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Post subject: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vintage
Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 5:54 pm
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I'm thinking of doing a project guitar, I'll probably use a body from either a HW1 or MIM. However I prefer to use an American Std or Amer Deluxe tremolo. My question is 2 part (I feel like I'm asking a question in a town hall presidential debate. Lol) 1 can it be done on one of those bodies because they are set up with 6 holes for a vintage style trem? 2 if I can, will it have any adverse results? I'm wontering if it would be prone to crack or break becaue the other holes may weaken the surface. I know a lot of people on this forum know what they're doing so any help would be appriciated.


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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:17 pm
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Hi Windwalker:

I have done six-hole to two point three times and the reverse twice. I can give you detailed advice on how to do it if you want, but the best advice of all is - don't. I'd modify the bridge you have with new saddles and perhaps a new block if you want - or a whole nice new bridge from Callaham; many people speak very highly of those. A better way to go.

There are several difficulties with changing from six screws to two pivot posts. Successfully filling and refinishing the unwanted holes is a major one. Very difficult to perfectly match any lacquer other than black, for instance.

Even if you don't mind about the finish quality the biggest problem is getting those pivot posts in exactly the right place. Get it slightly wrong and the guitar can become unplayable, and in the real world of timber you probably won't get a second shot at positioning those holes. Also, you need to get them precisely the right depth, or the post bushings won't sit level.

The first time I did this mod was on one of my own guitars, an old Squier body that I have rebuilt out of all recognition. I measured the position for the post holes carefully and repeatedly - and still got it a bit wrong. Below is a pic: as you can see I got the post holes over a millimetre too close to the neck, with the result that the saddles have to be well back on their travel for the guitar to intonate properly. Luckily, it is within the tolerances of that (Wilkinson VS-100) bridge; but it was a close thing.

Image

Having nearly got it wrong on my own instrument, when other people asked me to do the mod for them I learned from my error and got it absolutely spot on for them! Naturally, I don't have a photo handy of one of the jobs where I got it right!

If you really want to do it then I'll type out for you how to go about it. But again, I'd strongly suggest taking a different route (pun intended). I just don't think the gain is worth the effort and risk.

Cheers - C


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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:29 pm
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Thanks for the advice, I think I'll take it. I don't have any of the parts yet I was thinking about getting them piece by piece. I wanted to go with the two point becaiuse I personally find them to be a sturdier platform, and they have less friction at the 2 point as opposed to the six. Do you have any experience with aftermarket bodies like Warmoth? At this point I'm just kicking around ideas.


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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:37 pm
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Try removing ther center screws on the 6screw trem. I've never tried it myself but read of people who do that say it removes a lot of friction.


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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 6:43 pm
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nikininja wrote:
Try removing ther center screws on the 6screw trem. I've never tried it myself but read of people who do that say it removes a lot of friction.


Yep. Or don't even remove them, just raise them a turn or two. That was what Ritchie Fliegler always recommended.

Regarding bodies: I have never bought a Warmoth bod, but many people here have and recommend them strongly. In fact, I can't remember a bad post about their bodies or their necks. Certainly a much better way to go than modding an existing guitar.

BTW, Windwalker: last we heard on your stolen guitar, you were going round to inspect one to see if it was yours. I take it nothing came of that?

Cheers - C


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Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:55 pm
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I built 2 Warmoth guitars in the past. 1 for me and 1 for a friend and they are awesome pieces of wood. The 1 I built was for a Wilkinson Trem and everything was exact.

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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:59 pm
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windwalker9649 wrote:
I'm thinking of doing a project guitar, I'll probably use a body from either a HW1 or MIM. However I prefer to use an American Std or Amer Deluxe tremolo. My question is 2 part (I feel like I'm asking a question in a town hall presidential debate. Lol) 1 can it be done on one of those bodies because they are set up with 6 holes for a vintage style trem? 2 if I can, will it have any adverse results? I'm wontering if it would be prone to crack or break becaue the other holes may weaken the surface. I know a lot of people on this forum know what they're doing so any help would be appriciated.


Hi, I have done this ... I purchased a nice 60's MIM strat alder body and also I purchased a woodfill thing... I applied it to the holes and left it dry overnight... next day I did the new holes for the 2 point american standard strat.. I have to say everything came out perfect .. the american 2 point tremolo works excelent and I put an american highwayone neck to it with schaller locking tuners and straplocks and some EMG pickups and custom wiring ... its my favorite guitar so far :) I say if you have the tools to do a nice drill then you can do it yourself ... ofcourse after a little study of the dimensions and location of the holes and also before I actually did the holes in the body I practiced with a piece of wood several times to get it perfectly right.. so Id say its fairly easy to do it yourself :D


