Tune-o-matic over a Strat trem hole

lucky

So I have a strat type body with a standard fender 6 screw trem bridge. I'm weighing up whether to convert it to a hardtail style bridge since I never use the trem system. What am I missing thinking that a Gibson style floating bridge would straddle the hole where the trem is cutout of the body, with the string mount screwed in further back? The hole could potentially be covered with a scratchplate but still be there if I ever wanted to re install the trem

Jonathangus

A Tun-o-matic will need a neck angle.  Much easier to screw the trem down and block it off with some bits of wood.

lucky

Ahhh so the gibson style bridges will be too high to fit a strat type? I've seen a couple of Fender/Squier type guitars with the 2 peice bridges- would one of them work?

steamabacus

By far the easiest way is to block off the vibrato block with a small piece of hardwood so that the current bridge can't move. Tighten the front six screws, the hardwood block wedges the vibrato into a fixed position. Once blocked off, you can even remove the springs if don't like the reverb-like sympathetic ring from them.

As noted above, a tunematic-style bridge would either need extreme shimming of the neck pocket to acheive enough neck angle for the height of the bridge or, alternatively, recessing of the tunematic bridge and tailpiece.

The time honoured method with the block works well and keeps a tidy appearance.

ICBM

steamabacus said:

Tighten the front six screws, the hardwood block wedges the vibrato into a fixed position.

But *not* too tight - even with the bridge blocked, they must not be tightened down beyond the point where they hold the bridge just flat on the body, without lifting the back edge. It’s best to set them exactly right with the strings off so you can judge when they’re just pulling the bridge down perfectly evenly onto the body over its whole area.

If you overtighten the screws and then force the block in to get the bridge down flat you can strip the threads in the wood or even snap the screw heads off. Not common but I have seen it done...

Funkfingers

Some ST-derived guitars have a Tune-o-Matic bridge. To work with the existing neck/body geometry, the bridge needs to be partially recessed into the front of the guitar.

Typically, guitars with this feature employ through body stringing rather than a tailpiece.