Alex's IB-7

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Probably making the angle about 88°, just slightly acute. Looking at the spring picture, I may have also tried to make the bend less rounded. I can remember putting the ends in a metal vice and hitting the wire with a hammer to get the bend sharper. That curve in the wire wants to pull the spring out of the block slightly. I may also have tried to put a kink in the wire where it left the top of the block so it then angled down at the same angle the main body of the spring made to the block. Slightly less leverage trying to pull the spring out.

The metal bar sits over the top of where the springs go in, to hold them in place. Like this:

Attachment 43466

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Hi Simon,
what is the barrel bolt for?

Not my photo but that looks like a home-made trem stopper. If you have a fully floating trem and a string breaks, you can slide the bolt forwards so that the trem block rests against it and the other strings stay in tune. You can also use it of you only want to do downbends but have your trem set off away from the body a bit (so upbends would be possible). You can buy more sophisticated versions but that one does look like a domestic furniture bolt! No easy positioning adjustment once it’s screwed in place apart from filing the end of the bolt.