Custom HotRod Strat Build.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Good, all moving forward. I hope you've got the strings already sorted. ;)

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Yep, the strings are going to be my usual Elixirs in 42-09 gauge, I could go up to 46-10's but there's no more adjustment for intonation left for the low E-String, the neck is a 25.5 Inch Scale Length anyway, so I think a set of 42-09 gauge strings are probably the most appropriate, I've already had the HotRod Strat strung-up and tuned up to pitch, and, while it was sounding pretty good, I felt that a few things needed improving, hence the reason for ordering the new parts from Realtone Music, the Chrome Schaller Locking Nut I was using was making the high B and E strings buzz like a sitar, I determined that the nut was the cause by fretting just behind the first fret, when I did that the sitar buzzing stopped, hopefully the new Gotoh FGR-1 Locking Nut will prove to be much better, one of the DR Parts tuning machines wasn't working smoothly, due to what I suspect is wear, the others weren't so bad, so I'm replacing the lot, hopefully the new pickups should be hum-free and sounding good.

Update:

I think I may have sorted-out the intonation issue with the low E-String Saddle, earlier this year, I had to buy a replacement bridge for my white Ibanez RG350DXZ guitar, so I did a search on eBay, and found a suitable replacement which was virtually brand-new, it included a couple of new Bridge Pivot-Posts, which I used to replace the original ones, the originals still looked fine with minimal wear on them, but I decided to replace them as a matter of course, anyway, while thinking of a possible to the HotRod Strat's low E-String intonation issue, I had the idea of using the RG350DXZ's original Pivot Posts to replace the ones that came with the Chrome Schaller Lockmeister Bridge, I though that since the RG350DXZ's original Pivot Posts had a shallower notch cut in them, that would move the bridge away from the 12th fret on the neck, increasing the distance from the 12th Fret to the bridge, the RG350DXZ's original Pivot Posts were slightly oversized compared to the holes drilled in the body, so, I used some Lip-Eze to lubricate them, and used a small claw-hammer to tap them into the holes, it seemed to do the trick, and just as I had thought, the Bridge did get moved away from the 12th Fret, hopefully that will give plenty of room to adjust the low E-String Saddle to get the intonation correct, before it kept reading slightly sharp and I couldn't move it back any further since I had run out of adjustment range, I will have to wait till the guitar has been re-strung since the high E-String broke last night, and the strings I had on the guitar were the last set I had, don't you hate it when a string breaks, and you have no more sets of fresh strings left?, it's even worse on a guitar that has a double-locking Floyd Rose trem installed, because as soon as one string breaks, the others go horribly out of tune (they all go sharp due to the tension on the springs in the back of the guitar), when you are setting up a Double-Locking trem system so that the Bridge floats parallel to the body, you are basically trying to balance the tension on the strings with the tension on the springs, that way, the Bridge floats in it's neutral position, when a string-breakage occurs, the tension on the strings decreases and the balance is upset, I can see why lots of guitarists hate the Double-Locking Floyd Rose style trem-system, it is a Royal Pain in the you-know-what to set up so that it functions properly, but with patience they can be set up, unfortunately, some versions only work about 80%, from what I have read online, it is rare for a Double-Locking trem to come back perfectly in tune from being used 95% of the time, 100% is exceptionally rare, I was pretty lucky, while setting up the trem on my Hot Rod Strat, I noticed that the strings did go out of tune, not by much though, according to the App Tuner App I was using, some strings went slightly flat, some went slightly sharp, some did come back perfectly in tune.

Hopefully, moving the Bridge back a bit from the 12th fret will get the tuning-stability better as well as improving the intonation, I was able to get the intonation on all the strings close to spot-on before though.

I just hope this thread will be useful to those who are building Jem-style kits (they use Double-Locking Trems).

Doc, don't take this as a criticism or a put down. It is only intended to be good natured humour.

I am buying you some full stops for Christmas. And possibly some decaf.

It also just so happens that I am building an SV-1 as well as attempting to graft a Gotoh Double Locking trem into the FrankenWashie. I thinks I need to do some careful re-measuring of the scale lengths on both, relative to Pivot position.

Thanks for the cautionary parable!

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

Doc, don't take this as a criticism or a put down. It is only intended to be good natured humour.

I am buying you some full stops for Christmas. And possibly some decaf.

It also just so happens that I am building an SV-1 as well as attempting to graft a Gotoh Double Locking trem into the FrankenWashie. I thinks I need to do some careful re-measuring of the scale lengths on both, relative to Pivot position.

Thanks for the cautionary parable!

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No worries at all mate, and cheers for that, yes, I must stop drinking that strong, imported coffee that I keep insisting on buying myself, I need to wean myself off caffeine, it's probably making me a bit ADHD, not to mention overly OCD, one day I'll learn to chill-out...lol.

If you ever have any trouble setting up your completed SV-1 build, feel free to pm me mate, I know a couple of things that will make the setup a lot easier to do, hope it all goes well.


There is some good news though, I just received an e-mail from Realtone Music saying that they have just sent my order in the post, hopefully I should be receiving it in the post this coming Friday.

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

Doc, don't take this as a criticism or a put down. It is only intended to be good natured humour.

I am buying you some full stops for Christmas. And possibly some decaf.

It also just so happens that I am building an SV-1 as well as attempting to graft a Gotoh Double Locking trem into the FrankenWashie. I thinks I need to do some careful re-measuring of the scale lengths on both, relative to Pivot position.

