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Cleaning A Vintage Floyd


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Yes, naptha is a good general solvent for stuff like this (along with an old worn out toothbrush). If you're going to strip the trem apart, it would be a good idea to measure saddle positions with calipers to make the reassembly go a little faster. And of course best to do any parts soaking with the hardware taken off the guitar.

USA or Japanese ? I made $800 over the summer in '84 and was set on buying a used USA Charvel, but right around then, Charvel owners became reluctant to sell, so I was out of luck.

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I lucked out big time. Found a USA standard 1 in black. Missing the back plate but the neck and body are all original. It was switched out from a kahler to a floyd but atleast its an old floyd not a liscensed. Has the kahler nut, original strap buttons and knobs. I have to admit the tone on these babies is far superior to anything ive played. The only thing that holds a candle to it is my gibson les paul classic. I can see why they are do highly sought after and why no one gets rid of them

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Yeah, I agree. Sounds like you lucked out. Funny thing was that I was offered USA Jacksons at that time. So guys were willing to let Jacksons go, but not Charvels. I was living in San Francisco, so even the guys working at the Guitar Center were regular gigging musicians. I remember one guy ( a GC employee) offering to sell me me his whole fleet of Jacksons, 'cause ESP was going nuts giving free guitars to just about every club gigging player at the time in the area. But I wasn't the biggest Jackson fan for some reason.

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I agree as well. Jackson doesnt do it for me unless I know its really something special. Maybe an original rhoads would be nice. I put a jackson dinky together out of parts I bought on ebay. Body and neck were both jackson and it just never had the right feel for me. I placed some really good parts in there but it just never seemed to gel haha. Back to the floyd lol Would you think it would be best to take the whole floyd apart to clean it up? Also i seem to be having a little issue with dive bombing.

When i dived preety far My G string went sharp. I took of the nut and made a small adjustment on the springs and then tuned up. Do you know what might be causing this? Im not the biggest floyd master

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If it was mine, taking the bridge completely apart and cleaning it would be a must. I prefer used guitars, but want no part of someone elses gunk on them.

As for the G string problem, if there's no clamping problem at either end, it's hard to say. G strings are often the first to have problems on any guitar. Might help when you reassemble the bridge to put some graphite grease on the fulcrum points (part of the two posts where the bridge base-plate bear against all the time).

Quite likely on a bridge that old that there's debris down in the square holes of the saddles, keeping the string from getting clamped nicely.

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