Plugging Holes

After unscrewing the TremKing from the guitar body I was left with three holes which would all need to be plugged before I could drill for the Hipshot inserts.

So obviously I began by taping the guitar off with masking tape so as not to accidentally scratch the finish while I’m working.

To plug the holes I used toothpicks in the same way as if I was plugging a stripped screw hole.

After stripping the toothpicks roughly in half, I coated each piece with wood glue and then jammed as many of them as I could, into each hole

Trimmed the toothpicks with scissors…

…and then cleaned it up with a razor.

Now that the old holes were filled in, it was time to drill for the inserts for the Hipshot.

Drilling

Obviously, before I even thought about drilling, I needed to measure up and mark of where the holes would need to go.

Originally I was intending to drill the inserts with a hand drill using a doweling jig, but to be safe I ended up finding a friend with a drill press so that I could get the holes drilled perfectly vertical. In hindsight though, the drill press was probably overkill and I would go with the doweling jig if I needed to do it again in future.

After drilling I just pushed the inserts in…

…and then gently hammered them tight with a rubber mallet.

And believe it or not, thats all there is to it! The main trem assembly just rests against the inserts.

And the screws and springs went in like any other trem.

Now that the TremKing is lying on a rubbish heap somewhere, I’m back to a simple, floating trem that works and actually stays in tune.

Ahhh… Happy days are here again…

Choosing the TremKing

I considered the locking tremolo options such as Floyd Rose, Kahler and even the Super-Vee, which is a Floyd style design, but a direct retrofit for a strat. But being a classical guitarist, and having had no experience with locking tremolos, I decided to play it safe and go for a non-locking design. Many Floyd users complain of difficulty tuning/changing strings, so for this guitar I thought I should avoid these potential problems (but of course, I still want to get a Floyd-equipped ax in the future – just not yet).

Of the non-locking designs I had the choice of the good ol’ Wilkinson or a standard strat bridge (by Callaham). Unfortunately, the strat bridge has only a little upward range (or non at all if I set it hard against the face of the guitar). The Wilkinson had the advantage of being able to be ‘recessed’ allowing for considerable up and down travel. The only drawback from the Wilkinson is that (IMHO) they’re ugly, and I don’t care for the satin finish either … yep, I know…VAIN.

Also, I wanted to do double stop bends, drop tuning, etc without affecting the tuning of the other strings. There are a bunch of devices available which use a ‘pre-stressed’ spring to accomplish this, including the Goeldo BackBox, WD Trem Stabilizer, and of course the Hipshot Tremsetter.

But then I came across the TremKing which appeared to be the best of all worlds.

For starters, it had already incorporated a pre-stressed stabilizing spring into the design. Also, it was capable of significant upward travel, and it didn’t require a locking nut or need fine tuners. I also felt that it had a nice appearance – modern, but retro at the same time.

I took the plunge and ordered one – sight unseen.

The Good

As advertised, the TremKing does a wonderful job of keeping in tune. It keeps its tune if I break a string, and bending the strings does not cause other strings to go flat. The stabilising system does exactly what it is supposed to.

Also, the travel of the unit is quite good. I can easily get a tone pulling up, and between two and three tones pushing down on the bar. Obviously it does not have the range of a Floyd, and you can’t completely slacken the strings. But really this is a good thing – without a locking nut fully slack strings would come out of the nut slots.

The Bad

Here goes….

String Breakage

Because of the way this tremolo is designed, the saddles remain stationary when using the bar. This means that the string is constantly slipping and sliding across the saddle. Normally, this extra friction would cause unnecessary wear, and premature string breakage.

To overcome this problem the TremKing people sensibly chose to use Graphtech saddles. Graphtech saddles are low friction and avoid the problem of unnecessary string breakage.

Unfortunately though, because of the way that the string passes over the top of the tone block, the string is still rubbing against metal. This means that although the saddles will not cause premature string breakage, they will still still break early because the strings rub against the top of the tone block.

Fortunately though, the break angle across the top of the tone block is quite slight, so the issue of string breakage is only really prominent on the lighter strings. For me, this means that I have broken two high ‘E’ strings in a week, though none of the other strings have broken yet. Also, I’ve found that you can overcome this problem by wrapping masking tape around the string about a centimeter or two from the ball end. This causes the tone block to rub against the masking tape, and since the masking tape is behind the saddle it does not affect the vibration of the string.

