Elite strat to get a Kahler.

[Len Biglin]

Hi everyone , my friend has a Fender Elite strat , and wants to replace the original bridge with a Kahler , has anyone tried this before ? I know the Elite had a bad reputation bridge-wise .

[Russell Vance]

Len, I recently replaced a old broken Kahler with one of the new re-issue Kahlers.  There is a couple of pages of troubleshooting and fixes that accompanies the re-issues - for good reason.   I now rate these things along with Bigsbys as being great paperweights.   I worked very hard to get this system going to no avail (worked well unless you used the arm) and I stand defeated.

Please advise me if you have any success - I may have just had a <new> dud one, but suspect from the amount of verbiage regarding how to fix these things that I am not alone.

There are a bunch of different Elite bridges, I would probably attempt to refurb/repair the original rather than dig around near the cavity of an Elite.  Similarly, I understand that the Kahler is no great tone enhancer and given that the old Elites struggled in the tone department anyway I would spend a little bit of time in contemplation before launching into this modification.

It's hot down here bloke - how it travelling up your way?

Rusty.

[Len Biglin]

Thanks Rusty , Im not sure what the problems are yet , but I note the original bridge floats on a knife edge , in a channel across the width of bridge and I have not seen a Kahler like that . It was hot at 45 deg C on friday but mid 20s since , hope you get a break too.