So, while waiting for a few minor parts for the red diablo, I noticed that there was a buncha grunge on the floyd, which is currently out of the guitar. So I figured, why not take it all apart to get it nice and clean. It was oiled rather heavily, probably with 3 in 1 or something similar, and it was all messy.
So, I pulled off all the saddles. None of the bridge holes are stripped, which is good, though a bunch of the saddles were quite dirty, and juding from the orange color of the grungey stuff, also somewhat rusted. the High E saddle was missing the brass plate that keeps the block from falling out, but that's not a biggy. I took the thing ALL the way apart, cleaned it, bent the leaf springs that press against the posts back into shape, and got all the "string remnants" out of the saddles.
I then went back to the saddles themselves, and noticed that out of 6, 2 moved freely, one moved but was dirty, one moved kinda slowly, and two were frozen. The worst off is the low E Saddle, which definitely has some rust damage inside of the string lockin area, enough that the locking block itself is damaged and was frozen, and there were also rusted out string pieces from past strings. Also, the brass plate on the bottom of the string block had been pushed out of the saddle by rust.
So, I brought in the 4 saddles that need help into work,and promptly soaked them in WD40. The slow saddle freed right up, and the other dirty saddle cleaned right up. The low A string saddle was stuck, but after some creative clamping with wooden dowels, I got it to free up, though it is still slow, so back into the WD40 for that one. I tried the same clamping using 3 dowels on the low E saddle, and it crushed the dowels completely, and no movement.
So now I've got it back in the WD40. I am going to put all 4 into the ultrasonic cleaner we have later.
If that doesn't free the saddle, does anyone have any suggestions as to what might? We do have some vapo-rust on hand, which dissolves rust, but won't harm paint, so I am considering putting the saddles in. The saddles appear to be painted with some kind of black paint, while the lock blocks and locking posts appear to be blued, which will get taken off by the de-ruster.
Does anyone know for suer whether the black Schaller-made Hamer saddles are paitned or blued? Anyone have any better advice for unfreezing a schaller floyd saddle?
And I guess last question is, where can I get replacement Schaller-made E saddles. I checked on Stew-mac and they only seem to have the cheap ones they make. I checked allparts and they have these: http://www.allparts.com/Black-Floyd-Rose-Saddle-p/bp-0490-003.htm
However the locking bolt is different, so I don't know whether it would work on the Schaller on the diablo.
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tbonesullivan
So, while waiting for a few minor parts for the red diablo, I noticed that there was a buncha grunge on the floyd, which is currently out of the guitar. So I figured, why not take it all apart to get it nice and clean. It was oiled rather heavily, probably with 3 in 1 or something similar, and it was all messy.
So, I pulled off all the saddles. None of the bridge holes are stripped, which is good, though a bunch of the saddles were quite dirty, and juding from the orange color of the grungey stuff, also somewhat rusted. the High E saddle was missing the brass plate that keeps the block from falling out, but that's not a biggy. I took the thing ALL the way apart, cleaned it, bent the leaf springs that press against the posts back into shape, and got all the "string remnants" out of the saddles.
I then went back to the saddles themselves, and noticed that out of 6, 2 moved freely, one moved but was dirty, one moved kinda slowly, and two were frozen. The worst off is the low E Saddle, which definitely has some rust damage inside of the string lockin area, enough that the locking block itself is damaged and was frozen, and there were also rusted out string pieces from past strings. Also, the brass plate on the bottom of the string block had been pushed out of the saddle by rust.
So, I brought in the 4 saddles that need help into work,and promptly soaked them in WD40. The slow saddle freed right up, and the other dirty saddle cleaned right up. The low A string saddle was stuck, but after some creative clamping with wooden dowels, I got it to free up, though it is still slow, so back into the WD40 for that one. I tried the same clamping using 3 dowels on the low E saddle, and it crushed the dowels completely, and no movement.
So now I've got it back in the WD40. I am going to put all 4 into the ultrasonic cleaner we have later.
If that doesn't free the saddle, does anyone have any suggestions as to what might? We do have some vapo-rust on hand, which dissolves rust, but won't harm paint, so I am considering putting the saddles in. The saddles appear to be painted with some kind of black paint, while the lock blocks and locking posts appear to be blued, which will get taken off by the de-ruster.
Does anyone know for suer whether the black Schaller-made Hamer saddles are paitned or blued? Anyone have any better advice for unfreezing a schaller floyd saddle?
And I guess last question is, where can I get replacement Schaller-made E saddles. I checked on Stew-mac and they only seem to have the cheap ones they make. I checked allparts and they have these: http://www.allparts.com/Black-Floyd-Rose-Saddle-p/bp-0490-003.htm
However the locking bolt is different, so I don't know whether it would work on the Schaller on the diablo.
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