Floyd Rose problems Arrghhh!

[Grahame Myers]

I have a problem at the moment with an ESP Floyd Rose guitar from a good customer of mine: He was having problems with strings breaking last year. I discovered that the surface hardening on the string saddles was worn, and had created ridges in the metal. So I filed them carefully, and polished them to a mirror shine. All was well last year, but this year he came back for his yearly check, and the same thing was there again. So we decided to treat his ESP to a new FR. Cost €249, and is genuine Floyd Rose, not a copy.

I installed it and set it up the way he likes it, and he tried it out and was happy: It worked like he wanted it to, and away he went to the first gig. During the first gig he had no problems, but last night at the second gig, he had enormous problems: 3 string breaks (D and G), and tuning problems. Very disappointing with a brand new FR to say the least, and I'm at a loss as to what could be causing it.

A few things you should know: He's a very accomplished player with a very good FR technique. No extreme bendings, he has a technique whereby he hits the trem arm with the heel of his hand to create special effects, otherwise he mostly bends up, with no extreme "dive-bombing" etc. He uses Ernie Ball Super Slinkys (.009 - .042) and has never had problems. He changes the strings every gig to ensure that they hold up without breaking during the gig, up until now without problems. The FR as said was brand new, and I also changed the toplocks that came with the new FR. That's not the problem, the strings are breaking directly on the stringblocks on the tremelo itself.

At the moment I'm stumped, the customer said I should reclaim it, and get a replacement, but it was brand new, and looks perfect. I'm not sure that's going to solve the problem, the question is, what could be causing it? Is it possible that it is defect? I've never had any problems with FR's, but there's a first time for everything I guess. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

 

Grahame

[Brady Anderson]

Hi Grahame,

I feel your pain.  Floyds are the biggest time hog and can be most frustrating.  If strings are breaking at the clamp pad, chances are he is clamping too tight. If the strings broke on top of the saddle block then a Graphech "String Saver Saddle" may help.  If your setup worked OK for him and he had trouble after changing strings himself I would tend to shift the blame to his string changing technique.  He will probably argue with you about that but tell him It is easy to use too much force in clamping strings with New Floyds (the parts move much smoother) and they may have some edges that haven't softened up by use cause problems.  It's easy to see exactly where the string breaks on a Floyd by looking at the stub left in the clamp vice.  If he didn't leave it in there for you to inspect, it's impossible to troubleshoot this issue.  I don't even want to venture a guess at the "tuning problems".  If he breaks those strings again, have him bring it back to you with the broken string in place for you to inspect.  Do not take his word for where it broke, he's not the expert, you are.  Your customer's playing style seems to be hard on strings based on the history you gave, he needs to take some of the responsibility and work with you on this issue. 

The Force be with you

Brady

[Grahame Myers]

Thanks for your thoughts on this one, the customer is coming to the shop tomorrow, and I told him to leave the broken string in the string block so I can see what's going on.

I'm a bit surprised that nobody else here has replied, I'd have thought that enough other people get these awful contraptions in for repair too. I must confess to be a little old fashioned in my attitude concerning tremelos (or vibrato to use the correct name :-)) as far as I'm concerned, a guitar needs a tremelo like a fish needs a bicycle, but that's just me :-)  One of my favorite players is Steve Cropper, and how did he get his sound? He had a amp (no effects), a Telecaster,... and his fingers. Enough said :-)

 

Grahame 

[Russell Vance]

Hi Grahame,    We do a lot of Floyds and I quite like the engineering, especially in the newer generation of Ibanez ball bearing mount systems.   Having said that, I find some of it fiddly and a lot of cheaper Floyds are make believe - they cannot work even when brand new due to the cheap materials and construction.   My fave Floyd is the Schaller unit because it has replaceable hardened steel  pivot blades and radiused string blocks.  We use genuine Floyds from time to time and they have no drama whatsoever.

Now, the problem, in this case, may well be with the player, and increasing pitch will break strings more so than diving the trem - its simply higher tension - the fact that a new trem is breaking more strings is evidence of this as the new trem is not bedded in and the crisp edges are fatiguing the string faster.   What I would be inclined to do is to change the base plate angle (tilt it up at the back) to take some of the string pressure (change the point of contact) off the saddle break point area and allow the string to roll around the corner with less "break" when he increases pitch.   This may cause some clearance problems in the vertical cavity but that can be dealt with if the fix works.  Floyds do not generally break strings.   I'd also change his string brand away from a hex core to a round core string (I like EB's but we are trying to nail a problem)  and tell him to "man up" with a 10-46 gauge while you are at it (in a very diplomatic way).

