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To give you a little background, a few years back I bought a second-hand '91 cherry red American Standard Strat from a friend. It had belonged to her father who passed away several years before. He had gigged in a local band in the north of Spain for years, although I never knew him. Still, I liked the idea of keeping it close to their family. A few months back, due to a lot of string breakage at the bridge, I tried a Gotoh VS-100N to see if there was any improvement - being a drop-in replacement on an Am Std. The springs on the Gotoh, being way more tense, pulled the neck out of alignment.
I eventually got the string slots on the original bridge sanded down a little which solved the string breakage and had to do a spot level to add more drop off to get the neck playable - at some stage I imagine I may have to sand down the neck a bit to correct it but it is back playing well in any case.
The VS-100N is for a Hoher strat copy - my first electric - I have been working on-and-off upgrading bits and pieces over the years when I have the time and inclination. It has gone through a lot of changes. Unfortunately the trem baseplate on the hohner is not flat so the tuning has always been an issue, and the posts are not standard spaced so I couldnīt source any drop-in replacement and it needs routing and re-drilling of the posts for the gotoh to fit. I want to do the work myself but donīt have an adequate workspace, so that job is still on the shelf as it were. Apart from the bridge, that guitar also badly needs a refret as it was my only electric / only guitar for years and number 2 since I got my first Hamer. I did try levelling it but there wasnīt enough metal to do it properly and it really needs a refret.
So it occurred to me that something simple I could do long before having to route the guitar would be to check the springs on the Gotoh but with the existing bridge to ensure I donīt route the body only to find out that they warp the guitar neck like on the am std.,. At least that way I know if Iīm going to need another solution before taking a router to the body. I guess at worst I could always try the Gotoh with the old springs. In any case I changed the springs, removing three and adding the three new ones. The only other changes were from a forked pattern to all 3 springs parallel to each other, and I loosened the trem claw screw to release a bit of tension. So two days later the neck seems perfectly stable but what really surprised me is that suddenly it plays way better. It has gotten rid of almost all of the fret buzz and is quite comfortable to play. I can only assume it raised the action ever so slightly, which has made the difference. If so I wouldnīt notice the difference in height. It certainly feels a bit different alright, but not like the action is suddenly really high or anything.
Well, thatīs my story.
I eventually got the string slots on the original bridge sanded down a little which solved the string breakage and had to do a spot level to add more drop off to get the neck playable - at some stage I imagine I may have to sand down the neck a bit to correct it but it is back playing well in any case.
The VS-100N is for a Hoher strat copy - my first electric - I have been working on-and-off upgrading bits and pieces over the years when I have the time and inclination. It has gone through a lot of changes. Unfortunately the trem baseplate on the hohner is not flat so the tuning has always been an issue, and the posts are not standard spaced so I couldnīt source any drop-in replacement and it needs routing and re-drilling of the posts for the gotoh to fit. I want to do the work myself but donīt have an adequate workspace, so that job is still on the shelf as it were. Apart from the bridge, that guitar also badly needs a refret as it was my only electric / only guitar for years and number 2 since I got my first Hamer. I did try levelling it but there wasnīt enough metal to do it properly and it really needs a refret.
So it occurred to me that something simple I could do long before having to route the guitar would be to check the springs on the Gotoh but with the existing bridge to ensure I donīt route the body only to find out that they warp the guitar neck like on the am std.,. At least that way I know if Iīm going to need another solution before taking a router to the body. I guess at worst I could always try the Gotoh with the old springs. In any case I changed the springs, removing three and adding the three new ones. The only other changes were from a forked pattern to all 3 springs parallel to each other, and I loosened the trem claw screw to release a bit of tension. So two days later the neck seems perfectly stable but what really surprised me is that suddenly it plays way better. It has gotten rid of almost all of the fret buzz and is quite comfortable to play. I can only assume it raised the action ever so slightly, which has made the difference. If so I wouldnīt notice the difference in height. It certainly feels a bit different alright, but not like the action is suddenly really high or anything.
Well, thatīs my story.
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