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After examining the body, the first thing I did was to unpack
the tremolo unit and examine it to make sure I had all the parts.
Mine was a standard Fender 62 replacement tremolo and it was
complete. It's likely everyone knows what comprises the tremolo
unit so Ill be brief.
- Tremolo block and top plate.
- 6 saddles and screws etc
- 1 spring claw and two screws for the rear tremolo
routing
- A tremolo arm
- 6 screws for the top plate
Everything was there, but at first I did not have a clue of how
I was going to fit the tremolo and get the screw holes in the
right position. I considered many ways of aligning the tremolo
with the neck, see below how I did this correctly.
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Notice that from the front of the body, that
the tremolo hole was missing. That was the case with this
picture which was originally from the warmoth site where I
bought the body. The body around the neck pocket is very
well defined and this could clearly not change - it's a
feature of the design, but more of that lower down. |
| As you can see from the back of
the body, the tremolo route was actually there, but was
covered with the maple for the fabulous top that this guitar
has. Because the body is in fact hollow, it's reasonably
easy to see how the original body construction occured.
Firstly they took the swamp ash for the main body of the
guitar.
Then they routed the body from the front with all of the
cavities to make the thing light as well as the necessary
holes for the pickups and the tremolo unit.
Lastly, they placed on the top a maple cap and finished
that to the body beneath - that's why the route for the
tremolo is covered with maple - simple really.
I had warmoth route the top for a 62 tremolo unit and hey
presto - but they DID NOT DRILL the holes for the tremolo
pivot screws... |
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Here's the tremolo fitted on the front and
here's how I did it. I placed the pick guard on the body and
aligned the neck pocket up with the pick guard. This gave me a
good position to place the tremolo in position. I then aligned
the tremolo with the tremolo end of the accurately placed pick
guard and marked the 6 holes for mounting screws. Although
this sounds really bad and could not work, in fact the tremolo
fitted perfectly as you can see in the picture to the left. |
| This is the little drill I used
to drill out (to make pilot holes) the 6 mounting screw holes.
I used a small amount of tape to check the depth correctly.
The result was a tremolo that fitted perfectly and was
completely lined up with the body of the guitar. |
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As you can see from the picture
on the left I fitted the tremolo block and plate with it's
mounting screws from the top of the body, taking care not to
over tighten them because this body is hollow. I then fitted
the claw and two screws for the springs around the back
tremolo cavity.
Note that on my strat I used the springs as shown here on
the left. Many guitarists say that the placement of these
springs has a direct effect on the sound.
In my case I wanted a floating tremolo and this was the
setup I preferred. |
In fact, the positioning of the tremolo was substantially
easier than I first anticipated. I could have had the mounting
holes drilled by warmoth to avoid any question of placement
problems with the tremolo block but I just didn't.
A tricky job, but again this is part of my input to my guitar
and I was actually very pleased that these holes were not there,
and that I achieved such a professional result so easily.
I am sure that many of you experts will have wondrous ways to
correct my errors here - but hey, don't knock it - it works well
(as they say in baby face)....
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