The reported fact that he had tuning problems is also of concern - did you change out the pivot posts?  Also check that the pivot post ferrules are not on the move upward and are secure (post holes can become elongated with severe use).  Also, pull the string cleats out and deburr the top edges (if they need it) and go over the saddle string runs with some fine paper.   Other than that I can't think of anything.  Good luck Grahame - if it was easy everybody would be doing it!  Rusty.

[Grahame Myers]

Hi rusty

Thanks for your thoughts: I did change the pivot bolts of course, but not the posts they screw into. They're flush with the body, and not loose at all: I didn't see the point in pulling them just because new ones came with the FR set: It's often a hassle to pull them without chipping the very thick poly paint jobs on these things (although I do have the right special tool to extract them)

I'll be interested to see the customers reaction to the idea with 10-46's :-), and the idea of de-burring a brand-new genuine FR that cost €249! the only trem I like is the Bigsby: Looks way cool, and never goes wrong :-)

 

Grahame

 

[Russell Vance]

Yep, sorry Grahame I wasn't trying to tell you how to suck eggs - just going through all the things that have trapped me from time to time.

Bigsbys look way cool and work very well as a fashion accessory or as paperweights. They should come equipped with a guitar tech to keep them in tune.  R.

[Jeffrey L. Suits]

And, oh, those Buffalo Springfield songs...

[Chris Rochow]

I agree that it very well be your customer's technique, and not the FR.  I'd prefer to see D'Addario string on it... their EXP's are fantastic.  He's probably raising the pitch, stretching the string more, and breaking over the FR.

Let us know how it went for you.

[FRANK]

when strobed while pulling the trem up how high of pitch can you pull more then two steps?

[Grahame Myers]

Nope, the trem body is parallel with the body cavity, and that gives you about 1 and a half tones, like from E to F#, nothing extreme. The player doesn't do extreme bends anyway, a lot of the time he just hits the trem arm with the heel of his hand to create special effects, he's not one of the players that yanks on the arm as if he wants to straighten it out .-)

I did suggest moving up to 10-46's, which didn't thrill him: He said he's been using 9's for 20 years, and they've always worked. He has a point.. If you've been used to using 9's, it's a big jump up to 10's, more than you'd think. And anyway, the strings that broke were the A and D (not D and G like I wrote in the first post), and they're pretty sturdy: I'd suspect roughness on the string saddles as the cause of the problem, if anything.

I also broached the subject of using D'Adario's (sp?) instead of EB's, the jury's out on that one...

He has a gig on Saturday, and asked me to change the new FR out for the old one for the moment, till we get a handle on this problem. Before I installed the old one, I polished the string saddles to a mirror shine to at least rule that problem source out: I saw on the new FR that the surfaces of the string saddles are pretty rough, hard to tell if it's just the paint, or the metal itself. I wanted to polish the string saddles on the new one, and leave it in, and see if that solved the problem, but he was adamant that I should get a replacement from my supplier, as he maintains that it's defect, and should work out of the box like it is.

I don't think that's going to solve the problem, we're just wasting time, but as long as he's paying the bill...... :-)

The story continues....I love FR's: you can spend hours solving problems that you never had before they were invented... :-)

 

Grahame

[Tim Mace]

I once heard that no matter whose name is on the label all guitar strings are made by one co.This only applies

to the US and was way before outsourcing so maybe things have changed ...at least I just changed my strings. 

[Donald A. Fortune]

Hi Grahme- I have a new floyd rose trem and the saddles are chrome so if they ware out thats a lot of playing -- string saver saddles are the only thing that I can think of to prevent any ferther breakage--  or at least slow it down considerably.

just my two cents worth -- beas to you with the problem  -- Peace, Donald

[Jonathan David Griffin]

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to share this with those who are interested. I'm not surprised that a brand new vibrato from Floyd Rose isn't working well. There is a well-known manufacturer named Suhr that has ceased using the genuine Floyd Rose because of quality issues. Apparently, they had to do a lot of tweaking to the Floyds they were getting and decided to use a product they found to be more consistent. Here is a thread where some of the Floyd Rose issues are detailed.  http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=312436