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Has any one on here built their own tremolo and if so how did it work out?

Yeah, I built the one for my blue burst a few years ago. I'll never go that route again as long as Bob Shade sells them.

What a PIA to make. It was harder to make the vibrato and adjustable bridge than it was to build the entire guitar from scratch. I used 1/8th inch aluminum plate for the base. Then I used 1/2 inch aluminum stock to make the bearing holders. 1/4 inch stock to make the top of the rocker assembly, 3/8th inch stock to make the part the strings go through. 3/8 inch round stock for the string post, and 7/8 inch aluminum channel for the bridge base.

Then there was hours of hack sawing, drilling, tapping and constantly breaking drill bits and taps. Filing, sanding buffing, all an absolute miserable frustrating time. All of the pieces were mated together by 4/40 screws from the underside. Unless you live where UPS or FedEx doesn't deliver, I would never recommend making one from scratch.

Here's a picture of the one I made when most of the hard and complicated work was already done. As for the final results, it works OK, and after I finally found the right spring it stays in tune.



Finshed product.

Hey a good learning experience and it looks great!

That's impressive machine work! Have you considered just making base plates to use with Shade trem parts?

MWaldorf wrote:That's impressive machine work! Have you considered just making base plates to use with Shade trem parts?

No, but I have considered making a wooden mold and try my hand at sand casting. There's use to be a good video on how it's done on YouTube. Haven't checked in a while so I don't know if it's still there. However there is plenty of 'how to' information on the internet. It sure couldn't be as difficult as the way I made that one above.

I'm kinda wondering if the ball ends of guitar strings would work as rollers on the bridge saddles.

KRamone27 wrote:I'm kinda wondering if the ball ends of guitar strings would work as rollers on the bridge saddles.

I examined those and thought the same thing. I have a hunch they would work just fine.

I'll try them and see how they work and then I'll post my findings. I'm still in the construction phase. I had a bunch of pics but my hard drive crashed so all is lost. I think all I could salvage was the strat of neck construction.

I don't think they will be WIDE enough for the thicker (lower) strings......