Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge upgrade for my 2014 Fender USA Strat.
Hey Everyone,
About a few fortnights ago, I ordered a brand-new Super Vee Bladerunner Trem bridge from SuperVee.com as an upgrade for my 2014 Fender USA Strat's stock bridge, the knife edges on the stock bridge were getting a bit worn and was causing some tuning stability issues, so I decided to do the upgrade in order to fix the tuning stability issues, the wearing on the knife edges was causing the bridge not to come back to it's neutral position, anyway, while I was in the process of ordering the new SuperVee Bladerunner Bridge, I opted to order Super Vee's so-called Trifecta package, which includes the following:
* The Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge.
* The Mag Lock anti-deflection device.
* A small container of Super Vee Superglide nut-slot lubrication paste.
I also chose to get a Super Vee T-Shirt with my order of the Super Vee Trifecta package, note that I haven't yet installed the Mag Lock anti-deflection device on my Fender USA Strat, still debating in my head whether to do so or not, I might at a later stage, we'll see.
I'll post some pics of all the items included in my order and I'll do a write-up of the Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge installation process for those who are interested, or may want to consider ordering a SuperVee Bladerunner for one of their builds.
Okay, here's a pic of the new Bladerunner Bridge installed on my Fender USA Strat, I ordered an extra longer trem arm with a plastic tip on it, which you can see:
Here's a pic of the Mag Lock and Super Glide, note the trem arm that comes stock with the Bladerunner Bridge is next to them:
And finally here are front and back pics of the Super Vee T-Shirt that came with the stuff I ordered:
Front:
Back:
Last edited by DrNomis_44; 17-10-2018 at 12:22 PM.
The installation of the new Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge was actually pretty easy, no more difficult than to install/un-install the original stock bridge, since the new Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge is virtually a drop-in fit, practically no modifications whatsoever were needed to be made to the guitar, all I had to do was remove the back cover for the trem springs, remove the stock springs, remove the stock bridge and the two pivot posts, then insert two brass adaptors in the threaded pivot post sockets, the two brass adaptors allow the bridge to be fixed to the guitar body via two screws, then it was just a case of installing the three new springs supplied with the Bladerunner Bridge kit, there's also a new spring-claw supplied in the kit but I chose to use the stock one as it was still perfectly good.
So, what's different about the Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge compared to the original stock one, well there's a couple of things different, firstly the bridge attaches directly to the guitar body via two screws, secondly the bridge pivots via a thin piece of spring-steel rather than two knife edges, the advantage with that is that the spring steel completely eliminates any tuning issues due to friction caused by worn knife edges, and since spring steel is immune from wearing out, the whole system should stay working properly for a very long time, and should always come back to it's neutral position.
I did notice that the new Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge felt a bit more spongier than the stock bridge, you don't need to move the trem arm on the Bladerunner Bridge to get a lot out of it, it also came from the factory with the intonation settings roughed-in, it only needed some minor tweaks to get everything dialled-in.
Incidentally, SuperVee.com also sell a version of the Bladerunner Bridge that mounts on a guitar body via four wood screws, these are a drop-in fit for the stock bridges found on made in Mexico Fender Strats that use vintage style bridges with six wood screws, you may need to order an extra shorter sustain block while you're at it.
Personally, I'm happy with the new Super Vee Bladerunner Bridge I ordered, it has made my Fender USA Strat a much nicer guitar to play, and, if my ears aren't deceiving me, it has improved the tone a bit too.
Last edited by DrNomis_44; 17-10-2018 at 12:47 PM.
And next, we will have a look at the Super Vee Mag Lock device....
Okay, so what on earth is it, and what is it for?....the Super Vee Mag Lock is an anti-deflection device that stops the bridge from moving forward under string-tension when you play double-stops, sort of like a device called a Tremsetter, but the Mag Lock is SuperVee's take on the basic idea, it uses a couple of strong rare-earth magnets and a felt pad to stabilize the bridge when doing string-bends or double-stops.
And finally there's the Super Vee Superglide nut-slot lubricant, have you ever noticed how sometimes when you're tuning the strings on your guitar, there's a slight "Tink" sound, or that the string seems difficult to tune up to pitch?, well 99% of the time I've found that's caused by the string binding in the nut-slot due to friction, the Super Vee Superglide lubricant is designed to reduce the friction due to binding, all you need to do is put some in each of the nut slots, it pretty much does what graphite from a pencil does.
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