I’m not the only person who has had a problem with the high ‘E’ string breaking often: review on the seymour duncan forums

Tension Bar Comes Off

The TremKing design requires that there is a pre-stressed spring which acts as a trem stabiliser. This spring is attached to a metal bar, called the tension bar, which keeps the spring under tension. The problem is that the spring does not attach very securely to the tension bar, so over time (or with heavy trem use), the spring can work its way out of the tension bar.

This means that if in the middle of playing the spring pops out, you’ll hear a loud, disconcerting clank, and then your guitar will go completely out of tune.

If, like me, you tend to leave the back plate off your guitar you will have springs shooting across the room (or shooting into your stomach). Of course, you can leave the backplate on, but then everytime it comes off you’ll have to remove the backplate to reset it.

I emailed Rusty (Mr. TremKing) with a suggestion about having the end of the spring threaded so that it could actually screw onto the tension bar. He thanked me for the suggestion, so I hope that means that he will implement it at some stage.

Again, I’m not the only person who has had this problem: review on thegearpage board, and also Ricks review (half-way down the page).

On the plus side Rusty has sent me a replacement spring and tension bar, where the spring has a small crimp in the end. This crimp is enough to hold the spring to the tension bar.

Also, I had good results by gluing the spring to the tension bar. It works well, just make sure that you use a good two-pack metal glue.

Zero-Point

This is the last main issue that I had with the TremKing. The TremKing doesn’t always return exactly to zero. In my experience, it needs a slight push (or pull, depending on how I’ve set it up), after using the bar, to get it to return to the zero-point. It’s not a big problem because once you are familiar with the unit you automatically compensate with a small flick of the bar and then you are exactly back to pitch. It is a little bit annoying though, and is far from a perfect design.

I pulled the TremKing apart to see if there was anything that I could modify to get the unit to return on pitch more reliably. After unscrewing everything I found that the TremKing uses a ball-baring type pivot on the high ‘E’ side, but that on the low ‘E’ side it is just using a pin. After hosing the pin with copious amounts of WD-40 the TremKing returned to pitch appreciably more reliably. I personally feel that if the design used a ball-bearing joint on both ends, then the unit would return to zero far better than it does currently.

Again, others on the net have experienced this problem. All of the previous three links I’ve posted (thegearpage board, seymour duncan forum, and Ricks review) mention tuning instability and drift and/or having to tug the bar to get it to return to pitch.

No Pride in their Product

This isn’t really a functional issue but nonetheless, it reflects poorly on the TremKing company. The suede cushion on the TremKing is not properly glued to the tension bar or support arms. So the suede has begun to peel away from the metal. It doesn’t really effect the function of the trem, but it is wierd that the promotional pictures on the actual TremKing website also have the suede peeling off! Why would they display a dodgy unit on their promo shots? They don’t seem to have any pride in their product.

(The image can also be found by going to their installation page and then clicking on ‘Tone Block 2′)

Other Problems

In addition to the problems listed above, my particular TremKing also had a broken delrin sleeve which is what the trem arm is supposed to slip into. This meant that the trem arm would dangle, flop about and even fall out. Also, for some reason, this sleeve seems to serve to electrically isolate the arm from everything else. But since mine was broken, it meant that every time I touched the trem arm it would create a buzz/static noise. After e-mailing Rusty at TremKing he sent me a replacement sleeve. With the new sleeve I now have some control over the tension of the arm, and the static noise problem has gone away.

Why I’m Still Keeping the TremKing

By this stage I’ve replaced the delrin insert, replaced the trem arm, lubed the pivot joints, taped up the strings, and glued the tension bar to the spring. All in all I’ve done a lot of DIY work to make this thing perform well. But now that I have done all of this I feel that this trem is as good or better than any non-locking trem that is available and (finally) does what it is supposed to do.

Although I emailed Rusty about the tension-arm/spring issue, and suggested the screw-in solution, I have not told him about any of my other ideas – essentially because I feel as though I’ve been an unpaid, R&D, guinea pig.

The TremKing is one of the best ideas for an after market trem that I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately though, I feel that it has been made to a price-point without due regard to quality. As a result of poor quality control, and a few minor design flaws, this unit falls very far short of being the tremolo wonder that it easily could have been.

If/when TremKing release Version 2 with these issues addressed I may consider using it.

