Decked Floyd, single humbucker.

bruzanhd

Senior Member
Messages
213
The goal for this build was to be a very 80s inspired single humbucker, with the #1 concern that it had a decked floyd (resting against the body with no pull-up). I wanted to document this mostly for the sake of the floyd setup because hopefully if anyone else runs into this issue then they won't have to stress about it like I did. I will get into why this setup is such a challenge to achieve further into this thread. With that said the said here is the spec sheet:

Neck:
Construction
    Modern
Shaft Wood
    Quartersawn Maple
Fretboard Wood
    Ebony
Unique Choice
    No, Warmoth can choose for me.
Nut Width
    1-11/16" (43mm) - Modern Medium
Right / Left Handed
    Right-Handed
Neck Back Profile
    Standard Thin
Fretboard Radius
    10" - 16" Compound
Number of Frets
    22
Scallops
    None
Binding
    None
Fret Size & Material
    SS6100 - Jumbo (Stainless)
Tuner Hole Size
    Gotoh/Grover (13/32" - 11/32")
Inlay Shape
    Standard Dots
Inlay Material
    Cream
Side Dots
    White Side Dots
String Nut
    R4 Floyd Prep w/ Mounting Holes
Mounting Holes
    Standard 4-Bolt
Neck Heel Shape
    Strat® Shape
Finish
    Clear Satin Nitro (Maple/Non-Maple)


Body:
Construction
    Solid
Core Wood
    Alder
Lam Top Wood
    No Lam Top
Right / Left Handed
    Right-Handed
Control Cavity
    Rear Rout
Neck Pickup Rout
    None
Middle Pickup Rout
    None
Bridge Pickup Rout
    Humbucker (Wood Mount)
Controls
    Volume 1
Jack Rout
    7/8" (22mm) Side Jack Hole
Bridge Rout Type
    Tremolo
Bridge Rout
    Floyd Rose (Angled Pocket)
Would you like Warmoth to install the bridge studs?
    No
Mounting Holes
    Standard 4-Bolt
Neck Pocket Shape
    Strat®
Body Contours
    Forearm Contour, Tummy Cut
Battery Box
    None
Paint Category
    Solid
Top Color
    Alpine White
Back Color
    Alpine White
Satin or Gloss
    Gloss

Hardware:
Gotoh tuners
Floyd rose 1984 reissue
Duncan JB with alnico 2 swap
500k CTS pot
D-tuna

Now, the setup. By default, the non recessed floyd comes with an angled neck pocket. The angle they use is 1deg. With these parameters, your bridge will float ~4mm above the body. No good. In order to prevent this issue you could specially order your body with a non angled neck pocket, but a) I did not know that was possible at the time of order, and b) you will absolutely have to shim the neck for this, (albeit the angle is very small at roughly 0.20-0.35deg. Since I already had the 1deg angle, I decided to reduce the angle. There is a number of ways you can do this; router, hand plan, sand paper, dremel, chisels. Whatever you are most confident with is best. I chose sandpaper and used a very wide chisel to act as a plane to nock down high spots at the end of the sanding process.

Procedure:
First you should have a rough idea of how much material you are actually going to remove. Simple trigonometry will help you make this estimate.
Neck pocket length (heel side to headstock side) = 76.2mm


Depending on your body wood, different grits of sandpaper may be better or worse. Harder woods will benefit from a grittier paper, simply because it wont take you as long this way. Since my body was swamp ash which is a harder wood, I used 80 grit paper and that worked very well. With this method it will take a serious amount of elbow grease to actually make any noticeable change in angle. In this regard this method is safest since it takes a lot of time to make even minute changes to neck angle.

Use a good straight edge and check for high and low spots frequently. Use pencil graphite to lightly shade all high spots and then lower them with the sand paper,again this will take time and you should ideally check the neck to body fit quite frequently. When checking the neck angle you must check under full tension with the neck bolted on properly. Since the neck screws will actually compress the wood a very small amount (<0.6mm) full tension is important.  After all was said and done I estimate my neck angle to be in the neighborhood of 0.23-0.33deg which is what I expected based on my trigonometry. I have included a picture where I derive this numbers. (please note that the measurements are only rough, since these numbers are so small, getting a perfect measurement is not realistic.)

If you are a really talented builder, a flat neck pocket with a microtilt adjustment would actually be the perfect way to build a guitar like this.

Better pictures will come when I can borrow a camera
 

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Update:

So I lowered the floyd be barely a millimeter to get it perfectly flat with the body. The intonations screws were slightly touching the body at this point and the leading edge of the Floyd was interfering with the motion of the bridge. My fix was to grind the intonation screws flush with a dremel, and use the belt sander to bevel the edge of the Floyd just slightly. The action is now buzz free at 1.8mm running 9-40 balanced tension strings and tuned to Eb standard. I’m considering upgrading to the red bishop magik arm and a 42mm block for the Floyd.
 
Looks great!

I have 3 of these non recessed routes and I used the Schaller trem on them. I can deck them with none of the issues you have had with your floyd.

Might be worth a shot for you or anyone else wanting to try this and ending up here via google.
 
supertruper1988 said:
Looks great!

I have 3 of these non recessed routes and I used the Schaller trem on them. I can deck them with none of the issues you have had with your floyd.

Might be worth a shot for you or anyone else wanting to try this and ending up here via google.
Thanks!

Does the bridge sit on an angle when you deck it down?
 
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