Calling out any luthiers

Sixstring

Sixstring

Legend!
probably not the best place to find this info but thought I would give it shot! I have been contemplating installing a Floyd Rose Pro in my Carvin CT for some time now. If I do this I want to make sure I get as close as I can to the fret board specs. The Fret board radius is 14" and the Floyd Pro comes with a 10 or 12" depending on how you use the existing shim. I have read that you can shim the #1-6 saddles to get to a 14" radius is this correct?

Also according to the Nut chart from Floyd I woud need the R-10 nut which has a 15" radius with all the rest of the dims, width, string spacing and hight matching up fairly close to what I have now. Is the 15" radius of the nut going to create a noticeable problem with action? I don't know how many Thousands of an inch differences there is going from a 14" to 15" radius.

I know that there are two different typs of mounting for the nut, bottom and top. Is there a preference or does it really mater? If I can get away with it I would prefer to top mount inorder to avoid drilling holes all the way through the neck unless it presents tuning stability issues. Any one with the know how, wether it be hands on or from being told from someone that knows would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hey Sixstring,

The only comment I can offer is that I would be concerned that nut/fretboard/bridge & saddles radii don't match up. I had my 2010 Petrucci BFR worked on and the tech thought the radius of the neck was flatter than it was, like 20" instead of 15". He did a fret level, crown, and setup. When I got it back, it felt wrong. I sent it to EB in Cali, and it came back right. I'm guessing the problem lay in the nut being a 15" radius, but he filed the frets down to 20". A good tech familiar with FR and radii should get it right. But mention your measurements and concerns. I'm always surprised at the things that some techs are not aware of.

Good luck!!
 
mnwst said:
Hey Sixstring,

The only comment I can offer is that I would be concerned that nut/fretboard/bridge & saddles radii don't match up. I had my 2010 Petrucci BFR worked on and the tech thought the radius of the neck was flatter than it was, like 20" instead of 15". He did a fret level, crown, and setup. When I got it back, it felt wrong. I sent it to EB in Cali, and it came back right. I'm guessing the problem lay in the nut being a 15" radius, but he filed the frets down to 20". A good tech familiar with FR and radii should get it right. But mention your measurements and concerns. I'm always surprised at the things that some techs are not aware of.

Good luck!!
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Thanks for te heads up ;) After reading up more on the bridge I'm confident I can shim the radius on the bridge to match, it's the nut that has me little concerned.

Anyone else?
 
Yes you can change the bridge radius by shimming the saddles... pretty straight forward.

The locking nut is a little more tricky. The 15 could be fine because it is pretty close. I tend to go with a smaller radius to get the low and high strings right, then deepen the two center slots to get to 14. Filing these is somewhat difficult because of the hardness, but it can be done to get a perfect radius. You'd be surprised how many manufactures ship guitars with miss matched radius (because of the Floyd nuts). Often times the higher center strings aren't even noticed - I'd try it first and see. Or you could also try the 15 and see. If it doesn't feel right, you could always try to deepen the high and low slots.

I prefer to top mount the nuts. Much better then drilling through the guitar IMO. Plus you can always drill through later if the need or desire arises.
 
Sixstring said:
If I can get away with it I would prefer to top mount inorder to avoid drilling holes all the way through the neck unless it presents tuning stability issues. Any one with the know how, wether it be hands on or from being told from someone that knows would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

I'd go with top mount and use epoxy to hold the nut in place. All my top-mounts would shift slightly with bar use but the epoxy eliminates that completely.
 
Most guitars I have are Floyd's or a variation, and the radius has never been correct on the nut or bridge from the manufacturer
You can shim the saddles, but the nut is where it's most noticeable . If the Floyd nut has a flatter radius than the neck I always take two pieces of oak and lay the nut upside down with the ends just catching the wood, and tap in the center with a punch and hammer just enough to curve the nut. It won't change the way the screws work. I also use a bench grinder to shave the Floyd nut, just have to be careful not to remove to much or you will have to shim it back up. :)
 
I'm no luthier but I have shimmed the saddle and it's not a hard job, but do not touch to file anything on the nut you my damage t it and the locking system will fail.
 
