Help!! I broke a screw off in my guitar!

[rrjub]

So the other day I changed my tuning up to drop D (from drop C) and when I was tightening up the claw the head one of the brass claw screws broke off inside my guitar! Any idea how to get this out? I tried a drop of super glue on the head but it didn't work. The screw is in there tight enough to break a brass screw. I was cranking it pretty hard, and with 10-52 strings there was a lot of tension.

Seems like I have three options:

1) leave the broken screw in there, and use either a dowel or break off the other screw in the other hole and drill new ones 1/4" away and drill new holes in the claw
2) cut around the wood just enough to get a pair of vice grips in there and twist it out.
3) get some kind of screw extraction device like and eazy out and try to remove it that way
4) use a dremel and cut a slot in it so I can use a flat head screw driver to get it out.

This guitar is pretty beat up, but I'd rather not hack it up if I don't have to. It is a neck through rrmg and I love it. Any ideas greatly appreciated! I know a really good luthier, but I'd rather not pay someone if I don't have to.

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[DonP]

You have some good ideas already. Are you close to a Harbor Freight? They might have an extraction kit.

[rrjub]

Yeah I am. I'll go check that out tomorrow. I guess if that doesn't work I could drill some new holes

[paranoid]

I would try putting a slot in it, and use a regular screw driver before drilling new holes.

[rrjub]

Yeah since the screw is so small I think I'll have to remove a bunch of wood to get a decent sized screwdriver in there. With it being soft brass it might strip out right away. This is a really tough one.

[ed]

That screw hole looks like its off center anyways. I would just drill a pilot hole right next to it and use the existing holes in the claw. Especially if its allready beat up. Also i am wondering why would they(or someone) use a brass screw since brass is somewhat soft metal. Is it like a tone screw thing?

[Axewielder]

It looks a bit lower than the other one, perhaps drill a new hole slightly farther from the body.

[MetalMedal II]

From the pics, it almost looks like the screw that broke off had the hole deeper (more toward the string side) than the other side. Even if it's not, I'd try just rotating the claw further away from the string side on the broken string side keeping the other screw on the opposite side in place. Try to keep the new screw hole as close to the broken one using a steel screw. Also, replace both screws with steel one to keep this crap from repeating.

[rrjub]

Good call man. I can't believe I didn't notice that. I ended drilling a new hole above it and got some stainless steel screws from Home Depot. All good now. Thanks for your help everyone!

[rrjub]

I comes with the brass claw you used to be buy off of the floyd rose website, and yeah it's supposed to be a tone upgrade. It was on the guitar when I bought it, and was a terrible idea.

[CaptNasty]

I comes with the brass claw you used to be buy off of the floyd rose website, and yeah it's supposed to be a tone upgrade. It was on the guitar when I bought it, and was a terrible idea.

Sounds to me like your brass claw was not installed properly given that the screw hole was not aligned correctly. That has nothing to do with what a brass claw does to the tone of a guitar. Have you tried the guitar without the brass claw? If you have not, then you have no idea of whether the tone upgrade was a good or a bad idea.

Also if you open up a tremolo cavity and see a brass claw and screws, you should recognize that you are working with a softer metal and have to take it easy while adjusting those screws. All of my guitars have brass claws installed and I have not experienced any problems with shearing off screws like you did.

There is something called a tap kit that you can get specifically to deal with screws that break off like this.

[pianoguyy]

I'm surprised no one said anything about this...

There are plenty of people using 10-52 tuned to E, and they aren't snapping screws.
There was definitely some other contributing factor going on.

[Nightbat]

Brass claws and screws?

This tone upgrading stuff is getting silly

[LaoWai]

get a 1/4" wood plug cutter, then you can get to it with vice-grips
if you get at it cleanly, you can plug the hole with a 1/4" dowel

eh, probably cant get to it cleanly ...

[CaptNasty]

Brass claws and screws?

This tone upgrading stuff is getting silly

Don’t knock it until you try it. I was surprised at the effect the first time I tried it.

Back in the day it was common to find brass claws on production guitars. I guess as the cost of brass increased, the industry moved to cheaper metals.

If you think of how a guitar works, it makes a lot of sense. A guitars tone is all about the frequencies/energy (information) that is available in the strings for translation by the pickups into electrical signals. Any “information” transferred to the guitar body is lost tonally. Different metals will have a tendency to resonate (i.e. absorb) frequencies differently thus affecting the tone of the “information” in the strings. Additionally different metals will transfer energy at different rates, thus affecting the decay (i.e. sustain) of the “information” in the strings.

The reason different woods impact tone is because like metals, different woods absorb “information” from the strings differently. This is not to say that the type of wood used does not affect tone. It does. But it does so subtractively (i.e. by removing “information” from the strings) not additively (i.e. by adding “information” to the guitar signal).

Anything that is attached to the strings either directly or indirectly acts as a conduit for the transfer of “information” to the guitar body thus on a Floyd the bridge, posts, saddles, inserts, tension plate, block shim, sustain block, tremolo springs and tremolo claw are all factors. As stated previously, any “information” transferred to the guitar body is non-factorial to the tone of the guitar you hear through an amplifier.

Placing different metals in your tremolo system allows you to affect the “information” that is transferred from the strings to the body of the guitar. It also allows you to control the rate at which “information” is transferred from the strings to the guitar body.

Anything that changes the “information” present in the strings has an impact on tone. It is simple physics, one of the most straightforward examples of mass-energy equivalence that you can find.