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Post subject: looking to see if guitar was my stolen one
Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:33 pm
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I totally forgot to mention that. Indeed I did go to look at that guitar thinking it may be mine. When I got there, he pulled it out and instantly I thought " holy Sh#t, thats my strat" The only thing that looked different was that it had a white tremolo cover instead of the mint green that was on the pickguard. I asked him if it was alright for me to open it, telling him I just wanted to see how it was "set up" because I quickly realized this guy had no idea about guitars. I was so excited when he handed it to me. But then when i grabbed it, I realized that it had a square neck plate instead of the contoured one that is on the deluxes. Apparently whoever's guitar this was, took what must have been a Standard, and souped it up to a deluxe (which seems like a really expensive way to go to get a deluxe, since they put on the locking tuners, and a loaded pickguard). So I told him I'd have to think about it, I was even more upset at this point because I got my hopes up. I drove home, and figured I should call Guitar Center and Daddy's and tell them about it because It was apparent that this was stolen becuase the Ser# was scratched off, and no guitar owner would ever do this to their own axe. I gave them the story and the number for the person who had it, and thought no more about it. Funny enough, I went to Guitar Center yesterday to play some strats because I haven't played since mine was stolen a few weeks ago (it felt like home playing one for an hour). On the way out, I ran into one of the guys there I know because he orders the 10.5 guage strings for me, because they never stocked the ones I use before I started buying them there. I asked him about it and his eyes lit up. Ho said "Oh my God, that was you?" He went on to tell me that the guitar actually belonged to one of his bestfriends who had it stolen out of his car a few months prior. He told me how syked his friend was to get his guitar back. He didnt know whether or not the guy who had was arrested. So the story was sad for me, but happy for some other guy. I hope Karma will come back to me. But it made something clear, DONT BE APPITHETIC WHEN YOU SEE SOMEBODY DOING SOMETHING WRONG! Sometimes you dont want to get involved, but in this case, a fellow Fender owner got his self customized guitar back.


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Post subject: THE EASIEST WAY
Posted: Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:46 pm
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I DID THE CONVERSION USING A QUALITY USA MADE SQUIRE THAT ALREADY HAS THE 2 HOLE SET UP AND USED AN AMERICAN DELUXE BRIDGE AND IT WORKS GREAT WITHOUT MISTAKES


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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 6:49 pm
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@Ceri Hi, my name is Dan. I am actually working on my Squier strat and I'm completely upgrading my entire guitar. I have a 6-screw body and I purchased the 2 point tremolo. Would you mind giving me the exact measurements and details for drilling the holes and installing the tremolo? I don't care very much about the finish, I just don't want to ruin my guitar with a small mistake. I filled the 6 holes with matches and wood glue as a guitar professional directed me to at my local store and I put my vintage style bridge on and took an Expo marker and outlined the bridge to put the 2 point in place of it. I think my drill markings are about right but can i get some exact measurements for each drill hole? Thanks a ton I don't want to pay $150 for a store to drill what I am fully capable of doing.
~Dan


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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 8:37 pm
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Gibson23SG wrote:
@Ceri Hi, my name is Dan. I am actually working on my Squier strat and I'm completely upgrading my entire guitar. I have a 6-screw body and I purchased the 2 point tremolo. Would you mind giving me the exact measurements and details for drilling the holes and installing the tremolo? I don't care very much about the finish, I just don't want to ruin my guitar with a small mistake. I filled the 6 holes with matches and wood glue as a guitar professional directed me to at my local store and I put my vintage style bridge on and took an Expo marker and outlined the bridge to put the 2 point in place of it. I think my drill markings are about right but can i get some exact measurements for each drill hole? Thanks a ton I don't want to pay $150 for a store to drill what I am fully capable of doing.
~Dan



Wow...Matches and wood-glue... :?: I hope it was Gorilla Glue instead of Elmer's ... As far as matches, that's a new one to me, using Aspen wood matches would not be my last choice..
Matches are square and the screw holes are round......
So much for the old adage of a Square Peg in a Round Hole.... :lol:

So I take it you have filled a 3/16 inch thick screw hole with a match....Yes.. :?:
But you have not filled the trem cavity below the 6 screw holes with a solid piece of wood ( Alder or Ash, cut and contoured, to fit snugly in the cavity....Correct.. :?:

If that is so, then you will not be able to attach a two point trem's pivot screws and the sleeves the screws reside in..
There is not enough wood mass to hold the sleeves.
As soon as you install the strings, the approximate 165 pounds of string tension will pull your entire Trem assembly right out of your guitar, very likely that it will also rip out part of the surrounding grain....

Not to be rude, but I suggest you seek another pro repair guy, One that does know his business....And No...You are not capable of doing this in the manner you are describing... :!:

Don't do this or you will destroy your guitar......

