New hardware being ordered for my two Fender guitars.

[DrNomis_44]

So that's all the mods to my two fender guitars finally completed, and I'm very pleased with the results I'm getting, those new chrome 6-in-line Hipshot Griplock locking-tuners are some of the best locking-tuners I've ever tried so far, I've tried Sperzels, Fenders, Schallers, and Grovers, the Hipshots are by far the best of the bunch, the UMP (Universal Mounting Plate) that comes with the Hipshot Griplocks make installing them a real breeze....you do not need to drill any mounting-screw holes in the back of the headstock, tuning is very smooth, I think the gear-ratio is 18:1, the new Fender LSR roller ball-bearing nuts do seem to be helping to make keeping the guitars in tune much easier, there seems to be a very minimal amount of friction in the nut-slots due to the ball bearings being made out of hardened steel and providing a very small string-contact area, because I'm using locking-tuners, I no longer need to wrap the string round the tuner-shaft to secure it in place, only about half a turn is needed since the string is secured via a pin in the centre of the tuner-shaft, this gives two benefits, firstly it speeds-up re-stringing, secondly there's no extra windings to loosen and tighten making the strings go sharp or flat, that has been eliminated.

Since the Hipshot Griplock tuners are staggered-height types, the string back-angle for each string is a bit more consistent, helping the strings to ring cleanly.


I would say that it was definitely worth the money I spent on the new hardware.


The trem on my USA Strat seems to be very sensitive, you don't need to move the trem bar much to get a lot out of it, I can even get Jeff Beck flutter effects out of it too, the strings come back up to pitch when dive-bombing, something which was hard to achieve with the USA Strat's stock trem, often the low E-string would come back sharp.