Cagey said:
These days, the thing to use is a Wilkinson, or one of the many others based on that design. Combined with locking tuners and a well-formed nut, it's as reliable and repeatable as Floyd at half the cost and a tenth of the aggravation. If you need the range of a Floyd, you can route the sustain block cavity a bit more. It's pointless, as the Wilkinson install spec allows you to dive the thing to the point where the strings will barely vibrate, but some guys are insatiable.
Thanks for the message. Ahhh, this build is an EVH Frankenstein so there is no option other than a Floyd. I don't mind being a little bit off course, like I'm not tearing up the pup cavity just so it's spot on to his, but a bridge change would be too much.
Now, this next part I'm going to go off my nut a little and rant. I just want to tell you now that my rant is not at you, just telling you my experience. I've known you around this forum for quite a while and I respect you so don't take the following rant personal because I'm just telling the story. :+)
I gotta speak up about the Wilkinson. On my first Warmoth build I got a Wilkinson bridge with the graphite nut and locking tuners. I took that course of action from Warmoth's homepage recommendation and from reading things on here. I could be wrong, but I believe the sentence was "A Wilkinson used in combination with a graphite or LSR nut and locking tuners, it stays in tune." That's probably not exactly spot on but it's close enough. Man, I could NOT keep that guitar in tune when I used the trem. Now, I know my way around a guitar fairly well when it comes to the set up/assembly of one, but I'm not so arrogant that I wouldn't ask for a second opinion, or third. I took that guitar to 3 different places with highly respected set up guys on staff and NO ONE could get that damn thing to stay in tune after pushing the trem arm down. We first thought that maybe the strings weren't sliding well enough in the slots so we tried Nut Oil, then another type of oil, then graphite dust from pencil lead, etc... NOTHING worked. Then we opened the slots a little to give the strings a little more room to move around, that didn't help. Then, I gave up on the graphite nut and went plastic, that didn't work, then I gave up on that and went with bone, that didn't work. I don't give things second or third tries, not when they cost that much. I will NEVER use a Wilkinson tremolo ever again, and I will never recommend one to anyone.
FWIW though, I don't really use the trem all that often so it's more for looks than anything else. If this wasn't an EVH build I'd be tempted to try that Babicz bridge.
MULLY
