Roasted flame maple Floyd string retainer bar question

ChrisMC

Junior Member
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I have ordered my first Warmoth build parts...a Soloist body with flame maple on swamp ash, and a roasted flame maple neck with ebony board. I’m stoked!

I’m doing a flush mount Floyd, and I feel pretty good about being prepared for the build once the neck and body arrives....EXCEPT for ONE thing -

I’m concerned about the amount of pressure created by the strings under the string retainer bar behind the nut. On a flat headstock, the break angle is pretty sharp from locking nut to retainer bar, and I’m concerned about this with roasted flame maple; should I be, or am I getting concerned over nothing?

I will say that I had a really difficult time finding any guitars out there from manufacturers that had a flat headstock, with roasted maple, and a locking nut (requiring a string retainer bar). Maybe they’re difficult to find because it’s not a good idea?? Or...am I getting overly concerned about nothing?

I’m just afraid that even though those string retainer bar screws are indeed pretty long....they’re also pretty small diameter, and with all that string pressure, I’m afraid they’ll eventually self-strip and/or pull out.

Does anybody have a build with a flat headstock with roasted maple and a Floyd? If so how is it going? Thanks.
 
I did notice after posting that Squier just recently came out with a new HH Contemporary Strat that has that criteria, so I’m probably concerned about absolutely nothing, but at the same time it makes me curious why more manufacturers don’t use that recipe, if there’s nothing to worry about. 🤷‍♂️🤔
 
It is just not a common recipe but not because of worry. You just need to make sure with your neck that any pilot holes are not too small and that you wax your screws.
 
That’s what I figure as well, but I’m still just looking for some reassurance from existing builds that it’s all going to be just fine.

I’ve been tinkering with and Frankenstein’ing guitars for over 30 years...made my own Strat body from a plank of ash in high school (and it actually functioned properly at the neck pocket and routes and such! 😲), I’ve just never so much as drilled a hole in roasted maple before, and all the warnings on the forums (not to mention from Warmoth themselves) has caused me to take pause at the particular part of the build, so I thought I’d try to look for some real world user experience.
 
It sounds like you should be fine, perhaps someone may chime in who has put a Floyd retainer on a roasted maple neck, though there does seem to be a number of manufacturers out there doing so.
 
In the meantime, a buddy of mine handed me a piece of scrap roasted maple after rough cutting the body for a project that he’s doing, so that gave me the opportunity to drill some test holes.

It’s amazing what a 1/64 difference in drill bit size will make. 1/16th...it’ll go in but it feels a little snug and a little too hard to screw it in, but 5/64.... that’s just perfect (for those particular screws, I mean). In any event, it was nice to have a test piece, and large enough to test for several holes I’ll need (ie machine head anchor screws, control cavity cover screws, strap button screws) rather than “testing” on the actual neck and body. Sweet!
 
If worst comes to worst you can always just put a hair scrunching up there aka Guthrie Govan

I've got a parts strat which I use to use the Velcro bit from an sm57 box on

No string retainer there
 
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