Question about non-routed Floyd equipped guitar

[joe1871]

Hey All,

I have a very nice Charvel San Dimas copperskin guitar - it has a snakeskin pattern on it. It actually plays like a dream. I bought it from GC about 15 years ago. The question I have is about how to set up this guitar. It has a Floyd Rose bridge, but no route. I don't understand how the bridge should be set up - does it rest on the guitar in tune, and only work to decrease pitch when using the bar? Seems like an awfully dramatic engineering of a guitar just too lower pitch. I am very reluctant to route the guitar - especially with the really beautiful finish it has. Is there a way to set up a Floyd to raise and lower? I can understand that you would simply adjust the spring tension - that is obvious, but to what degree? I tried, but having the bridge raised up like that seems really odd, and annoying to my pick hand. What is the idea? Is there maybe a set of specifications somewhere that someone can point me too on how to set this up? Any help would be really appreciated.

Joe

 

[unix-guy]

Typically you want the base plate of the bridge parallel to the body (really, to the strings).

If you want to alter pitch in both directions, it needs to "float" and not rest on the body.

If there's not enough room, you can raise the bridge via the large studs (after slacking the strings).

Now, this might raise the action higher then you want in which case you may need to shim the neck to account for that.

 

[Sashman]

Typically you want the base plate of the bridge parallel to the body (really, to the strings).

If you want to alter pitch in both directions, it needs to "float" and not rest on the body.

If there's not enough room, you can raise the bridge via the large studs (after slacking the strings).

Now, this might raise the action higher then you want in which case you may need to shim the neck to account for that.

This and be careful, you have to loose the sting tension before you adjusting the studs, otherwise it’s possible that you will damage the knife edges or the studs.

 

[spagthorpe]

I've got a Dave Murray strat like this. It's a top mounted Floyd, and flush with the body (my setup) so dive only. The proper way to set this up would be to have it routed. I have other guitars with routed trems, so it's never been something I've needed to do.

 

[Space Helicopter]

I have two guitars with top-mount (non-routed) floyds, a strat which has the bridge fairly close to the guitar body so it only has about a half step of pull-up range, and a home-made Tele where the bridge is a bit higher up, I’m not sure how much pull-up range it has, more than I need. Both are set up floating.

The strat could be made to raise pitch more but the range is currently limited by the size of the block route (block hits the body). I don’t really care though as I don’t pull up much.

There’s nothing really different from Floyd setup between top-mounted and countersunk/routed. Check some YouTube videos on Floyd setup.

 

[warlockII]

I have both top mount and recessed floyds. Except for my Wolfie, they're all floating. The plus side of having it rest on the body, is you can drop tune without all the other strings going out of pitch. Some people claim that having the trem rest on the body increases sustain. Of course you could simply add a block of wood or specialty device to the cavity to make it a dive only also. I like to pull up on the floyd, so that's why most of mine are floating. The rest have been answered by others already.