Drop-in tremolo design.

[Thundergod]

...not at all... they are placed where the studs for your bridge are... the only routing you require is in the headstock, for the "after the nut" nut lock (if you want to do it, which I would, if not it renders the trem useless as it will go out of tune).

 

I used to have one so Im positive you dont need routing, you just install it using the holes already in your guitar (I think AXE has some guitars with kahler trems as well).

 

 

Here's a couple of pics where you can see there's no routing needed:

 

[Thundergod]

The thing with all this things (stetsbar, kahler hybrid locking trem, and who knows what else) is the price.

 

In my opinion and experience, only the kahler and stetsbar are really good. The schaller "version" of the les trem is just "ok". Those 3 are above 200 bucks. So its really hard for most players to invest in such a thing after spending on a les paul.

 

The "cheap" ones (below 100) are the les trem and the (I dont remember the name right now, I think it was the bowen arm or bowen hadle or something of the like) and are just lame (you get as much variation as with a bigsby but bigsbies are way more stable).

 

Bigsbies look good, price is in the middle, but they serve as vibrato units only (same goes for maestros, again , just my opinion, Ive seen guys try to divebomb those things).

 

 

 

So, if you are really commited to comming up with a great product that does the job, you must consider you already have competition, the good side is, those that can be described as great products are very expensive. You come up with a way to sell your thing for less than 150 bucks and you'll be selling lots of them. I would buy 2 or 3 for starters!

 

Good luck and keep on posting about this! (just dont post specs or descriptive graphics, you can never know who is watching this, someone could just steal your design). Best of luck man!

[Thundergod]

One more thing (from lamest to most useful)

 

Bowen Handle (found it!) about 60 bucks... this product was so lame this guys are still trying to sell their 80s stock... (really)

http://www.freedomguitar.com/products_bowen_handle.php?UID=20090131033238201.217.65.116

 

Les Trem, 170 (way more than I remembered/expected!!! this thing is way overpriced).

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailpieces/Electric_guitar_tremolos/Les_Trem_Stop-Tailpiece_Tremolo.html

 

Schaller trem for les paul (dont know if they still make them, they were about 230 if I remember correctly)

http://schaller-guitarparts.de/hp14774/Tremolo-LP.htm?ITServ=CY1814307dX11f2bab7cdfXY7edf

 

Stetsbar above 250 (I think its too expensive, and the tremolo arm looks really weird)

http://stetsbar.com/

 

Kahler hybrid system (I think its about 230 bucks + shipping) there's a more expensive model (about 400), but what's the point? they are expensive as it is... and they dont come with the nut lock... thats $35 extra.

http://www.kahlerusa.com/home.html

 

 

 

So if you come up with a not so expensive (say 100-190 bucks) option, Ill buy it, and many players will.

[rdclmn7]

I looked up the links just posted.

The Kahler, you just can't trust what they posted on their site.

I wish I knew how they made theirs...

The Bowen is lame because only the tailpiece moves, you push down on it and your strings rattle on your frets.

Kahler makes use of cams, yet I couldn't find anything to explain how it's put together.

Schaller has very short springs attached under their tailpiece...

 

I just can't see how it would be expensive if it uses aftermarket parts;

Bridge saddles that are height adjustable.

Standard trem springs will work, the only disadvantage is that you have to provide enough space for it to stretch, increasing the length of the bridge platform.

Otherwise you have to re-engineer it for shorter springs, which will increase the price.

The trem bar is generic, to mount it, well, I had a Samick in Korea(89-91) that had a threaded shaft that screwed into the base plate, so its been done.(talk about one horrible trem, you can tell that a musician didn't design it)

 

The manufacturing is pretty simple, stamp some 2mm steel plate(16 guage?), drill it.

Stamp the trem platform, drill it.

Drill the back of the bridge assembly and weld it.

Stamp and press-brake the spring bracket.

Compare that to the many hoops you have to jump through to get the other products to market.

 

Having looked up prices, the difference in price has to do with the manufacturing process.

Fender parts on the whole are stamped, with some of them drilled.

No matter what variant of the tune-o-matic you find, they are all expensive as the process seems to be that of machining a steel block, the tailpiece being cast and then drilled, the casting taking precious time.

There's no way that a bigsby can be made without casting.

An aftermarket strat at its cheapest, I just found it, less than $30 w/s&h.

Fabricating parts out of flat plate steel, on the basis of how fast you can stamp and drill them, is apparently the way to go.

Just wait until R&D stylizes it, it would sell itself.

[SolidGuitar]

I'm certain that you still need to rout a small cavity under the Kahler for the cam to move up and down in. Here is a link of someone who installed one on a Gibson style bridge post. http://www.timeelect.com/bk-v-kahler.htm

[Thundergod]

Hey man, how about (this is a crazy idea) giving it a plate like that of the "maestro" trem, and placing all the springs and stuff beneath it... (just an idea... it might be useless... or it might work, plenty of room in there)

 

Keep posting man, this is getting interesting.

 

Did you check the schaller trem? The one thing I dont like about it (aside from the HUGE pricetag, which I find totally nuts) is that they made it one piece... so you end up with visible holes where the tailpiece used to be... why not make something like the schaller but consisting of separate (or not, but covering the entire area) bridge (roller) and taipiece (which could also have fine tuners, like the gibson tp-6 tailpiece I have on my std. faded?).

 

 

Pic of tp6

 

[Thundergod]

Oh, and please make it NICKEL!!! (not chrome, notice how the tp-6 tailpiece color differs from that of the rest of the guitars hardware? no nickel tp6, just chrome and gold).