Thanks for the cautionary parable!

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Hahaha!!! Nice one Frank! Perhaps Doc could find a job in the legal profession, they have an aversion to full stops also with all their legalese!!
Doc, this is all in good fun! I mean no offence!

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Originally Posted by Zandit75

Hahaha!!! Nice one Frank! Perhaps Doc could find a job in the legal profession, they have an aversion to full stops also with all their legalese!!
Doc, this is all in good fun! I mean no offence!

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No offense taken at all mate, it's all good, it just gives me a good excuse to exercise my sense of humor, which I admit, can be a bit shocking, but I still get a charge out of it.........okay, I'll stop now....hahaha.

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Originally Posted by DrNomis_44

No offense taken at all mate, it's all good, it just gives me a good excuse to exercise my sense of humor, which I admit, can be a bit shocking, but I still get a charge out of it.........okay, I'll stop now....hahaha.

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Oh that's electrifying Doc, glad to see we haven't brought you down to earth. I've tried not to make electrical bad puns but resistance is futile.
Restraint is beyond my capacitor at this junction (box). I shall have to transformer my way of thinking else I shall be discharged from this forum! OHM-ygod these are bad!

Luckily here in the UK I'm normally insulated from this type of thing and generally manage to stay positive, though I can be induced to make the odd negative comment.

FR type trems really depend on very sharp knife-edges to minimise friction and come back in tune. Real FRs and very high quality derivatives use a really hard steel, and these stay sharp for ages. Most licensed FR copies use a mild steel which wears down quite quickly. Once the edges get flattened, that's when they start to not come back in tune. Likewise when the bridge support posts get notched, the friction goes up and tuning stability goes.

So it's never a good idea to rotate the bridge posts to adjust the height of the trem when there is any tension on the strings. It's a PITA to keep slackening off the string tension adjusting the height, and then tighten the strings again, but you only normally need to do it on the initial set up. But it does stop the knife-edges scoring the posts.

You can get replacement knife-edges for a lot of trems, especially proper FR and Ibanez trems, which along with some new posts is a worthwhile investment from time to time.

It's also worth looking at the other end of the neck as well. There's often a string retaining bar fitted behind the locking nut. This is often set too high, and it should be screwed down so that with the string clamps loose, the stings are pulled flat across the horizontal face of the locking nut. This helps guarantee that when the clamps are tightened, the strings are held as tightly as they can be and there is no upward force trying to pull the clamp off the string.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Luckily here in the UK I'm normally insulated from this type of thing and generally manage to stay positive, though I can be induced to make the odd negative comment.

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That's Gold Simon! Some handy detail on the FR too. I did not know these things, and having it explained like that it all suddenly makes perfect sense. Thanks for that!

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Luckily here in the UK I'm normally insulated from this type of thing and generally manage to stay positive, though I can be induced to make the odd negative comment.

FR type trems really depend on very sharp knife-edges to minimise friction and come back in tune. Real FRs and very high quality derivatives use a really hard steel, and these stay sharp for ages. Most licensed FR copies use a mild steel which wears down quite quickly. Once the edges get flattened, that's when they start to not come back in tune. Likewise when the bridge support posts get notched, the friction goes up and tuning stability goes.

So it's never a good idea to rotate the bridge posts to adjust the height of the trem when there is any tension on the strings. It's a PITA to keep slackening off the string tension adjusting the height, and then tighten the strings again, but you only normally need to do it on the initial set up. But it does stop the knife-edges scoring the posts.

You can get replacement knife-edges for a lot of trems, especially proper FR and Ibanez trems, which along with some new posts is a worthwhile investment from time to time.

It's also worth looking at the other end of the neck as well. There's often a string retaining bar fitted behind the locking nut. This is often set too high, and it should be screwed down so that with the string clamps loose, the stings are pulled flat across the horizontal face of the locking nut. This helps guarantee that when the clamps are tightened, the strings are held as tightly as they can be and there is no upward force trying to pull the clamp off the string.

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Cheers mate, I used to own an Ibanez S420WK (Weathered Black) Superstrat Guitar, it featured Ibanez's then-new ZR Trem system ( basically a re-designed Double-Locking Floyd system) which used a ball-bearing system instead of knife-edges for the bridge pivots, Ibanez said that the new system included features designed to improve tuning-stability, well try as I might, I could never get the S420WK's trem to reliably come back perfectly in tune, if I did a dive bomb, the strings would come back flat, if I did a pull-up the strings came back sharp, I tried disabling the ZR system and the result was only marginally better, this was with a ball-bearing pivot system that should have eliminated any of the issues with knife-edge pivot systems.


@ FrankenWashie If you want, I could do a mini-tutorial of sorts, documenting exactly how I went about setting-up the trem system on my HotRod Strat, there's a couple of tools that will make the job of setting it up a lot easier, one is a special tool you can buy from Stewmac, called "The Key", it makes setting the individual string intonation so much easier, the other tool, which you can easily make, is a specially-shaped piece of wood which blocks-off the bridge so that it rigidly sits parallel to the guitar body, once the piece of wood is in place, you simply tighten the tension on the Trem springs, when I go to put some new strings on my Hot Rod Strat after installing the new pickups, etc, I will take some pics as I do the setup on my Hot Rod Strat, and I'll explain exactly what I do, step by step, hopefully that will be useful for other forum members who are building guitar kits that feature a double-locking trem.