New hardware being ordered for my two Fender guitars.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

The two Fender LSR roller-bearing nuts I ordered from Warmoth Guitars arrived in the post yesterday, will post some pics later on.


Here we go, pics of the new Fender LSR roller bearing nuts I ordered from Warmoth Guitars:

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Woohoo!!!......check out what turned-up in the post this after noon, a new genuine Fender USA Jeff Beck Stratocaster bridge for my Fender USA Stratocaster, it uses the same two-post pivot system so it should be a virtual drop-in fit, I'm just in the process of installing it now.




And here's a pic of the new Jeff Beck Stratocaster installed on my Fender USA Stratocaster.

[Sonic Mountain]

Are the guitars already roller equipped or do you need to modify the fret board for that roller nut?

[DrNomis_44]

Are the guitars already roller equipped or do you need to modify the fret board for that roller nut?

No, the Fender USA Strat originally came with a plastic nut on it, I need to widen the nut-slot in order to fit the new Fender LSR nut to the neck, in order to do that, I need to cut-away some wood from the front of the nut-slot that's facing the first-fret, the reason for this is because the center of the ball-bearings is supposed to line-up with where the front of the nut-slot is to ensure accurate intonation, the center lines of the ball-bearings then becomes the zero-point for the scale-length of the neck, same for the Fender Mexican Telecaster.


This diagram shows where the wood needs to be removed from to enable the LSR nut to fit on the neck:

[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah cool, that’s what I was thinking re the centre line of the rollers. Might be fun to use one of these on a build at some point.

[DrNomis_44]

Yeah cool, that’s what I was thinking re the centre line of the rollers. Might be fun to use one of these on a build at some point.

You can order them online from Warmoth Guitars, just remember that those Fender LSR roller nuts are designed to fit necks with a 9.5 inch radius.

https://www.warmoth.com/

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Ok, so the two sets of Hipshot griplock tuners arrived in the post this afternoon, and I wasted no time in installing them on my two Fender guitars, yesterday I went ahead and installed one of the two new Fender LSR nuts on my Mexican Telecaster, up to this point in time, all the mods to the Mexican Telecaster have been done and I am very pleased with the results I'm getting, I'll post some pics soon so stay tuned......


Here we go, some pics of my modded Fender Mexican Telecaster:








As far as I can tell with my ears, the Fender LSR nut I installed does not seem to be imposing any negative impact on the tone of the guitar, all strings ring cleanly with no sitar-buzzing at all, in fact, I think the new LSR nut has actually improved the tone of the guitar when the open-strings are plucked, tuning seems pretty stable too, those Hipshot Griplock locking-tuners are very smooth, and seem to hold the pitch of the strings well, the new chrome Babicz FCH bridge seems to be doing what it's supposed to do, the sustain on all the strings is good, over all, I'm very pleased with the results I got with the new hardware I installed, just need to finish modding my USA Strat and then all the work will be finished.


You've probably noticed that there is no string-tree for the high B and E strings on the headstock of my Mexican Telecaster, it's not needed, especially with the Hipshot Griplock locking-tuners, they are staggered-height types, the tuners for the high B and E strings have the shortest shafts, this helps create a better back-angle so that the strings ring cleanly, just behind each pair of hardened steel ball bearings in the LSR nut, there's a small piece of neoprene rubber which dampens-out any sympathetic string vibrations behind the LSR nut.


So, how difficult was it to install the LSR nut?, it actually wasn't very difficult at all, just a little time-consuming, but if you keep your patience, and stay focused, it is entirely do-able by hand, I would suggest getting the following tools first:


* A good Digital Vernier caliper, you can buy them from Jaycar electronics, cat. number TD 2082.

* A thin bladed saw, like for example a Dovetail joint saw.

* Some G-Clamps to hold the guitar neck on the workbench.

* And some blue low-tack painters masking tape.

I'll do a write-up later on explaining how I went-about installing a Fender LSR nut.

[DrNomis_44]

[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.