On the other hand....Since you have the matches....You might as well have some kindling.... :wink:

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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:59 pm
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Wow thanks for being an $@! hole about it. I was told that filling the holes with matchwood and woodglue is what professionals at fender use and it sounds quite reasonable being the wood is no different from wood filler. And being that Ceri has performed what I want to do 3 times I think I'm going to go with his theory.


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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2011 2:33 am
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IMO, Ceri give good advice; keep the vintage bridge, upgrade for a higher quality if yo want, but keep it vintage.


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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:33 am
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Gibson23SG wrote:
@Ceri Hi, my name is Dan. I am actually working on my Squier strat and I'm completely upgrading my entire guitar. I have a 6-screw body and I purchased the 2 point tremolo. Would you mind giving me the exact measurements and details for drilling the holes and installing the tremolo? I don't care very much about the finish, I just don't want to ruin my guitar with a small mistake. I filled the 6 holes with matches and wood glue as a guitar professional directed me to at my local store and I put my vintage style bridge on and took an Expo marker and outlined the bridge to put the 2 point in place of it. I think my drill markings are about right but can i get some exact measurements for each drill hole? Thanks a ton I don't want to pay $150 for a store to drill what I am fully capable of doing.
~Dan

Hi Dan: I've just seen your post and will try and give you the most accurate answer I can, because it is something that is not covered in enough useful detail in any of the books. The bridge in my photos below is a Wilkinson VS100. Yours may be a different model but you will find that the principles are the same.

There are two ways to do this: the quick, rough and ready way; and the fully accurate but more fiddly approach. Take your pick.

Method 1. If you just want to slap the bridge on and hope that it is more or less right then you will find that on most (all? I don't know) two-point bridges the post bushings center on the same holes as the outer of your previous six screws. So if you want to take the chance you can just drill your bushing holes with the drill bit centered on the middle of the holes you have filled with those matchsticks. Measure the bushings (they are not all the same) and get the depth exactly right because you don't want your bushings sitting too high or low in the wood.

Method 2. If you want to do things much more accurately and be certain you got the bridge in precisely the right place, here's how.

The scale length on a Strat is 25.5 inches / 647.7 mm. That is the distance from the front edge of the nut (the edge closest to the frets) to the string's breaking point on the top e bridge saddle. The bridge post bushings are centered on a position somewhere along that scale length. We need to know where, and for some reason that is a measurement that the instruction sheet never seems to give. This is how to find it for any manufacturer's bridge unit.

Take a scrap of wood and drill holes in it to take the bushings. Use a drill bit 0.5 mm too big, so you can easily get the bushings out afterwards. I've marked a line to center the holes on so that it can all be done with the greatest accuracy:
Image

In the next picture I've stacked up some bits of scrap and other things so that I can sit the bridge snugly against its posts, in the position it will be when installed:
Image

This allows me to make a precise measurement from the breaking point on the top e saddle to the center of the pivot post in front of it. It is vitally important to set the saddles nearly but not quite all the way forward: in real life when intonating the instrument you need to be able to move them backwards to allow for strings thicker than the top e, and you need plenty of adjustment space to be able to do this. But not all strings are created equal, so you need a little forward adjustment space too. So set the saddles almost but not quite all the way towards the front of the bridge (the side near the pickups).

Double check that measurement. It will likely be around a quarter of an inch / 7 or 8 mm. But I can't tell you what it is because it might be different for your bridge. You have to measure this yourself.

Once you have that measurement you subtract it from the scale length:

Scale length (25.5" / 647.7 mm) minus distance from saddle to post-center = ...

You will be left with a number that is in the region of 25 1/4 inches / approx 640 mm. You must be accurate!

Now measure this distance from the front of the nut to a position on the guitar body that will be between the bridge cavity and the nearest pickup cavity. My picture shows a new body; you can put a strip of masking tape onto the front of your guitar to make it easy to pencil marks onto it:
Image

In that photo my long ruler is running from the nut down the fingerboard and across the face of the body. I am using a steel right-angle to transfer the measurement accurately onto the body. The line nearest the pickup cavity in the next photo is the crucial measurement:
Image

To know where to place the bushing holes between bass and treble on the body you first need to find the center line of the instrument in relation to the neck. To do this lay your ruler along one side of the neck and mark where it runs between the bridge and pickup cavities. Do the same for the other side of the neck and you now have lines that indicate where the edges of the neck would be if it extended all the way to the bridge. You can now measure between these two lines to find the center of the guitar.

Your bridge bushings are then placed equal distances either side of the center line, where the crosses are in that last photo. You will get that measurement either from the instruction sheet that hopefully came with the bridge, or by measuring the indents on the front edge of the bridge plate itself. Again, this might be different on different models, so you must find it for yourself. On my Wilkinson VS100 the measurement is 56.8 mm, but don't rely on that being the same on your unit. Here is the Wilkinson layed on top of my marking out to check that it all seems to be working right:
Image

That's how the measuring and marking out is done.