I think the nut is probably a personal feel thing. I recently built a Frankenstein-tele from a StewMac pine body and a vintage style mighty mite neck. Routed the body for the trem, and made a jig and routed the nut shelf as well. The bridge is shimmed, but the nut radius is still the standard gotoh 16". It plays really well. There's a mismatch, but not as noticeable as a neck with a fret radius that doesn't match the neck surface radius as mentioned above.

My personal preference is for the Gotoh Floyd, it's a somewhat better construction than the proper US Floyd, and the arm fitting is different. The saddles will use standard Floyd shims. But there is a smaller choice of nut widths and the standard radius is 16". You could still use an original floyd nut though. The block is a bit taller as well which can be a prob on some guitars.

One other important comment - with any Floyd, make sure you have enough neck angle to reach the saddle height with a low enough action. Floyd saddles are high compared with other trem bridges. You only have 3 choices: reroute the neck pocket with an angle, shim the back of the neck pocket, or recess the trem into the body. Only the last one works with neck through or glued in setups.

There's not really much room for mistakes on a retrofit job to an already finished guitar - make sure you find the right man for the job !



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jspyve said:
I think the nut is probably a personal feel thing. I recently built a Frankenstein-tele from a StewMac pine body and a vintage style mighty mite neck. Routed the body for the trem, and made a jig and routed the nut shelf as well. The bridge is shimmed, but the nut radius is still the standard gotoh 16". It plays really well. There's a mismatch, but not as noticeable as a neck with a fret radius that doesn't match the neck surface radius as mentioned above.

My personal preference is for the Gotoh Floyd, it's a somewhat better construction than the proper US Floyd, and the arm fitting is different. The saddles will use standard Floyd shims. But there is a smaller choice of nut widths and the standard radius is 16". You could still use an original floyd nut though. The block is a bit taller as well which can be a prob on some guitars.

One other important comment - with any Floyd, make sure you have enough neck angle to reach the saddle height with a low enough action. Floyd saddles are high compared with other trem bridges. You only have 3 choices: reroute the neck pocket with an angle, shim the back of the neck pocket, or recess the trem into the body. Only the last one works with neck through or glued in setups.

There's not really much room for mistakes on a retrofit job to an already finished guitar - make sure you find the right man for the job !



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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Thanks forth info! I got a good deal on Floyd Pro German made and had him pair it with an R-10 top mount nut. I haven't had time to call around to see if there are any competent luthiers in my area yet but will be doing so soon :lol. I'm still contemplating doing the install my self, I'm pretty good at woodworking just need the right tools. It will really depend on how much it's going to cost.
 
It's almost entirely a router, template bit, and floyd rose trem template set job (including recess template if you find it's necessary)

You need a drill press for the stud holes. The jig for the nut shelf is pretty straightforward to make from MDF.

The whole job is a butt-clenching, measure twice, cut once kind of thing, but don't skimp on the router quality. Accurate plunge fine adjustment is needed for the nut shelf.

I also bottom mounted the nut, and for that you need a counter-bore bit to make a neat job of the back of the neck when recessing the bolts.

If you decide to do it yourself, I'm happy to provide you with more info / pics if you need them. I have another Tele body in bits where I've almost completed a recessed install.


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That would be cool! I have watched a few How To installs on youtube and it looks pretty easy and like you say measure twice and cut once. I haven't seen any vids on cutting the nut shelf I'm sure it's a matter of measuring the fret and string hight and doing the math to set the plunge for the shelf.

When cutting for the nut shelf on a neck that has an angled headstock are you supposed to gig off the headstock or the fret board? I'm pretty sure the Carvin CT has an 8* back angle, I suppose it makes sense to gig off of the head stock setting the nut shelf and strings at the same angle :?.
 
Take this with a pinch of salt as I haven't personally done an angled headstock install...but you want the fingerboard edge of the floyd nut to be square to the end of the fingerboard which would mean the nut shelf does not follow the angle of the headstock. Once you have a floyd nut in front of you you should be able to see why this is the case.

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Re: top mount nut vs bottom....

