New Floyd Rose Trem for my Hot Rod Strat.

[DrNomis_44]

What's the nut to 12th fret distance? I'd never trust a flexible tape measure for accurate readings as the metal end is always out by a bit. If you haven't got a long metal rule, then try measuring again but start from say the 10" mark (so you are looking at 34.75" in total) as I find it's a lot easier to just add 10 to all the dimensions rather than any other integer.

But measure to the 12th fret. Gibson have changed their scale length and although it's been close to 24.75", a lot of the time it's been slightly different. Paul Reed Smith said that he took a ruler and measured a lot of old and new LPs and said it's 24 9/16", rather than 4 12/16" (which would bring the saddles further forward). Don't assume it is 24.75".

I tried measuring from the nut end of the fretboard to the 12th fret, and it measures 12 Inches and 9/32 inch, or going by metric (I used my steel ruler that measures in Inches and mm), 312mm.


Hmmmm.... I just tried checking the distance from the 12th fret to the bridge with a pencil mark on the steel ruler at 312mm and I think you're right, it looks like my tape measure was telling me porkie pies (lies).


I re-adjusted each string saddle so that it was roughly where the 312mm pencil mark on my steel ruler ended up when measuring from the middle of the 12th fret and here's a pic of the result:




Looks like I was wrong because my tape measure was lying to me....*note to self, do not rely on your tape measure being accurate, use your steel ruler in future*.


So going by that, it looks like there is nothing wrong with the positioning of the Nashville TOM bridge on my Gibson USA LP Studio guitar, well that's good to know, that's one less thing for me to worry about and I think that teaches me a valuable lesson, never assume that your tape measure is telling you the truth.

Looks like my tape measure is out by about 1/4 of an inch, or maybe at least 6.5mm or so.

[DrNomis_44]

I decided to try re-checking the Hot Rod Strat with the Gotoh Floyd loosely placed in the body rout with the new bridge posts in place, this time using my steel ruler, it looks like there's going to be about 2mm clearance for the string-locking saddle screws to adjust back, I never should have trusted my tape measure....*rolls eyes*.

Okay so there's really only one issue with the Gotoh Floyd Rose bridge, the 40mm brass sustain block is a bit too long, the body really needs to be about 10mm thicker to accommodate it to allow enough string-height adjustment for a low enough action without the sustain block hitting the plastic trem-spring cavity cover when doing pull-ups on the whammy bar, dive-bombs are okay though, I wonder if Realtone Music stock shorter sustain blocks for Gotoh Floyds, I'll have to go and see if they do.

There's another issue which has to do with the threaded mounting-screw holes in the new locking nut, they don't line up with the holes I drilled in the nut-shelf at the headstock end of the neck, I might need to buy a new neck for the Hot Rod Strat to sort it out.