trem question

Guess I'm not sure my suggest is valid but if you aren't planning on using the trem that much you might be able to add more or stiffer springs to tighten it up.

i heard that something called blocking can be done? but was told that it was only meant for floyds? i dont even know what or how to do this

From what little I know about guitars so far, on most NON FR trems there should be a plate/panel on the back of the guitar hiding the spring chamber. Open that up and see if there are springs in there. If so, that's a place to begin.

As far as blocking, I don't know how that's done either but I bet if we wait long enough someone will come around and explain it. :wink:

I have a floyd rose on my Jackson and all I can say is that you could block it, but it would be like buying an all wheel drive car and then taking off the rear differential. If you want a guitar that would be stable for alt. tunings, then get a hardtail. But if you really like the look then make sure whatever you do isn't permanent cause floating trems are awesome for making the craziest sounds from divebombs to high pitched screaming.

Blocking is a general term that applies to most trems -- not just FR, and it will solve your problem. But each trem design is somewhat different. So unless someone here is very familiar with the model you have, we will need good pictures of the top of the bridge, back of the bridge (from tail strap button direction) and the inside of the trem cavity (cover removed) in order to recommend where the blocks should be inserted to best immobilize the bridge. Often, these will be placed under the rear of the bridge plate, between the plate and the body, and also in between the inertia block and the body (behind the rear access cover plate). I'll say this because it may or may not be obvious to some: The trem will no longer work after blocking.

You could also do what I would call a "half-block": Set up the trem with very heavy spring tension and a single spacing block against which these springs will pull the bridge inertia block or bridge plate -- usually on the guitar body, right under the rear of the bridge plate. In this position, the block is sized just right to keep the bridge plate level. Because the springs are under much greater tension than the strings, a step or so in tuning (especially down) will not cause the bridge to budge off of the block. But ... magic of magic, you will still be able to dive bomb your trem, as it will bend downward in pitch only ... if. of course, the block is glued in place so it won't fall out when you dive.

I blocked the trem in my strat copy a few months ago...

It basicallly involves fitting a small block of wood between the bridge hardware and the guitar body to stop any movement of the bridge.

It has a standard (AFAIK) 6 screw tremolo bridge. This is different from a Floyd Rose type in that the whammy only moves in 1 direction (ie. will only bend notes down it pitch, not up aswell)

I needed to clean up the cavity a wee bit to get a solid, flat contact surface for the wood. Although the routing for the cavity was fairly clean, the paint was pretty sloppy. 5 minutes with a chisel fixed this small problem.

The small hump on the treble side is where the whammy screws into the bridge. I wasn't very keen to spend all day crafting a block of wood to fit this strange shape, so i decided to make the block smaller than the entire length of the bridge to avoid the extra work. It's only a cheap guitar and i'm lazy :)

I found a piece of maple in my shed and cut it roughly to size with a saw...
Next, the tedious part.... Shaping the block to fit as perfectly as possible into this cavity. The more snug the fit, the more effective this mod is.

It's a good idea to detune all of the strings so the bridge sits as flat as possible to the top of the guitar body. Do this before you start shaping your block. If the bridge sits nice and tight to the top of your guitar, you will only need to use 1 block to stop movement in the other direction.

Now it's just attention to detail, making sure the block is the exact shape you want it with as much surface contact as possible on the bridge and the guitar body (i used a combination of chisels, a wood plane and sandpaper for this) ..

When finished and installed, the block should be quite tight with no string tension, and practically immovable with string tension applied.... so there is no need for any glue or screws.

I can screw in the whammy bar now and not hear any change in tune when i try to wiggle it, so i'm very happy with the results i got..
But you need patience and attention to detail to shape the block accurately ( i lost count of the number of times i put the block in and out of the cavity, making minute adjustments.)

But as gnease said, your bridge will probably be different to this one, but the principle is the same.
And you lose functionality of the trem which i never used anyway (better than a guitar constantly going out of tune IMHO)

Hope this helps..

Josh

jminor, thats basically what it looks like from the back. if i put a peice of wood there it seems easy enough, i would love to have a hardtail, but first its really hard to find one for ibanez, second i really wanted the sa, but i think i will give that a try and if not i got return it in 15 days......i know you can do amazing things with the floyd rose with bombs and such, i do that stuff on my wolfgang, but id rather have better tuning, anyhow thanks for the advice j minor

jminor, thats basically what it looks like from the back. if i put a peice of wood there it seems easy enough, i would love to have a hardtail, but first its really hard to find one for ibanez, second i really wanted the sa, but i think i will give that a try and if not i got return it in 15 days......i know you can do amazing things with the floyd rose with bombs and such, i do that stuff on my wolfgang, but id rather have better tuning, anyhow thanks for the advice j minor

Not sure you understood the second half of my post. But you can have dive bombs and stable tuning if you block only under the back of the bridge plate and increase the spring tension with more springs and/or tighter claw adjustment.

im not gonna use the ibanez for bombs and such, its of no use to me besides i wouldnt do that on a trem, the guy at the store brought it down so its pretty much at the base as i speak, um i still think that blocking it might help the tone?

Whatever you need is what you should do.

Blocking for tone is somewhat overrated. You might get a little more sustain, but that's only one part of the overall timbre of the instrument. Many other aspects of the guitar design go into the tonal mix.