The Compound Radius

I had no idea what to expect with the compound radius since I’d never played one before, but now, having played this guitar for over a month, I can see no reason in having more guitars made with compound radii. Open chords are comfortable and the high notes aren’t as prone to choking when I bend – but very wide bends can still cause the strings to ‘fret-out’. It would be nice if Warmoth offered a few different compound radius options. I for one would welcome a 12″ to 18″ – particularly if I decided to order a 24 fret neck. Warmoth quote the typical Ibanez radius to be 12″ as a guide, but I know for a fact that many of the Ibanez Wizard necks are actually closer to a 17″ radius. Even these extreme radii are not immune to fretting-out and really, for a 24 fret neck, the neck needs to be as flat as possible at the high end of the neck. But remember, since I’m a classical player, I’m already very accustomed to a flat fingerboard. Also, I think that there would be a market for lower compound radii, maybe 7.25″-9.5″ for Fender fans who would like the best from both the vintage and modern strat necks.

Note that USACG (a competitor to Warmoth) do offer a range of compound radii and they will even let you ask for a custom compound radius, for a price. Because of this I thought I might order my next neck from them. Unfortunately my next guitar will be a 24 fretter, but USACG don’t do 24 fret necks!! I’m stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.

Frets and Fretwork

Many reviews on the net report that Warmoth do dodgy fretwork. As far as I can tell, the fretwork is as good as can be expected without them knowing your string gauge, neck relief, nut preference and action. The frets are level and smooth, which is all one can ask for. Obviously, if you want the perfect fret job then you’ll need to get a luthier to do a full set up with a properly cut nut and the works (and maybe get it plek’d). Still, the fretwork was as good as I could hope for.

Neck Profile

When ordering the neck I wasn’t sure exactly what neck thickness I was after. People on the net talk about the difference of a few millimetres making a huge difference – with many people just wanting the slimmest neck possible. Whereas others want giant baseball bat necks that they could hold with their entire palm. I played safe with a standard thin.

In hindsight, I really don’t think that the neck thickness is as big a deal as some people think. Instead, Warmoth have taken the sensible approach by making the order by shape rather than by thickness (although the actual measurements are available on the site). I’d have to say that this is probably my favourite electric guitar neck, possibly sharing first place with one of the JEM necks (can’t recall which model/year). Overall, I’d say the shape and the compound radius had far more to do with the great feel of this neck than its thickness. This neck can easily fit into your palm for thumb-over-the-top stuff, but is perfectly suited to standard technique as well.

The Body

The body was fine – just as it was on the showcase. My only issue is that the neck pocket was too small for the neck. Of course, it’s better if it’s too tight than too large – you can always make a small pocket bigger, but you can’t make a large pocket smaller. I realise that if I had been ordering a replacement body, that it’d be impossible for them to ensure that the neck would fit, since different necks are made to different tolerances. However I would have thought that since I was ordering the neck and body together that they would have ensured a good fit.

In Warmoth’s defence, they do understand that neck pocket size can be hit and miss, and will re-rout the neck pocket free of charge if you send it back to them. The only problem with that is that I live in Australia and there was no way I was sending it all the way back to the U.S. just for that!

As it turned out, I needed my luthier to do some routing anyway for the TremKing bridge, so he was happy to enlarge the neck pocket (free of charge) while he had the guitar in his shop.

Conclusion

Since every little option carries an up charge (a simple battery rout is $15) they are a bit pricey, and their customer service can be terse and unhelpful (at least when emailing with ‘Tony’). But as for the quality of the work, I’m perfectly happy.

So if I’m going to play new styles I’ll need a new guitar, right? After all, I can’t rock on a nylon string After playing a lot of guitars, and reading reviews and articles online, I soon discovered that the really fine guitars are either custom built, or are megabucks top-of-the-line flagship models from regular manufacturers. Also, I was afraid that if I did splash out on such a guitar, I’d have ‘kid-gloves’ syndrome and would be too afraid of ruining the instrument to play it regularly.

What I wanted was an affordable, but professional, player’s instrument.

Over here in Australia, because of import taxes, freight and the lousy value of the dollar, guitar prices are ridiculously steep ($3,000 for a basic Fender Deluxe Stratocaster). For that money I felt I could create something a little more personal, and hopefully, as good or better than the off-the-shelf products.

Choosing the Custom Manufacturer

Ordering a truly custom guitar is an expensive investment, but if you want a quasi-custom guitar that is based on standard body shapes and neck types, the prices drop dramatically. This is because most makers of customised standard parts are using CNC machines to handle much of the workload.

