6 hole vintage to Floyd modifications

[dmraco]

How much surgery would be needed to adapt a 6 hole vintage term to a floyd?  Obviously the 6 holes would need to be filled and new ones drilled.  does the block pass thru or spring area need changed??

Thanks

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

In one of the StewMac books, there's a re-print of an article from the 80's of Dan Erlewine doing such a job and it's pretty well done with pics, but you might even find success if you google it.

There is indeed some surgery, and if memory serves, those 6 holes are eventually covered up by the base plate of the Floyd.  You can also download dimensions/specs from Floyd's site in case you want to make your own routing templates, or you can just buy some from Stew Mac.  I would not attempt it free-handed, even though I've done it several times over the past 30+ years.  Routing templates just make it cleaner.

 

[stratamania]

You can see some pics of this mod in this video


http://youtu.be/cTHf2weMUrM

From what I can see the only reason he changes the trem cavity is that the trem block looks like quite a short version.

 

[NLD09]

I've done this conversion once. It was the most labor intensive project that I've attempted. I went the top mount route, instead of the recessed mount for pure aesthetic reasons. I personally feel the recessed routes are ugly.

The pass through area on my guitar needed to be filed a bit, not actually re-routed or anything. I just had a small spot that was rubbing the underside of the arm assembly. Of course YMMV. I also had to buy a 42mm block instead of the stock 37mm block didn't quite clear the route. When I depressed the bar fully my springs would catch in the route.

I didn't fill the holes. The issue I had was that the guitar was a swimming pool route, and the studs were too close to it. They eventually began breaking into the pickup cavity, so I had to dowel, redrill, and epoxy the hell out of everything. Of course, I was stringing 12-52 standard, so that might have had something to do with it.

Another thing to consider is shimming the neck. Not necessarily difficult, just an absolute pain to shim, adjust bridge height, detune, take the neck off, re-shim... 3-10 times.

Also, depending on the tools you have available, you'll have to decide how to go about creating a shelf for the locking nut. Every how-to that I watched showed someone using a router. I wasn't all that comfortable going that route though, so I used a straight file and took my time.

In the end, everything turned out great. I've since parted that guitar out to build a new one, but it stayed in tune like it never had before. Since then I've decided that if it doesn't have a Floyd then I'm not interested.

 

[dmraco]

my biggest concern is the amount of material between the cavity and the needed holes.  not much there.

 

[Cagey]

Once a body is drilled/routed for a a 6-hole trem, it's wrecked. Sell it to somebody who doesn't know any better. They'll be happy, and the tree huggers will give you a half-assed smile for not throwing it in the fireplace and returning it to the dust from whence it came  :icon_biggrin:

 

[dmraco]

Once a body is drilled/routed for a a 6-hole trem, it's wrecked. Sell it to somebody who doesn't know any better. They'll be happy, and the tree huggers will give you a half-assed smile for not throwing it in the fireplace and returning it to the dust from whence it came  :icon_biggrin:

I dry fitted the floyd and it is only off by just a bit.  I have to take a bit off for the trem arm clearance.

Just to give you and idea of what I am doing.  My son has a strat body he is turning into a frankenstrat.  It currently has a 6 hole.  The floyd is mostly for show.  It will be completely locked down.  Think of it as hard tail with fine tuners. 

Seems like everything fits.  However severe dive bombs will be limited. 

 

[Cagey]

I can understand the Floyd-for-show thing. They're mean-looking and a big stack of mechanical gimcrackery just looks badass. But, it's an expensive piece of hardware to install just for looks. Plus, dealing with the things is a major league pain in the shorts. Throw a Tele bridge on there and it'll cover up a multitude of sins.

 

[stratamania]

A Floyd for show.... Aargh, what about all that whammy goodness going to waste ?

 

[Cagey]

Want some whammy goodness that won't eat your lunch? Get thee to eBay and dig up one of these...

Cheaper than the hardware, and much more easily dealt with. Plus, it does all sorts of fun things that a wang bar won't.

 

[stratamania]

Yes those pedals can be quite cool, but you can't beat a big of wang bar from time to time.

I'm being somewhat tongue in cheek. If anyone wants to block a trem on a guitar it's down to them.

 

[Cagey]

Well, you're right in that sometimes it's Pure-D fun to manhandle your fiddle.

Don't ask me what Pure-D means. It's a southern expression and I'm a born-and-raised Yankee. I think it means "absolutely".

Anyway, he's talking about locking down the bridge, which means no whammy no matter how much you want it. So? Pedal.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I like to wiggle my wiggle stick by hand.
I've had a Whammy pedal, and I still use it for a couple of things, but nothing sounds more like a trem bar than a trem bar.

 

[stratamania]

pure D, that's a new one for me. Google gave me a possibility of a shortened term of pure damned or such like. So something like its damned fun to wiggle your whammy bar would perhaps be close ?

 

[Cagey]

It all sounds vaguely auto-erotic, so I'm just going to stop talking about the whole thing  :icon_biggrin:

 

[stratamania]

ccasion14: