I'll just start by asking, is the Floyd BR2 nut that comes with the 1500 system in fact a non-standard nut?
The guitar came from the factory in tune with itself, but off from concert pitch, so today I unlocked the nut for the first time in order to set it up in tune. To my surprise, two out of three nut lock screws didn't want to come out at all. The asshole screwing them in at the factory would've had to have forced them in to get the nut to lock. I had to work way way way too hard to remove them, and upon further inspection, the threading inside the nut lock thread holes was stripped toward the bottom! Man, that's something to let go in QC. I owned a Korean made Schecter years ago that had a weird Floyd nut problem too, where it was installed just off center. Anyway, I removed this nut altogether to see about ordering a new one. It turns out it's a BR2; that's what's stamped at the bottom. I could find very little about this BR2 nut online, because I couldn't tell if a standard R2 would fit in its place. Then I found this thread:
https://online-discussion.com/Suhr/viewtopic.php?p=50774
According to this guy, a standard R2 will not fit in its place! So I considered this for a moment. About a month ago my wife and I installed a new ceiling fan, and in the process I learned what a tap and die set is, a tool set that allows you to rethread holes! To me that was an awesome discovery, and exceedingly helpful today. So I went to Ace Hardware and bought this 4MM x .7 plug tap, which is the same threading as the Floyd nut screw thread:
View attachment 136279
I screwed that slowly into the two holes that were stripped at the bottom, and it worked! I was able to get the screws to go in and out without any problems. Had I not known about this tool, I would not have been able to lock the nut.
In the process I finally removed the plastic film (revealing the awesome looking ridged pickguard), put nut sauce on the knife edges of the baseplate as well as the indention on the stud insert posts where the knife edge contacts the posts, and I'll tell you, this guitar is incredible. First of all, the intonation from the factory, from what I can tell from hitting fourths and fifths in adjacent and skipped strings all over, is fantastic. The tuning stability is incredible, from bending, trem diving, and pulling up with the trem. I'm thinking now that my first one may have had worn out springs by the end, because it wasn't as solid as this guitar is now. It's a reminder to me that if I ever find this guitar not quite returning to zero, I should first check the springs.
When I set up the guitar today, it was a piece of cake. I inserted a stack of business cards cut in half to stabilize the trem, set the fine tuners to the halfway point, put on new strings, tuned, stretched, locked the nut, removed the business cards, then unscrewed the spring claw screws until it was in tune just right. Man, so easy. What an experience. It was shockingly as easy as the most stable Floyded guitar I've had, the Washburn Steve Salas with the Floyd Speedloader.
In doing so, I found I must've accidentally moved the Floyd posts up a tad, because the action was now higher. No big deal, I just removed the bridge with the nut still locked, unscrewed the posts by hand to lower the action, and replaced the bridge. I got that action so low, and I found no fret problems. The guitar was nearly playing itself. It was really something else. It actually makes me wonder if World Musical Instruments is using PLEK machines at their factory, and that's why so many guitars these days come with exceptional fretwork.
I just found that playing the guitar today was easier than ever. It was a blast.
I'll post some pictures with the film off soon, with some recorded clips.