I narrowed my choices down to three major CNC based custom guitar makers. These were USACustomGuitars, Musikraft and Warmoth.

These three manufacturers all have their pros and cons, and any of them would have produced a fine guitar that played well, but in the end I settled on Warmoth. My reasons were that I wanted the 10″-16″ Compound radius (note: USACG also have a compound radius), and I preferred to choose my parts from the ‘showcase’. Using the showcase meant that I was able to see the parts that I was ordering rather than having a part made-to-order and hoping that it turned out how I imagined. Both USACG and Musikraft have quasi-showcase equivalents however the choices are limited, since they are both smaller companies. A big plus for Musikraft and USACG is that since they are smaller companies, they are able to accommodate special requests and custom routing etc, which Warmoth refuse to do. This particular guitar was intended to be a straight-ahead stratocaster, so I had no special requests, but for a future build that I have in mind, I will probably end up using USACG or Musikraft.

The Neck Wood

I have heard mixed opinions on the quality of Warmoth’s work/quality of wood – some people rave about them, whilst others have had bad experiences with them. So to be on the safe side, I chose a quarter-sawn maple neck. Although a bird’s-eye or flamed neck would have looked nicer, I went for the superior structural integrity of a quarter-sawn neck. Maple is a typical stratocaster neck wood, and suited the straight-ahead strat tone that I was after.

The Fretboard

I ordered this neck with a pau-ferro fingerboard. Pau-ferro is generally considered to be tonally somewhere between maple and ebony. I loved the dark colour and grain patterns of rosewood, but I did not like the more open grain that some (cheaper) rosewood fretboards have. Also, I wanted this guitar to be bright and ‘spanky’ so a fretboard that was tonally closer to maple or ebony seemed a good choice. Rosewood would have tamed the brightness of the guitar somewhat, so pau-ferro seemed like a good choice.

Pau-ferro not only gave me the sound and the feel (tight-grain) that I was after, but this particular piece of pau-ferro also had a very attractive grain pattern to boot!

The Neck Construction

I decided to use the Warmoth ‘Pro’ Construction. The ‘pro’ construction uses Gotoh’s double expanding truss rod with the side adjust mechanism. The side adjust mechanism is convenient, and the heavier truss rod would increase the overall mass of the neck, which may increase the sustain. Also, the compound radius that I was after was only offered with ‘pro’ construction.

Fret Type/Size

This was an easy one. For me the frets had to be stainless steel. Not only do the stainless steel frets remove the need for a future re-fret, they are also reputed to be tonally brighter than nickle, which suited me.

I also chose tall-narrow frets even though many people prefer short-wide frets. Since I have little experience playing and owning electric guitars, I kinda had to guess with this one – I really had no idea of what sort of fret size I wanted so I just looked around on the net and tried to form an educated guess. Fingers-crossed that I made the right decision.

Body

I chose alder. It’s a standard strat wood, with standard strat tone. Often burst finished strats, such as mine, are made with ash since ash can be visually more interesting than alder, however this particular piece of alder looks just fine. Also, I chose a single piece body. Single piece bodies are generally considered to resonate better since there is no glue line to dampen the resonance. Also, different pieces of wood can have different grain and density, meaning that each piece of a two piece body will not share the exact same resonance characteristics.

I’m not too sure how much this two-piece versus one-piece debate actually effects tone, and how much is hearsay and ‘mumbojumbo’, but since this is my dream strat, I decided that I go with the one-piece… just to be safe.

Plus, I prefer the look of one-piece bodies Yes, I’m being vain, I know, but well… I want it to look purdy, don’t I?

Pickups and Electronics

This one took me a loooong time to finally come to a decision. I knew that I wanted a simple S-S-S layout, but what brand? And what type? Should I get ‘stacked’ humbuckers or ‘side-by-side’ humbuckers… or do the single-coil style humbuckers sound fake and unauthentic? Maybe I should get straight up REAL single coils, without the humbucking. Also, what about the Suhr BPSSC? That system would allow me to use any normal true single coil and then, using active electronics, I could ‘dial-out’ the hum.

In the end I decided that I didn’t want any hum – after all I’m not a vintage purist. Generally, most side-by-side humbuckers had a ‘mini-humbucker’ sound to them and sounded nothing like average single coils, except for the Joe Barden Strat pickup set. These pickups sounded nothing like humbuckers and sounded more single coil than most single coils! What I mean is that they seem very accurate, very bright, hi-fi and even.

