Some more stuff from Stewmac just got delivered.

Some trem setup vids on intervals or Carl Verheyan method of trem setup for floating.
https://youtu.be/Iy-F7iSIopA
https://youtu.be/p2jBWd4dVvM

https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/...itar-properly-
Fender setup guide

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vh2580

Doc can you do a little experiment. When in tune play and use the trem, when it goes sharp with trem at normal return position, lift the string slightly at the saddle and drop. See if it’s still sharp or back in tune. The string moves on both the nut and the trem saddles, sometimes the saddles “grab” along the string due to being a bit rough on the surface and when returning from depressed can pull the string sharp.

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I'll give that a try when I get the guitar strung-up again, it doesn't have any strings or a nut on it at the moment, but when it did have strings on it, I noticed that some of them would come back sharp after depressing the trem arm, I found that gently pulling the strings away from the fretboard would make the strings go flat, also, when tuning the strings up to pitch I found that they wouldn't hold pitch and some would go sharp, the bridge on my Fender USA Strat is a Super Vee Bladerunner which I installed as a replacement for the stock bridge which had slightly worn knife edge pivot points on it (it's the newer two post system), I can't use the stock bridge anymore cause the threaded part of the trem arm broke off in it's threaded socket.

I don't think it's the tuners that's causing the tuning instability cause they're virtually brand new, I bought them off The Stratosphere, and they don't seem to have any backlash, so I'm very strongly suspecting the nut that's at fault.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vh2580

Doc can you do a little experiment. When in tune play and use the trem, when it goes sharp with trem at normal return position, lift the string slightly at the saddle and drop. See if it’s still sharp or back in tune. The string moves on both the nut and the trem saddles, sometimes the saddles “grab” along the string due to being a bit rough on the surface and when returning from depressed can pull the string sharp.

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I just gave that little experiment a go and I noticed that when I gently pull-up on the string just in front of the saddle, it goes from being sharp to being pretty much in tune, so, I used a blue marker pen to mark the saddles of the worst-offending strings and then I removed all the strings from the guitar, next I examined all the saddles with the blue marks on them, and I noticed that it looked like the strings had been binding against them, I can clearly see some wear-marks inside the saddle of the low E-string which was the biggest offender, so going by that, it looks like the reason why some of the strings are coming back sharp is because they are binding in the Saddles, I'm guessing that if I get busy with my round needle-file, that might alleviate the binding, going to give it a try in the morning.


I'm also going to try using a drill bit to put a chamfer on each of the holes in the bridge plate that the strings pass through on their way to each of the saddles, I'm hoping that doing that will get rid of any sharp edges that may be causing the string to bind there too.


Just figured out a better possible solution, seeing as the saddles on the original bridge that came stock on the guitar are still in good condition, I'm going to try installing them on the SuperVee Bladerunner Bridge that's currently installed on my Fender USA Strat, and I'll see if that fixes the string binding in the saddles.

The good news is that the saddles from the stock bridge were a virtual drop-in replacement for the saddles on the Super Vee Bladerunner bridge, so rather than get busy with my round needle file, I'm just going to swap-out the saddles and see if that fixes the string binding.