Doink

How 'bout a slightly downsized strat type body, made of mahogany, with extended cutaways, set-through neck, ebony board with boomers and 27 frets, the last 3 being angled, Floyd bridge, humbucker at the bridge, single coil at the next, droopy/hockey stick style reversed headstock, stadium logo....

From what I understand, you can order the baseplate direct from Schaller for $20. I'd contact them directly. Meanwhile, what I do is just take a slightly larger screw, from my pile of Ibanez Edge parts, and screw that in. It ain't purdy, but it works in a pinch.

Those Warmoth versions look great! A Tune-O-Matic would be a big improvement. Also, I forgot to not that the trussrod on my JM is only accessible if you take the neck off. At the time, I didn't know any better, but now I usually only buy guitars with truss rods that I can adjust while the neck is still attached. I am VERY anal about my action/set up, and living in a high humidity area, I find myself adjusting my trussrods about 3 or 4 times a year, as everything changes with the seasons. This is the biggest reason why I haven't purchased one of those Charvel reissues. The truss is NOT accessible at the headstock. That's a big enough issue on a guitar like the JM, but on a Floyd machine, YIKES! I'm not quite THAT patient!

I have a 1995 Jazzmaster, the first series of the reissues. It was the first "good" guitar I ever owned, purchased at the height of the grunge/alternative scene (even though I really wanted the Floyd loaded Fender HM Strat, but, you know, teenage peer pressure). I paid $600 for it, new, sans case. It was made in Japan, at the Fujigen factory. It is a pretty well made guitar, as are most of the pieces that come from that factory. The guitar feels nice over all, and certainly has it's own unique sound. It even survived a trip down a staircase. The things I don't like are: - Due to the string-through-thinga-ma-jigger being so far back from where it bridges, the angle is very slight, and I find that when I play hard, which is often, the strings pop out of the slots in the saddles. - The bridge isn't very secure. It can easily slide back and forth, while it stays anchored down in the studs. This severely fucks with intonation. - The small frets really aren't my thing, and I chewed through them rather quickly. All that said, it is a good guitar. Like the others say, make sure you play one first and make sure it's what you want. I do still have a use for it today, in heavy metal. I use for my F Minor tuned songs, as it's the easiest guitar to retune out of my bunch.

I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune. I've had great luck with Ibanez. I currently have 6 RG's, the newest part being a 2002 neck, the rest are late 80's/early 90's models, and all have withstood the test of time. Sure there's some corrosion and rust here and there, but I can expect that with a 15 or 20 year old guitar, and with the abuse that I put them through. Ibanez doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Hamer or Jackson. I owned one of those floral print JEMs. It cost me $1800 at the time and it was a *complete* POS. The thing literally rusted apart...I shit you not. The trem and neck plate damn near disintegrated. Ibanez refused to stand by their product, claiming that I had "corrosive sweat". Bullshit. I had a stable of guitars at that time and *none* of them fell apart. Just because they spent more money on endorsements doesn't mean they built a good guitar. Did you ever wonder *why* they had to have so many paid endorsers? They built a POS and then then outspent everyone in advertising...they are the guitar world equivalent of Bill Gates and Microsoft.

I can't believe Ibanez hasn't garnered more votes. It seems like the beginning of the superstrat all started with 2 1/2 companies; Jackson/Charvel and Kramer. Both had their own hand in it. By the mid 80's, other companies were on the boat as well, including Hamer. But when Ibanez earned/bought Steve Vai's endorsement, the superstrat was taken to another level. I can only imagine being at the NAMM show in 1987, and seeing the unveiling of the JEM, RG, S series, P series, and R series all at once. With the superior Edge trem, thin Wizard neck, flat fretboards, huge frets, sunken trem, crazy colors, and sharp body edges, Ibanez went on to dominate the late 80's and early 90's. Look through their old catalogs, and their roster of players dwarfs that of Hamer or anyone else. I own at least one superstrat from just about every company, and many companies made high quality guitars. They all have their own feel and personality, but it's tough to say that any one made a "better" guitar than the other. When I think "superstrat", I think Ibanez. When I have to put it all the line, I reach for one of my 2 main Ibanez's.

Ok, first off, please post a larger picture, especially of the body. It's really hard to tell in that picture what the Floyd and pickups are. I believe the Centaura came stock with a Duncan JB in the bridge. For your buzzing problem, it sounds like the grounding lead needs to be resoldered to the trem spring claw. A competent guitar tech will probably charge like $30-$50, or you could buy the supplies for less and do it yourself. The 2 "big screws" are for adjusting the overall height of the trem. The individual string height is not adjustable with a screw, but rather the saddles themselves are made a different heights.

What's wrong with the original Floyd? If the baseplate intonation screw's are crossthreaded (which is common in the old Schallers. The new Schallers have hardened steel inserts), then you can order just a baseplate and put all of the old parts on it. That would save yourself a lot of money. The low profile version of the Schaller branded Floyd will most likely not fit in the routing. The regular Schaller is what originally came in it. The Original Floyd Rose will probably fit that routing too, as would the Floyd Rose Pro, which is a low profile version of the OFR, but takes up pretty much the same faceprint. I believe the fretboard is pau ferro, which is a South American derivative of rosewood. The toggle switch is a midrange booster. I have it bypassed in mine.