Floyd Rose Bridge: Leaning Post Repair

[morange]

I'm going to drill and plug the bridge post holes in my Japanese Fat Strat from the 80's. They've been cracked and leaning for as long as I've had the guitar - on one side it's the pickguard that's keeping it from moving farther. I've always done the repairs on this guitar, and I have a drill press, so I'll give it a go. Pics and progress updates will ensue.

Will drill out and put in hard maple. I have already tried epoxy, a few years ago, and that didn't work at all. I saw a nice how-to recently which renewed my interest: http://fingerlakesguitarrepair.com/fend ... trem-stud/
I'll use a deep plug cutter drill press attachment to make the plug though - I don't have a bandsaw or belt sander like this guy.
I'm ordering a piece of maple and the plug cutter online, so it'll be a minute till my next update.

Stuff:
3/4" forstner bit
3/4" plug cutter
a piece of hard maple 1.5" deep to cut plugs from

I won't use a hole saw like the guy in the tutorial - will plug existing hole with dowel so the guide in the center of the forstner bit has something to bit into.

Here's a shot of the naked body. You can see a broken out chunk of wook on one side. The other side is cracked, not nearly so bad, but the post leans slightly so I'll do that one too. My only real concern in all of this is getting the posts exactly in the right place after I do the repair. I'll have to be really precise I guess.


Small amount of basswood between post and humbucker rout means eventual failure.

[morange]

Here's a blog post by someone who fought this battle and lost: https://aayotee.wordpress.com/2013/12/0 ... ng-repair/

Another tangent - apparently some people freeze floyd rose bushings before pressing them into the guitar body. Bushings are brass, is there a significant shrinkage/expansion with temperature? I'll try it. I remember people recommending the same thing with the shank that connects the chuck to the body of the drill press, and others saying not to because the condensation would cause rust. No rust potential here, so no downside.

Another note - the reason I'm cutting plugs from a block instead of just using dowels is because dowels have the grain running the length of the dowel, and in that case I'd be drilling and pressing the bushing into the end grain, and the compression force of the bridge would be applied perpendicular to the grain. Apparently the compression strength of wood is much stronger parallel to the grain.
http://www.woodworkweb.com/woodwork-top ... ngths.html
https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf2001/green01d.pdf

[morange]

hard maple


plug cutter


forstner


brad point


glue


drill press


and my mitts

[Mudfuzz]

Looks like you are on the right path I've done something like this twice but the cause was strat bridges where the body cracked along all six holes.. one I actually routed the body out all the way to the neck and glued in new wood and re-routed the pickup holes, the other had floyds and several types of start bridges over the years and I did dowels in all.. 14 holes... oh wait no there was a 3rd.. someone routed a floyd over a kahler or a kahler over a floyd.. I filled the whole thing in with wood blocks and epoxy and made a hardtail out of it

[morange]

Holy hell, along all six holes?

I was thinking of doing the router/hardtail thing for this, having seen people here do it, but I like the bridge on this guitar. Hopefully the new maple will hold. Plus I think I can manage this, whereas I have no skill at all with a router.

[Mudfuzz]

Holy hell, along all six holes?

basswood + too much abuse and too much modding and yep.. crack!

I was thinking of doing the router/hardtail thing for this, having seen people here do it, but I like the bridge on this guitar. Hopefully the new maple will hold. Plus I think I can manage this, whereas I have no skill at all with a router.

No what you are thinking sounds proper to me. round is easier to fit than square and if you are careful the repair won't be easy to see in the end.

[morange]

I glued the plugs, trimmed, drilled 21/64 inch holes for the brass inserts, pressed in the inserts and cracked the body. Heard a crack on the first insert, and the second I pressed in was sheer bloody-mindedness. Anyway, glued the crack and will do the drill and plug again with slightly bigger plugs (7/8 instead of 3/4). And will drill 23/64 inch holes for inserts this time. Outer dimension of inserts is 3/8 inch. Remember kids, hard maple does not compress much before cracking.

[morange]

Here's a handy drill speed chart: https://www.fnal.gov/pub/takefive/pdfs/ ... _Chart.pdf

[Dr Satan]

On hardwoods that are prone to cracking - use water to soften the wood before pressing or screwing anything into them. I found that trick out building a pedalboard out of poplar. Even piloting the screwholes would still split the wood when putting in screws. Put a few drops of water in the holes to soften it up a bit and it went together flawlessly. I believe this will actually cause the wood to swell slightly, creating a tighter fit as well.

[Mudfuzz]

On hardwoods that are prone to cracking - use water to soften the wood before pressing or screwing anything into them. I found that trick out building a pedalboard out of poplar. Even piloting the screwholes would still split the wood when putting in screws. Put a few drops of water in the holes to soften it up a bit and it went together flawlessly. I believe this will actually cause the wood to swell slightly, creating a tighter fit as well.

this, plus floyd inserts should need to be hammered in, you should just be able to push them in by hand, if you need to hammer than the whole is too small.

[morange]

Yeah great advice guys, I'm learning the hard way, would you believe I cracked it again? Just the dowel this time though, not so bad. OK the hole definitely has to be 3/8", and the stud bites into the wood just a hair, should be perfect. I've been pressing with the drill press, and yeah, it's easy to just shove the thing in there no matter how tight, which is a problem I guess. Will post pics of final result to wrap this thread up, sometime in the next week or so. At least I've managed to add a list of mistakes to those available on the internet, for those trying this in the future.

[morange]

Got some new wood in and pressed in the posts no problems this time. Didn't do the freezing thing, pointless idea if not actively detrimental, but I did lightly wax the inside of the pre-drilled hole with beeswax to help the post slide in, and to help fill any gaps to keep out moisture once fitted. Anyway, did a bit of dowel trimming and will put a little paint on. In the meantime, bonus featurette! How to fix stripped pickguard screw holes:


I saved some fine shavings from the maple dowel work, and mixed some with wood glue. I drilled out the mushy rotted threads in the screw holes to get to some fresh wood, and pressed the shavings/glue slurry into the holes with the end of a smaller drill bit, packing them down tight, wiping away glue squeeze-out, adding more. Let it dry and trimmed the flower off the top with a chisel. Will pre-drill holes for the screws, then good to go.

[morange]

My repair work looks pretty fucking ugly but when the thing is put together again and works I'll call it success.

[morange]

Also, the Diablo brand Forstner drill bits at Home Depot are great and worth every penny.

[BetterOffShred]

Also, the Diablo brand Forstner drill bits at Home Depot are great and worth every penny.

My dad's got a Diablo blade on his table saw.. it's the tits. I used it to rip the rough cut (maybe I should have used a shittier blade.. ) on the poplar body blank for my slowly occurring Telecaster-from-scratch project, and man I could get strips you could almost see through.

I dig your repair man, I'm kind of stoked to see how it turns out. As far as the aesthetics of the whole process, well that's what you have the pick guard for!