Hi,

First time posting on this forum. I recently purchased a used, lefty, MIM strat in Lake Placid Blue. The guitar is in extremly mint condition and appears to have been made in 2000. The vibrato bar on this guitar is unlike any I have encountered on a strat before and I would like to be able to find similar bars for my other strats. The bar itself is physically longer and bent at less of an angle (points farther up and away from the guitar body) than all my other bars. also, the slight bend that normally occurs just prior to the tip handle is barely there, so the bar is almost straight. As there were no mods to the guitar, it was basically stored for 10 years, I assume the bar is original equipment.

Does anyone know why Fender would make a bar so different from the other bars? and if so, what is it called?

Welcome to the forums!

Hendrix used to bend the bars with his hands and make
a variety of them. I'm guessing that the original owner might
have done the same (maybe not by hand) - - I have a few
that are different from twisting and bending in a vice.

Experiment with some and you might find one that you
like even better?

http://www.guitarpartsresource.com/trem_importstrat.htm

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Hi menix, I have 3 lefty strats and all 3 wammy bars are different. Not sure why. I altered 1 of them using a vise (as Miami Mike did) to make it more to my liking.

I've been thinking of doing this because I really would like a bar bent in the same manner as Jeff Beck's.

Hey all, thanks for the advice. I have been bending my own bars for a while now but this one is different as it is phsically longer than the other bars. I thought perhaps some of the different strats had different types of bars?? But perhaps, its more a lack of consistency on fender's behalf than anything else.

Thanks again for the help. greatly appreciated!

John

Yeah even the locking tremolo's arm changed a bit over the years i had to buy some that were same run so they would match. Its hard to order ones and get a match without physically seeing them.

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Bear in mind with Jeff; the floating bridge he uses which in effect lowers the height of the bar bringing it much closer to the strings. I set my Clapton strat up and wanted the ability to pull up on the bar by a good amount, so had to raise the bridge, this then reposition's the bar making it easier to manipulate as it's nearer the strings.

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George Van Eps.

Hi Menix and welcome to the forum.I've always rebent my vibrato arms.Where I do agressive dive bombing in the Hendrix vein I need the main bend to be at more than 90 degrees.I always wrap an old towel around the bar to keep it from getting scored with teeth marks from the vice.Try to keep your bending to a mininum number of times as repeated bending will eventually fatigue the metal and cause it to break at the bend.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.