This is the area of the neck that holds the most stress for the least volume of wood. Personally, I wouldn't drill through, as the neck may have a deficiency there.
 
BigD1977 said:
Re: top mount nut vs bottom....

This is the area of the neck that holds the most stress for the least volume of wood. Personally, I wouldn't drill through, as the neck may have a deficiency there.
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I had considered this and based on some of the posts I decided to order a top mount nut.
 
Installing the nut on an angled headstock: you do not want to remove any of the fretboard. It's really important to keep your scale length intact. The strings need to make contact with the Floyd nut at the exact sane place as the current nut. Cutting the shelf into the fretboard would put the nut closer to the bridge and this will change the scale length.

The Floyd nut should sit parallel to the fretboard (not on the angle) So... depending on the headstock angle and the depth of the Floyd nut vs the current nut, when you rout the shelf, you will hopefully have enough surface area to mount the nut. If not, you may need to build a bit of a shelf for it to sit on.

Necks designed for locking nuts have the fretboard extended beyond the scale length to allow for the shelf.
 
AutomaticEight said:
Installing the nut on an angled headstock: you do not want to remove any of the fretboard. It's really important to keep your scale length intact. The strings need to make contact with the Floyd nut at the exact sane place as the current nut. Cutting the shelf into the fretboard would put the nut closer to the bridge and this will change the scale length.

The Floyd nut should sit parallel to the fretboard (not on the angle) So... depending on the headstock angle and the depth of the Floyd nut vs the current nut, when you rout the shelf, you will hopefully have enough surface area to mount the nut. If not, you may need to build a bit of a shelf for it to sit on.

Necks designed for locking nuts have the fretboard extended beyond the scale length to allow for the shelf.
Click to expand...

Ah, I wondered about this and went looking for pic's of a floyd nut mounted on a Carvin CT neck. I knew the face of the nut would have to be mounted at the same location as the nut that's in there now. Based on this info it looks like I will have to shave off some materiel (4-5mm give or take) inorder to get it to sit parallel to the fret board.

Is this a hard rule with installing the nut in this fashion? At it's current state the neck is roughly 18mm thick at it's thickest point in the radius just behind the curent nut location. I just don't want to compromise the strength in that location if I don't have to.
 
If you try to mount the floyd nut at an angle, I'm pretty sure you will put the intonation out, unfortunately. I can understand why you wouldn't want to shave 5mm off an 18mm thick neck, though :(

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jspyve said:
If you try to mount the floyd nut at an angle, I'm pretty sure you will put the intonation out, unfortunately. I can understand why you wouldn't want to shave 5mm off an 18mm thick neck, though :(

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Just wanting to make sure I don't create a weak spot on the neck, I'm probably just being overly cautious. I have the trem in hand at this point I am geting all the measurements I need to make sure the trem is mounted in the right spot ;).



Another question... The scale of the guitar in question is 25". The StewMac calculator gives me a distance from nut to post center for the OFR of 24.510" basically 24.1/2". The Wilki post centers are at 24.3/4" and set closer together at the pivot points, 58.6mm vrs 73.9mm for the FR.

After doing the math that puts the posts centers for the FR at the OD of the post holes for the Wilki, if I were to drill them at the same location of 24.3/4". The FR looks to have a solid 5/8" adjustment over all in the saddles from front to back. If I were to place the holes for the FR at the same location that the curent ones are now (plugging the old holes of course), effectively moving it 1/4" further back (accommodating for the new post location width) technically I should be able to compensate for the 1/4" difference in post location moving the saddles forward correct?

I did some checking on the FR trem and from post center to the closest saddle position measures about 3/8" which if mounted in that location would put it under 25" needed for scale length by 1/8", the farthest back measures a woping 3/4" from post center to the saddle.

The main reasons I was thinking of doing this is 1, it would be a lot easer to drill the holes using the old ones for a reference for accurately drilling the the new ones and 2, it affords a little more room between the pickup ring and the front of the trem body. I could do it the other way it's just that it will be very tight spacing wise from the front of the trem to pickup ring and I don't want to rout that close to the pickup cavity.
 
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