not the original owner of either guitar. The locking nut on both is labeled R3, which I understand is the correct one for a Jackson neck with binding.

As was mentioned, there is very little side-to-side wiggle room in the bridge pocket to make any kind of positioning adjustment, even if the bridge had "offset inserts" built into its design. Either the entire bridge or the saddle blocks all need to be moved at least 1mm to bass-side (left from the perspective of my photo). I just don't see how that would be feasible without routing out extra pocket space bass-side, filling in the stud holes and re-drilling them 1mm (or so) to the left. That's pretty major surgery, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not prepared to put these guitars through all that.

I'll just have to learn to live with it; the guitars aren't unplayable, just imperfect. I absolutely love everything else about them, so I'm loathe to give them up (and who would want them with this flaw anyway?). I just wanted to know if this was not totally unheard of in Jackson USA guitars (I don't know the year of the RR-1, but the SL2H is a 2005 I believe).

[1b4n3z]

My ESP had quite a similar problem. Being a perfectionist (of sorts) I had a luthier fill and redrill the floyd posts dead-on. It only took him the time it takes for the glue to settle and the price was very reasonable too. It certainly set my mind at ease.

[zslane]

I also noticed that the strings are lined up perfectly over the bridge pickup pole pieces. This seems to suggest that the bridge is centered with the pickups, but the neck is not centered over either the Floyd or the pickups.

In fact, if you look at the photo again, you can see that the neck is quite a bit over to the left of center of the neck pickup. Again, both my RR-1 and my SL2H are like this (the photos are of the SL2H).

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

The mounting rings would typically be drilled after lining the pickups up with the outer pair of strings (or a temporary pair of wires clipped into the floyd & lock nut. At least that's about the only way it ever made sense to me to do it - Get the bridge & neck lined up right, then line the pickups up with the strings.

There is a fair amount of room to move the pickup left to right and actually you can see that yours is shifted to the "right" or treble side- take a look at the upper right corner vs. the upper left, you can see quite a bit more wood on the right side. And the pickup even looks like it is kind of off-center in the mounting ring a little, which you can do by bending the little "feet" that the screws go through (not that this is a "good" thing to do- it's best to actually take your time and get the mounting ring drilled RIGHT, but you CAN do it, and it kind of looks to me like someone did on yours.)

What I'm talking about at the bridge end is adjusting the saddles. It only results in a very slight movement (a few hundredths) and will correct a very slight centering issue. There's usually a fair amount of space around the bridge route so unless your bridge route is off-center, too, then you might be able to have the post holes filled & re-drilled.

In any case if it actually bugs you, it can be fixed.

[MetalMedal II]

Apart from focusing on the nut, how about swapping the OFR for a Floyd Rose Pro? It has a narrower string spacing compared to the OFR and should therefore have a narrower E-to-E width. Pure speculation but it might work. Judging from your pictures, that alignment is unacceptable.

Oh yeah, A JT6 bridge is also narrower spaced compared to an OFR, so you could also try one of those.

BTW, I had a Charvel Model 5 (neckthru) and the bridge seemed a hair too far out of place (I forget if it was north or south too much), but it had a Kahler flatmount, and each saddle is adjustable 6 ways. It was at the limit of its lateral adjustment, but it sufficed. The few (maybe the only!) advantages of a Kahler over a Floyd.