Some tips about drilling the bushing holes. If you have a big drill press that will reach to the middle of the guitar that is ideal. If not, a holder for a hand drill would be good. If you have to drill the holes using nothing but a hand-held electric drill then it really helps to have someone else looking from the side to tell you whether you have it vertical or not. It is difficult to judge that while actually using the drill, and if you get it a bit wrong your bushings will look awful for ever and may not line the bridge up properly. Get it right.

The depth of the holes is often more tricky than you think too. For starters, you have to get them exactly right, so the bottom of the post rests on the bottom of the hole with the top exactly flush with the face of the guitar. It is a bad idea to push the bushing in, find it is not quite right and have to take it out again to drill a bit more, because you chew up the wood and the bushing won't then sit firmly. So measure, measure, measure.

But worse, there is a lot of variation between bridge post bushings and the bottoms of some of them are complicated. For example, the ones in the next photo look like they have flat bottoms but in fact when the post is screwed all the way in it emerges out the off the bottom and extends further into the wood:
Image

That means that if the hole is only drilled to take the brass bushing itself then when you screw the post all the way in it pushes on the bottom of the hole and drags the bushing upwards out of the wood, like this:
Image

Obviously, that would be a dreadful problem. So for these particular bushings it is necessary to drill a second small hole at the bottom of the first one, to take the post. You can just make that out in this photo:
Image

Your post-and-bushing design may well be different, so you have to study it and design your hole accordingly.

One last tip on bushing holes. On this Wilkinson bridge the bushings measure as 10 mm in diameter and that is what their diagram on the instruction sheet shows. However, a 10 mm hole leaves the bushings very loose in the wood. It so happens that I read a guitar magazine interview with Trevor Wilkinson where he mentioned that a 9.5 mm hole was better for these bushings - but it doesn't say that anywhere on their instructions: you just have to know. So I used a 10 mm hole for the dry run in the top photos here to be able to get the bushings out again easily, but a 9.5 mm hole in the guitar itself. The bushings press in with only a tiny bit of force but then sit very firmly in the guitar - which is what you need for good sound transmission between bridge and wood.

So I strongly suggest that in your dry run on scrap wood you try different sized holes and see which is best for your own model of bushings. Too tight may split the wood but too loose will leave you with a limp sounding guitar.

...That's a lot of typing! And it is plenty of effort to get this job right. That's why I'd tend to recommend against six-screw to two-point conversions - but I've done it several times now and with care it can work out fine.

Good luck, Dan!

Cheers - C

EDIT: typos

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Last edited by Ceri on Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: installing a two point trem on a body w/6 holes for vint
Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:52 am
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Gibson23SG wrote:
Wow thanks for being an $@! hole about it. I was told that filling the holes with matchwood and woodglue is what professionals at fender use and it sounds quite reasonable being the wood is no different from wood filler. And being that Ceri has performed what I want to do 3 times I think I'm going to go with his theory.


Some of what I replied was in jest and sarcasm....

However if you are going to come on this Forum as a Newb....Ask a question which clearly illustrates that you don't have any idea what-so-ever in what you are doing....
And then if you didn't like the answer given call someone an A..Hole
I strongly suggest that you go elsewhere and vent your idiotic attitude.....

I don't have to explain myself to you since having taking it to the personal level, you ruled out courtesy, respect and manners.

Once again I reiterate, you don't fill a round hole with a square peg, as you also must fill in the cavity below ....Which your initial post clearly illustrated you were not doing.
I do know my way around a few woodworking tools, you might just want to check out a couple threads I posted, one on a Two Strat rebuild and the other on a complete Two guitar ( Tele and Strat build )....
Throughout most of my threads or posts, I'm often sarcastic, I don't take it to the personal level and I receive just as well as I dish it out....
You can do whatever you want with your guitar, including lighting it up if you so wish :wink:
which is going to be an option if you do not research how to do this and take some time to practice the steps on bare wood and pieces of scrap.......

Everyday i run into people who believe they are capable of remodeling their homes and whatever else they watched on the extreme makeover sites.....
A guitar is much more difficult and precise. If you get it wrong fixing it is not a simple task.

But you don't have to believe what I say since I'm just an A------ according to you... :roll:

But you might want to check into Ceri's threads, as well as Xhefri's and AndyBigHair, The Nutter and a host of other Forumites who are quite adept at rebuilding or outright building Strats and Tele's

BTW...The reason I would not use matches is because not only are they square but they are made of Aspen, a relatively soft wood that tends to splinter easily...
When filling a hole with a Dowel you want to us ea hardwood qual to the piec you are repairing, you are attempting to regain the density of the wood prior to drilling out and since the new drill holes will be in the same area or even same hole you need a strongly bonded filler..

Ciao.....

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