The problem plaguing most stacked humbuckers is that many of them require non-traditional capacitor values on the tone pot. This indicates to me that they hadn’t really created a good single-coil sound, and were desperate to retain definition by using higher cap values. Also, stacked pickups often sound compressed, and ruin the attack of the note. The only set of stacked pickups which seemed to have addressed these issues were by Chris Kinman. Kinman stacked ‘single-coils’ retained an open attack, and suited normal strat cap values.

Finally the Suhr BPSSC system seemed interesting. With this system you are able to use any regular single coil, and use the BPSSC to remove the hum. Even though most reviews indicated that the system was very good, I decided not to use it since it was an active system and required batteries, and I wanted to avoid having to regularly change batteries if I could.

In the end it was a toss up between Barden and Kinman, and I eventually chose Kinman because they sounded like a straight-ahead stratocaster. That being said, I’m very anxious to start building another, less traditional sounding guitar and use the Barden pickups!

Also, I decided to get the pre-wired K-9 No-Solder Harness from Kinman. This gives me access to the standard five strat settings, and also some other pickup combinations which aren’t normally available on most strats, which include: all three pickups in parallel, bridge and neck in parallel, bridge and middle in series, and bridge and middle in series with the neck in parallel. I am competent with a soldering iron, but even so, I figured I couldn’t screw up if I bought it pre-wired.

Tuning Heads

I decided early on that I had to have locking tuners. Locking tuners make string changing quick and easy, and provide extra tuning stability – particularly when using tremolo without a locking nut. There are quite a few locking tuners on the market, and the really fancy ones even trim the excess string off while you wind it up to pitch! But in the end I chose a set of simple Gotoh locking tuners.

Unlike most locking tuners these are top-locking. Most tuners have a
(finger-chaffing) knurled nut on the back of the tuner, which you turn
to lock the string. But these Gotoh tuners lock the strings automatically as you tune up to pitch! (Hence they lock the string ‘from the top’ rather than having an extra nut on the back)

Nut

Since I am going to have a tremolo, with a fairly wide pitch range, I’ll need to have a low friction nut. The LSR roller nut was a clever idea, which I considered, but I ended up choosing the Graphtech Nut since it is simple and has no moving parts. The Graphtech nut creates a thin lubricant barrier between the string and the nut which minimizes friction.

I also considered using a compensated nut such as those offered by
Earvana or the (expensive) Buzz Feiten tuning system. These nuts improve the overall intonation of the guitar, and make the guitar more in-tune across all the frets. They are great ideas but unfortunately the
Earvana is not a low-friction and although a low-friction version of the Feiten system is possible it is just too expensive. Besides, later on if I decide that I would like a compensated nut I can always get one then. Also, I understand the concepts behind compensated nuts, so in the future, I might find a way to ‘DIY’ a compensated nut, but using a graphite blank. This would give me the best of both worlds – low friction and precise intonation.

Tremolo

I had a lot of fun hunting down a tremolo for my project. Rather than talk you through my entire decision making progress I’ll just give you the short list: Original Floyd Rose, Schaller Floyd Rose, Gotoh Floyd Rose, Stetsbar, TremKing, Super-Vee, Callaham, Hipshot, or Wilkinson by Gotoh. Eventually I decided that the double-locking systems are too much hassle for me at the moment, plus they didn’t fit the ‘traditional’ look of the guitar (yep, I’m being vain again ).

The Callaham is essentially the ideal incarnation of the standard Fender ‘Synchronized Tremolo’, and the Hipshot was a variant of the Fender ‘Two-Point’ American Deluxe design, however I preferred to have a fair amount of ‘pull-up’ available on this guitar, which ruled the Callaham out.

Between the TremKing and the Wilkinson I chose the TremKing since it will stay in-tune even if I break a string, and personally I think that the satin finish of the Wilkinsons is kinda ugly. Also, the TremKing has a lovely ‘vintage-modern’ vibe to it, which I like.

So my short list came down to two: the Stetsbar and the TremKing.

Honestly I liked them both and ended up ordering both! I’ve now decided that I’ll use the TremKing as it looks more traditional, but I’m looking forward to building another guitar and trying out the Stetsbar too.

The Final Guitar

Unfortunately the only still camera I have is a mobile-phone P.O.S. so apologies for the quality

UPDATE: Got a proper (but super cheap) Kodak, so these images should be reasonable quality.

Click for larger images