[elantric]

I can confirm a small route is required to install Kahler trem - its needed for the Kahler springs which sit under the bridge.

[rdclmn7]

The baseplate has the straight end going straight in to the forward edge, there is nothing protruding below the 5mm threshold separating the baseplate from the guitar's face.

Being that the design is based on a Strat trem, you know that the back edge won't ever touch the surface, the baseplate's rear edge keeps that from happening.

So, the design is still viable, the designers can deal with the cosmetics as they see fit.

[Thundergod]

Not in the "newer" kahlers... I had one installed on an epi a while ago and it needed no extra routing. (it was the cheaver version I think)

[callen3615]

Can you guys keep a kahler in tune??????? Everyone I have ever went to do a bend, the string goes flat... then you have to dive. LAME. I like my floyds.

[80LPC]

I used to have a Washburn Wonderbar that did the same ( torsion bar - there's nothing new under the sun !). All you do is increase the spring tension. It helps to lube the rollers of course.

Here's a link to Wammi world. They talk of a 1" deep rout for all Kahlers. They deal in a lot of old stock, so maybe there's newer models like the one Thundergod mentions that are easier to fit.

For around £120, these look good, but there's no way I would consider a rout.

 

http://www.wammiworld.com/u7200.html

[80LPC]

Washburn Wonderbar torsion bar trem. Not pretty, but effective. With these, it was a case of 'set and forget'. The only drawback was they were best set up to only drop in pitch. However you could break a string, and all the rest would remain in tune.

 

 

 

[SolidGuitar]

Can you guys keep a kahler in tune??????? Everyone I have ever went to do a bend' date=' the string goes flat... then you have to dive. LAME. I like my floyds.[/quote']

 

That's funny because I have had the exact opposite experience as you. The Kahlers I've used were always really smooth and stayed in perfect tune through heavy use. As a matter of fact, I have an older Kahler on my Strat copy now with no locking nut and it hardly ever goes out of tune. Perhaps I'm just lucky.

[rdclmn7]

I got to see the flying V installation and I figured out what they meant by cam-driven.

If you rotate a shaft that includes cams, in your car it raises and lowers your valves.

For a shaft to be known as cam-equipped, it only has to lock on to a spring that counteracts the rotation made by spring tension.

No matter which way you look at the designs that have been designed for the archtop electric, they are limited to slacking the strings.

The impression I get out of that is that the price would have been the primary reason for these to not catch on(?),...those bigsby's are just plain ugly.

 

You guys should think about this, I mean, that when trems were first in use,(who knows when that was?), I don't think anyone really searched for every possible option, the impression I get is that is that nobody ever thought that a fulcrum could be suspended.

The truth is that I didn't ever think about that either, yet look at us, the drawings don't lie, the measurements have been made and double-checked, it still looks viable.

 

Oh, before I forget, I'm dying to see what's under the hood of that Washburn trem.

 

Drawing anyone?

[80LPC]

The vintage Bigsby has a strong visual appeal to a lot of people. Now from an engineering perspective it *really* is ugly !

I suspect the Wonderbar has a spring acting in torsion like you would find in derailleur pivot points. If I still had mine, I could have stripped it. You can see the access cover on the side (pin spanner).

[SolidGuitar]

I don't quite understand exactly how it works but I say get it patented and start making some prototypes.

[80LPC]

I realised there is a certain kind of spring that is the answer to this. From above, you would just see the adapter plate and the trem.

[rdclmn7]

I'll get another drawing posted later today.

Its better that you guys see how easy it is to make and, how easy it is to make work.

[80LPC]

Here is a very compact trem design from my 1959 Watkins Rapier 22. It needs a rout similar to a Kahler.

 

 

[WildeStarr]

Another take on the subject' date=' from Stew-Mac....

 

[img']http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q98/weeladdie2007/Les_Trem_Stop-Tailpiece_Tremolo_Det.jpg[/img]

 

 

I have installed a few of these... they work pretty good!

[rdclmn7]

I checked out the '59 trem, it reminds me of a Mustang trem, you can tell that this idea has been worked on for a long time.

Comparing the Les Trem to a Strat is an example of how manufacturing methods can really impact the retail price.

I looked at the prices, Les Trems are about $150 on up, the cheapest Strat bridge, under $25.

Its all due to casting, which is slow, and all the machining you need to make it.

The Strat bridge makes use of a lot of plate steel that gets punched, drilled and press-broken.

With the possible exception of the trem block, there is almost nothing to slow down production.

Like some of you guys have probably seen, time is money.

 

Punching components at their slowest, at least 60/minute.

Drilling, at least 3 sec/hole, a little slower...

Threading, a little slow,...

I can only wonder about what is it that makes Les Paul trems so expensive.

 

If you want to sell something, it has to compete with the best of what's out there.

A $25 fulcrum trem is at least as good as the LP adaptations.

A floyd rose is probably at least $100 a pop, and is probably the best example of cutting-edge technology.

Kahler will cost a good deal more than $100, and not work the same way a fucrum can.

Add to that the need to put saddle rollers if you use a separate trem, the cost just goes up.

 

If you have a product that performs and is cheaper, you will never catch up with demand.

There is no way that I'll rout my LP, especially when I can both avoid it and do better.

Our beloved guitars cost enough as it is, there is no way I'll blow the cash, I'd rather leave my 85 studio at home, Strats are plentiful, cheap, expendable, and I can find parts beyond Timbuktu.

 

Here you have the opportunity to make the best use of available technology, outclass the existing compromised designs and make it cheaper than everyone else.

I'll add another drawing later.