Hi everybody

I'm trying my hand at building a Strat, and I need a good trem bridge to complete the ensemble.

What I have is an ash body, top routed HSH and drilled for a 2 point trem. The neck and fingerboard are birdseye maple, 22 fret 25-1/2 in scale, with a 1 11/16 nut width. The nut is white corian, the fingerboard is a 10-16 in compound radius with tall narrow stainless frets. The neck back shape is "fatback", and it's a standard 4 bolt with a satin nitro finish.

What I want is a bright sound, with good sustain. I plan to use the trem to color the sound, not to dive bomb. I plan to play classic rock and blues.

What I DON'T have is good information on bridges. Most of the sites I've visited were other forums, or places that just wanted to sell product, but no real information. Even some of the product descriptions have contained contradictory data.

What sounds good to everyone? Bent or milled saddles, Fender, Wilkinson or none of the above (probably not Callaham or Trem King). Most of my hardware is gold plate, so I'd like to stick with that, and I'm steering clear of Floyd Rose because of complexity (I'm a beginner).

Arrrggghhh!!!! Too many choices, not enough reliable info. Any ideas??? Oh, I'd also like to be able to drop a bridge into place with little or no mod to the body. This is my Baby, my "Pride and Joy" (thanks Stevie!)

Help?

Thanks.

Smokey

ok theres a solution for this. its not simple, and will require some work.
go do some study on guitars that you like.
go for known brands that have some big names using their gear.
see what trems come on the guitars they offer.
see what trems come on the guitars of your favorite players.
then you can start narrowing down your selection.

I think Guitar Fetish is a good source for trem bridges ... good prices too. I recently bought a vintage spec chrome bridge from them and it looks pretty nice. Waiting to complete my re-finish job to install it.

http://store.guitarfetish.com/tremelos.html

_________________

ok theres a solution for this. its not simple, and will require some work.
go do some study on guitars that you like.
go for known brands that have some big names using their gear.
see what trems come on the guitars they offer.
see what trems come on the guitars of your favorite players.
then you can start narrowing down your selection.

Agreed, this is the right approach, but I what I really need while I'm doing this is reliable information about the products themselves. Any ideas on where I can find this?

Thanks for your response.

well the "names" wont be using junk since most of their guitars
are built to their spec's.

just pick a product and put it in your search engine like so...

fender blues jr review

then you will get info.

I've tried a number of trems. The Guitar Fetish trem I tried sounded great and worked fine. It broke strings, though. Couldn't get more than two or three hours before a string would snap.

The Wilkinson VS 100 is a nice trem, but the sustain block isn't steel, so the tone suffers a bit.

My current trem is the Wilkinson VS 401. Love it. It has a steel sustain block, so it has the tone I want. The saddles are cast stainless steel. The trem arm is a pop-in type. I'm really fussy about not having any slack or wiggle in the trem arm, and this bridge has a slight amount of wiggle in it. I just put a tiny piece of plumber's teflon tape over the hole before I pop the arm in and it's PERFECT. No slop. I like to float my trem, and this thing just feels smooth and precise. New, a year ago, it was about $120.00 or so.

I'm not a fan of Fender trems. That's not always a popular thing to say on this forum. It was a terrific design in its day, and has stood the test of time. No major changes are needed, but it has some shortcomings that IMHO make it a poor choice. The sustain block isn't steel. Even though the block is better than it was a couple years ago, it's still a weird alloy that doesn't deliver the tone of the original stratocaster trems. For that, you need a steel block. The bent steel saddles are an improvement over the zinc(?) or alloy saddles they used to use, but are only adequate. Also, because they're so thin, the adjusting screws are prone to stripping the threads in them. The tone's good, and they look vintage (for those who care), but the big stainless steel saddles in the VS 401 are superior.