Floyd Rose

[CJN]

Hi,

Can I make the Floyd Rose-system on a 2019/2020  Baretta Vintage non-floating simply by tightening the claw so that the bridge sits flush to the body?

Thanks!

[Stewart D.]

For what it is worth, I set up my (candy blue) Baretta Vintage to do this.  After some normal tweaking, the action and so forth were spot on.  But I went with a trem-stop in the trem cavity because I perhaps wrongly feared for the beating the finish under the Floyd might suffer over time.  I set the Floyd level, and the tension "just so" that it would lay flat against the body, no more.  It worked fine until I got chicken.     

[PurdyDot]

On 1/30/2020 at 4:51 AM, CJN said:

Hi,

Can I make the Floyd Rose-system on a 2019/2020  Baretta Vintage non-floating simply by tightening the claw so that the bridge sits flush to the body?

Thanks!

For reference, the bridge plate on a Floyd Rose, whether floating or not, is meant to be level/parallel with the body That keeps the trem blades alligned properly with the studgrooves as intended, leaves enough room for the string retainer screws under your fine tuners to travel freely, Keeps your trem bar at the intended angle compared to the guitar, etc.
So if you want a floyd to *only dive*, then you should find a way to "block your tremolo".
The idea being that you set the tremolo up so that your action and everything is how you want it, while in tune, and with the trem's base plate level dead level with the body, and then use something to literally *block* the travel in one direction.
There are a lot of commercial products available, like the "Trem Stopper", or "Tremolo-No", but also a lot of Do-It-Yourself options.
One easy DIY way, is to get your trem level, then flip the guitar over (making sure NOT to put any pressure on the tremolo -since you want it to stay level) and use some double-sided tape to stick a small piece of wood (or similar shim material) into the gap between the tremolo block and the guitar's body on the spring side (so the block can't tilt in that direction).
Putting a search into google for:
block floyd rose with wood
Should bring up a bunch of various tutorials and/or videos showing how to do it.
using the tape/wood method isn't the most permanent/reliable solution, but it has the positive side that it can be done very cheap, and since it requires no physical modification to the guitar, it's completely reversible. So it can be tried out without committing to any sort of permanent mod.
As a side suggestion, since you'd likely need to slacken the strings and/or remove a spring while doing any sort of blocking, use some painters tape to secure something in between the rear of the floyd, under the fine tuners, so that when the tension changes it won't bring the string locking screws digging into the body. that blue painter's tape won't leave sticky stuff on the body and is easy to remove, so there's no messy/annoying cleanup involved.
Anyway, take care and good luck to all potential DIYers! 😄
-Chris

 

[PurdyDot]

On 2/7/2020 at 6:40 PM, Stewart D. said:

For what it is worth, I set up my (candy blue) Baretta Vintage to do this.  After some normal tweaking, the action and so forth were spot on.  But I went with a trem-stop in the trem cavity because I perhaps wrongly feared for the beating the finish under the Floyd might suffer over time.  I set the Floyd level, and the tension "just so" that it would lay flat against the body, no more.  It worked fine until I got chicken.     

Heyhey 🙂
What sort of tweaking did you do?
On my vintage, when I tried to lower the floyd down to the deck, the action was waaaay too low, so I ended up taking it back up quite a ways (still far lower than it was from the factory. mine was all screwy from the factory).
If you weren't going to be pulling the trem sharp, then I think the trem-stop was a really good choice. I have an old kramer focus 2000 and the body under the tremolo has depressed indentation in it that's the shape of the shim plate on the bottom of the floyd. It actually compressed the wood down, at a slight angle, by somewhere around 1/32 to 1/64 of an inch.
Of course it's not something anyone would see without looking for it, but it's there, and of course since it's not quite flat and slightly off center, it's probably not the best platform for resting the floyd on anyway. So yeah, I think you guess right about the likelihood that it would end up damaging the finish that way.
Anyway, I was just curious how you got good action with it all the way down to the deck? is there a removable neck shim or something? (I haven't taken mine apart yet)

 

[CJN]

Thanks!

I have blocked the Floyd for dive-only. Is it important that the bridgeplate is totally paralell with the body? Mine is in a very slight tilt forward.