Floyd swap & Tremol-No- Can I do this myself?

[Vass]

Question for you guys- Member Pinto79 heard my plea for a JT-590 and was kind enough to send one off his Charvel. It should be here in a few days I'm guessing.

Subsequent to speaking with him I decided it might be time for me to grab a Tremol-No and have my "guy" install that while putting on the new trem & intonating.

Unfortunately, once all this stuff reaches me, he'll be on vacation for a couple weeks, and I want to play out with the guitar in a week and a half.

So here's the question: having NEVER replaced a trem before, am I biting off more than I can chew? Are there pitfalls that experience would have taught me to avoid that inexperience nearly guarantees I'll fall into?

Kevan @ Tremol-No has a pretty in-depth video demonstrating installation of that device. I haven't been able to find a really good guide for getting the floyd on there.

And perhaps most importantly, does anyone have any great tips for intonation that makes it less painful than many folks say that it is (this is assuming nobody says "Dude don't do it"...and I'd really like to try. Teach a man to fish, etc....)?

Also- do I really have to baby the intonation screws that much? Some poster on other boards make it sound like they'll strip if you look at them sideways.

Thanks

Vass

[rjohnstone]

You can do it yourself.
There is plenty of info available in the STICKIES to get you going.
Yes, on the JT-590, you need to be careful of the intonation screws.
Remember.. they need to be tight, not torqued down like a set of tire lugs.
All you have to do is screw them down until you get resistance and then give them a little 1/8 to 1/4 turn to set them in place.

If you're replacing and existing trem, try and match the saddle placement between the two trems before you install it.
9 time out of 10, it's close enough to not need further adjustment.

The Tremol-No is a pretty easy and straight forward install. Juts get the trem installed and setup properly first.
Then you can attack the Tremol-No.

[Bengal65]

Have you changed strings on a Floyd or double locking trem before (all the strings off)? If you can do this and the associated adjustments required on a Floyd, you can swap the bridge out. I can do a Tremolo-No with my eyes closed, so you should have no problems. The directions are good and the new version helps alot on attaching the arm to the bridge block.
Intonation is real easy with "The Tool". If you don't have a intonation tool, it's a little more work. For fine tuning, you may need to shim some of the saddles. Usually, the stock shim that comes with a new bridge is enough.

[sully]

dude, as long as you don't drool when you speak, you can do it. remember that there's little that you can do to a guitar that cannot later be fixed.

sully

[Vass]

Shit. I drool, copiously.

I should have hit the sticky, and for that I admit my idiocy. I just blocked out the sticky after posting in the other forums so often. Shitload of great info there.

Thanks to the three of you. I'll give it a shot.

Please watch this space- in 1 week you'll see "DOODZ HOWZ DO IZ FIX TEH BRIDGE ON MY FUZION IZ ALL SCREWDZ UP!"

Vass

[sully]

then we will tell you "TREMOLNO FTW!!!!!oneoneoneoenone"

[Vass]

DOODZ HOWZ DO IZ FIX TEH BRIDGE ON MY FUZION IZ ALL SCREWDZ UP!

Well, not really. I got a Charvel JT-590 from Pinto79 and put her on. Went up to 10's, installed the tremol-no. EVEN went as far as ATTEMPTING to intonate the bridge which leads me to this question, with one followup:

I cranked those saddles back all the way on the far back screwhole in the baseplate, and on some strings I'm STILL sharp at the 12th fret- not horribly, but a little bit.

Also, I had hoped putting the new bridge on would fix my alignment "issue"- the strings are shifted towards low e. They still are with the new bridge.

Any suggestions? I'm glad I spent the time to do this, regardless, because I learned alot about the guitar, and while it's playable, I'd like to get it a little closer to "really good".

Vass

[nhspike]

Hmmm.
I'll stop short of saying you may have to live with it.
Here are some things you can do to perhaps "improve" things slightly, if you are indeed that close.
First, make sure your trem is at least sitting level, if not, increase your spring tension/re-tune as required... even go a little tipped back, to gain a minimal amt. of string length.
If you have enough screw head to hold the saddle, and the saddle is hitting on the "up angle" of the base plate (where it goes up towards the fine tuners), you might sneak a little more movement backwards by filing the corner of the back of the saddle, so it can move a little more towards the angle.
That's pushing it... but, if you work slowly, with a fine file, and are careful, you can add a small chamfer to that corner, and bring it back just a little more.
Other than that, pull & plug the trem post holes, and redrill in the correct position (which should also correct your string alignment problem).
If you don't want to go that far to correct the string alignment, loosen the neck screws, and re-tighten them while you apply tension in the correct direction to correct your misalignment.
If you have no neck pocket clearance, or it's a neck through, you'll have to move the trem posts.

These are all things that are not suggested.

I was not hear.

I did not type this.

[fett]

dude, as long as you don't drool when you speak, you can do it. remember that there's little that you can do to a guitar that cannot later be fixed.

sully

:ROTF::ROTF::ROTF::ROTF: A fucking men. Just don't wade too deep into the shit that is a guitar without these guys, that really know what they are talking about, throwing out a rope.

[dg]

This seems strange. I've heard of this type of intonation problem popping up sometimes when replacing an OFR or JT-6 with a JT-590 or Schaller, but the Fusion originally came with a JT-590. Kind of a head-scratcher.

[nhspike]

loose trem posts?
leaning towards the nut?
dunno
seems strange to me as well.

[rjohnstone]

Alignment issues for bolt-on necks are easily resolved by loosening the neck bolt and giving it a gentle tug in the right direction and the re tighten.

[nhspike]

yeah, like he said...

[Vass]

Thanks for the suggestions guys- I'm going to see what I can do. If I can't figure it out I'll just give it to my tech guy and let him deal with it.

At the very least it's been a valuable experience actually learning the technical aspects of the trem system.

Thanks again,

Vass

[memphiskat]

I had the same problem when I replaced the bridge plate on my 590 on my Fusion.
The saddles had to go farther back to intonate then there was room. After a lot of
confusion I finally figured out that the replacement plate was NOT from a JT590. Turns out the Schaller JT590 sits slightly closer to the neck on the studs than an OFR or a copy like the 580. I'm not saying that's the case here, but are you sure the new trem is a 590? Just a shot. Just sounds so much like the problem I had. My original replacement plate did not have the Made in Germany by Schaller on the plate near the trem hole. The next one did and I had no problems.

Karl