hi everybody.
I broke the top off one of the tuners on my italia modena.
Does anyone know the model of this grover tuner? I am not that sharp and couldn't find it on the grover website. The pearloid peghead I think is interchangeable as it's screwed on, so I'm not too worried about just using the existing one. More just trying to find the right grover assembly to install.
Since I brought up the modena, has anyone here ever seen the WIgsby vibrato they had for a few years? Look at the angle of the bar to the face of the body and the marks it puts on the hardware behind when pushed down out of the way:
I emailed the US importer (this was in 2002 I think and they referred me to the manufacturer who I think was in korea and didn't translate well into english but he basically said "adjust the wheel behind":
I tried adjusting but it was already turned one way all the way and when I turned it in the opp direction with the butt end of an allen wrench it inly increased the bar's distance from the guitar's surface. When the guitar is strung with .11s, it does not change the angle much so it's not a string tension issue.
Here's a pic a guy sent me from a diff model italia with the same Wigsby but note that the arm must have been at a severe angle to leave marks below when pushed out of the way and has the same mars on the chrome behind the bar:
So is there a fix to this? Could I heat up the bar and bend it somehow? My instinct is to either put a real bigsby on it or make it a hardtail. It's a pretty cool guitar on looks alone but also gives you about 7 different sounds with the unusual pickup selector. The minis are actually pretty good sounding. The plastic nut is a piece of crap but if I am going to put any money into it I'll put a graphtech in. Any suggestions on the tremolo issue?
Also is it cool to link images like that in this forum? I could insert the images but they're big and I did't want to bother with resizing. I have admitted before that I don't know much how this works!
Thanks folks and peace,
Jicky
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It looks as if there's a pin, from the string bar, into the underside of the vibrato. I would assume that this butts up to the spring, which connects to the adjustment wheel, at the back. It's possible that the spring has been mounted wrongly, or that someone has replaced the original with one a bit stronger/longer. This would account for the lack of correction.
I think you need to take the top plate off (the thing with "Wigsby" written on it) and see what the actual spring mechanism looks like.
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
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Greybeard
So I finally took it apart and dang it was ugly. In order to remove the front two mounting screws I needed to loosen the allen screws on the bar tween the string bar and the roller guides. As soon as there was enough slack the roller guide bar sent roller guides and plastic washers all over the room. Luckily I think I found them all and have em in a ziploc. All I can find is that the two springs (factory installed) are way too tense and I need to find replacements that will work. Man this Wilkinson guy did not design this to be easily servicable! I think you are absolutely right that the springs are the culprit but it should be fixable. Now I hope I can find springs and get this crap put back together. Thanks for the input!
Peace and wish me luck,
Jicky
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Followup (basically for you greybeard)
it turns out that we were both wrong, in a sense. The springs were just way too short! I found some longer springs at Menards (Home Depot but with helpful employees for those that live in other parts). They are perfect in size but too "soft"--maybe someone who is in the spring industry could offer the proper parlance. The gauge of steel is much thinner, so I'm guessing that's the ticket.
For a new Grover, I got one for two bucks from the fine folks at Twin-Town guitars. I have to drill a new hole for the screw but I don't mind. Apparently it is hard to come by grovers that are six inline (like the modena) so they just move the hole to the middle so it doesn't matter when you are usin 3 on a side (this was from a Les Paul).
here are some lousy pics but in the last one you can see the complete difference in the bar's angle vs the body, with room to adjust on the wheel thingy.
One more thing, I think I called this a tremolo at least once which is incorrect. But why does the tremolo control on old amps say "vibrato" hehehe
peace and thanks,
Jick
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Even being "wrong", we found out what the problem was, so it was a good result. :D
It certainly looks a lot better than it did.
By the way, it's no problem having odd tuners - Rory Gallagher had one odd tuner on his Strat.
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in any dictionary?
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I found the exact springs needed: Century Springs model 185-B. They will place the bar actually a little closer to the body (I like) and have a perfect bigsby-like give. I just need to find someone who has them in stock or order them from Century, which is complicated because their sales system is set up to sell to dealers (and definitely not guitar dealers, the woman I talked to asked me what springs would have to do with a guitar :).
Peace and thanks,
Jick
Wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
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