Floyd Rose Recess

[Strat Avenger]

Does zilch to the sound, I've put padding in a couple Floyd guitars (going way back to my 2nd guitar). You might be able to detect it in a lab. If anyone thinks their ears are that good hit me up. I work out of AC would give ridiculous action on a wager to see it.

P.S. - Cut up a padded mousepad. The $4 variety at Staples (black) are perfect.

It acts as a sound deadener. much like the same concept of lining a car's floorboards with sound deadening matting. Whether or not the effect is significant is debatable, but there would be no other reason for the more expensive guitars to "not" use it. I had a couple of ESP LTDs that had the stuff, then I got a more expensive Standard ESP, and it did not have it. 'Same with Ibanez. The more expensive Japanese models did not have it, yet the cheaper Korean ones did. It's a known fact that thick paint/finish deadens a guitar's sustain. So why would foam rubber lining be any different?...

A Floyd that isn't floating is a sinful waste, so one would deserve whatever one got for trying to make any other setup work. Given that, some black padding in the clearance route isn't going to affect anything, since the energy transfer takes place through the mounting posts anyway.

As for finish thickness affecting tone, that's an urban legend with absolutely no basis in fact, at least as far as electric guitars go. Acoustics are a different story. Finish makes a lot of difference on those, which is probably where the myth started.

I disagree on two accounts.

1:  I disagree that a non-floating Floyd is a waste. In fact, none of them floated when it was first introduced. I think Steve Vai came up with the concept of routing out the body to do radical pull-ups. EVH has never used a floating Floyd, and he gets some pretty radical effects from his.

2: While I agree that finish type does not affect tone or sustain, it's a pretty well-known fact that a thick finish serves to dampen vibration.

As for the original topic, my Ibanez (cheaper Korean model) has the foam, and it sounds good, so I agree that it's probably not really an issue, however it was an observation on my part that the more expensive guitars omit that feature, and I assume there must be a reason for it. I bring this stuff up for the sake of discussion, and not to be argumentative...

 

[JimBeed]

Too lazy to put a bit of foam in compared to the koreans?  :dontknow:

 

[dmraco]

MArko...any word on the measurments?

 

[yellowv]

I also find that cheap guitars only have the pad in the pull up route. High end guitars usually do not. I tend to assume that on lower end guitars they usually don't take much care to paint the routes properly so they slap the pad in there.

 

[m4rk0]

DMRACO, you are the best, I owe you one!!!

 

[Mor Paul]

DMRACO, you are the best, I owe you one!!!

You may want to dye the sides of the route

 

[m4rk0]

the f hole?

 

[Mor Paul]

I meant the floyd route.

 

[dmraco]

glad to help. 

I agree with MAX...dye the sides by the floyd. 

Leave the f-hole natural.

Did you clear it yet?  Hard to tell from the photo.

 

[m4rk0]

yes it is cleared (tru oiled), and after I took the picture I added tru-oil to the sides of the rout to match the back of the guitar.
because just before I took the pic, I had to sand the inside of that piece of the rout.. and even chisel pieces off the part where the baseplate goes down the recess. for a change, this body was not a good fit for the hardware (japanese fr fender)  
I also had to sand quite a bit off the neck pocket... in other words.. I was sanding and chiseling all day long yesterday.. and I couldn't even finish it, since I stripped one of the pickup screws, and missed some other hardware... bollocks!

I also noticed that the bottom part of the FR recess is unusually long compared to my other FR guitars.. I wonder if I ordered the wrong rout..

 

[ORCRiST]

yes it is cleared (tru oiled), and after I took the picture I added tru-oil to the sides of the rout to match the back of the guitar.
because just before I took the pic, I had to sand the inside of that piece of the rout.. and even chisel pieces off the part where the baseplate goes down the recess. for a change, this body was not a good fit for the hardware (japanese fr fender)  
I also had to sand quite a bit off the neck pocket... in other words.. I was sanding and chiseling all day long yesterday.. and I couldn't even finish it, since I stripped one of the pickup screws, and missed some other hardware... bollocks!

I also noticed that the bottom part of the FR recess is unusually long compared to my other FR guitars.. I wonder if I ordered the wrong rout..

It looks like you have a Schaller (or similar 'licensed' version) Floyd Rose with the shorter string lock screws, not an 'OEM' FR with really
long string lock screws, which is what your body looks like its routed for.

Versus, the almost complete absence of string-lock screw length (with matching rout)
similar to what you have...which is why I love Schaller FR bridges.

HTH,

ORCRiST

 

[m4rk0]

It is a real Floyd Rose, but a FR II

 

[dmraco]

It is a real Floyd Rose, but a FR II

That may be it.  Here is what I found on the web...

he II units were used on some of the later model overseas Strikers, Focus, 100, and 1000 series Kramers While these trems are not necessarily "crap", they are not as good as the original since they are cast iron. They rust much easier, and the fulcrum points are metal inserts as opposed to being hardened and part of the actual trem metal itself. If you see a Kramer with one of these, it is NOT an American Series. Additionally, if you try to use one of these on a guitar that originally had an OFR on it, you'll have some bad action because the base plate is thicker than the OFR's. Also worth of noting, a Floyd Rose III exists that is actually a non-locking trem made in Asia that Kramer wanted as an affordable peice. It is slightly different to the Floyd II, with the III featuring a different base plate (does not appear to be cast).

 

[DangerousR6]

yes it is cleared (tru oiled), and after I took the picture I added tru-oil to the sides of the rout to match the back of the guitar.
because just before I took the pic, I had to sand the inside of that piece of the rout.. and even chisel pieces off the part where the baseplate goes down the recess. for a change, this body was not a good fit for the hardware (japanese fr fender)  
I also had to sand quite a bit off the neck pocket... in other words.. I was sanding and chiseling all day long yesterday.. and I couldn't even finish it, since I stripped one of the pickup screws, and missed some other hardware... bollocks!

I also noticed that the bottom part of the FR recess is unusually long compared to my other FR guitars.. I wonder if I ordered the wrong rout..

Remedy is to not get the recess, just go with the top mount, problem solved.... :icon_biggrin: