Strat Trem Pivot Screw Placement Mistake

[catnine]

There is a link to this screw up photo below .

I don't know what I was thinking , I plugged the holes for these 6 pivot screws and moved them back so the centerline is 25 5/16 inches from the board side of the nut 1 13/16 " from the end of the 21 fret end of the fingerboard which is ther end of the neck pocket . I moved then back from info I got from warmoth telling me this is the correct distance and since I made this body years ago and just made a new neck for it and I did not want to have to trim the pick guard to clear the trem , somehow I ended up not checking and there is now a 3/16" gap between the edge of the trem and the pickguard instead of no gap where trimming would be needed . Now I am afraid I will not be able to intonate the high E . My other strats that I built all vary as for as intonation goes even though they all use the same string gauge and action , but this one seems like I may need a 1/16 to make it work . So since I already plugged holes once and redrilled I can't do this again so now all I can think of is routing out the area where the 6 pivot screws go and drop in a fitted plug to cover all the new holes and plugged holes and make it almost as deep as to reach the spring cavity .

The body will be painted so a wooden filler section filler won't show .

Any suggestions ?

I test fit and drilled all the other holes today and oncew I dropped the pickguard into place I saw this . I have been concentrating on building the neck and never checked this until now .

Don't you just love it when you have to redo something like this , first time for me not to double check things . Now I'm kicking mysef all around the garage . It may tune and intonate but I won't know for certain until I finish the nut and string it up . But I have my doubts . Things just don't go this easy .

I already converted the body back from a left hand trem to a right hand and now this .

and a full view of the body , I used brass bridge saddles so I could get a high action and did not want to shim the neck pocket or route it deeper . The stock saddles are stamped metal and just don't have the amount of adjustment as the machined brass .

William The forgetful measurer

Edited December 21, 2004 by catnine

[javacody]

Do you use big strings and high action? On my strat, I've actually run out of room on my low E and G strings. I use 11's, with high action. This will probably be ok, depending on your string gauge.

I also added an intonatable wrap-around bridge to an LP Jr. copy, and I ended putting the bridge about 1/8" too far back, but again, I use 11's and have high action, so it wasn't a problem.

I would try it and see.

By the way, if you want higher action, couldn't you back out on the trem screws and shim the back of the bridge?

Edited December 22, 2004 by javacody

[catnine]

I use .013 to .060 roundwound and have the action at 7/64" low E at the 12th fret bewteen the bottom of the string and the top of the fret and 5/64 " on the high E . This does present a little problem with the low E , I had to cut part of the saddle spring away to go back far enough on tther three strats I made and the high E there was just enough screw to get it right . So going by the others with the same action I may only have trouble with the high E being to flat past the 12th fret .

I still have to mount the tuners and the fit and mount the nut , then I can string it up and see .

You know this day is not going well at all , right after I posted this instead of removing the neck I decided to hang the guitar on a hook stuck in the ceiling right above my computer . I had a much heavier guitar hanging by this very hook for years , well as soon as I hung it there and gave a bit of a slight tug the hook snapped clean off and the guitar fell a foot and hit the corner of the monitor and put a nice dent right in the bottom rounded edge . being alder which is soft I was able to steam it out .

It sure sounded like it fell 100 feet to me .