Putting a Lo-pro 7 on a fixed bridge Ibanez, worth it?
- Thread starter beyondcosmos
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Guitarist_Dad
SS.org Regular
You wouldn’t need to re-radius the fretboard, just shim individual saddles on the trem. https://www.ebay.com/itm/354534293511
mattier303
SS.org Regular
my two cents is buy an older RG molded with a lo pro. You can actually find some great deals if you look on the used market in Japan. Dm me if you’d like some ideas as to where.
That being said I love the lo pro, it’s the best tremolo ever. Stays in tune , easy on the palm. Add a brass block and the sustain and tone is amazing. The setup, intonation and upkeep have a learning curve for sure, but if you can setup a lo pro or edge tremolo guitar then everything else is cake.
I also love my pgm301 wit the Gotoh 501 (I think that’s the #) fixed bridge..it’s so easy to set up. Stays in tune perfectly. Sometimes I just love the simplicity.
i wouldn’t want you to get your axe routed and not like the lo pro.
That’s a hard to impossible thing to reverse.
anyway let’s us know what you do, I’m curious.
if you do send it to a luthier make sure they know what they’re doing!
That being said I love the lo pro, it’s the best tremolo ever. Stays in tune , easy on the palm. Add a brass block and the sustain and tone is amazing. The setup, intonation and upkeep have a learning curve for sure, but if you can setup a lo pro or edge tremolo guitar then everything else is cake.
I also love my pgm301 wit the Gotoh 501 (I think that’s the #) fixed bridge..it’s so easy to set up. Stays in tune perfectly. Sometimes I just love the simplicity.
i wouldn’t want you to get your axe routed and not like the lo pro.
That’s a hard to impossible thing to reverse.
anyway let’s us know what you do, I’m curious.
if you do send it to a luthier make sure they know what they’re doing!
mattier303
SS.org Regular
I definitely disagree with this statement, woodworking is super exacting, one shot deal. I’m a woodworker/luthier as a profession and it may seem “easy” but everything in woodworking takes longer and is more complicated then it initially seems.
You’d definitely want to have super sharp, nice chisels, and at least some experience before you gouge out the top of your favorite axe.
a router would be a better tool. More precise and cleaner.
measure twice and cut once.
I mean yeah it’s not brain surgery…but it has to be exact.
hope that didn’t sound off putting.
Not at all my friend I have been doing good working in other people's shops because I don't possess all the good tools for about 30 plus years. And I definitely take a different approach so to me it seems easy because literally I have been working on guitars since I was about 13 years old and I'm 46 going on 47.I definitely disagree with this statement, woodworking is super exacting, one shot deal. I’m a woodworker/luthier as a profession and it may seem “easy” but everything in woodworking takes longer and is more complicated then it initially seems.
You’d definitely want to have super sharp, nice chisels, and at least some experience before you gouge out the top of your favorite axe.
a router would be a better tool. More precise and cleaner.
measure twice and cut once.
I mean yeah it’s not brain surgery…but it has to be exact.
hope that didn’t sound off putting.
Quite literally though and I have done this but unfortunately I didn't know the digital camera I had a friend that had a neck through shecter and he wanted a fluid rose installed.
It is the same basic concept of course I realize it's not an ibanez and it's not a low pro.
I only recently got a router and yes you are 100% correct it does make the job a lot easier.
However at the time I literally took the Floyd rose apart measured it out on the top after I put painter's type down.
I traced around it with a Sharpie to find exactly where I needed it.
I then drilled through the top of the body After I made guide holes I used a paddle bit.
That took out 90% of the wood that I needed from talk to back then I flipped the body over I used painter's tape to mark out everything I needed. And then after I used to scrub to make all the marks that I needed I used a paddle bit to hog out most of the wood.
That right there removing the wood took about an hour and a 1/2. All I had was a 1/2 inch paddle.
Once I had that done I did a test fit. Cleaned up anything I needed to. Once everything appeared that it would work correctly I Went about using the chisels.
Once that was cleaned up I hit it with a little bit of sand Paper And mounted my tremelo claw.
I use something like Tung oil, Or men wax To seal the wood.
Took about 2 days off and on working on it as I was doing about 4 guitars repair at that time.
I didn't find it that difficult to do it that way other people may of course I didn't have a really nice big grill press so I used that my bad I didn't point that out earlier.
A drew press and a paddle bit will make quick work of removing wood.
But yes measuring everything out definitely took more time than anything. I learned a lot about shizzles during that time.
Anyway you all have a good day please forgive my horrendous auto correct spelling.
I am on a cell phone and my fingers are too big for the keyboard and my neuropathy from cancer treatments does not allow me to type out this much stuff.
To my apologies for all the Errors you may find in spelling and/or punctuation it's not personal I just physically can't.
mattier303
SS.org Regular
You help make my point exactly here, you'’be been working wood/ guitars for 3O years, (as have i, I have my own shop and business, really quality ….thats a huuuuuge difference and a shit ton of experience and practice. Years of honing skills, techniques, tips, Tricia, proper way and order of process.
It certainly could be easy for us, We are skilled craftsman With experience.
I make mortise and tenons, dovetails, carve arch top Hollowbody tops from exotics. I use hand tools as much as I can.
If we compared The quality of our earliest projects to our most recent ones, I’m sure we’d see drastic improvements. I’m always leaning, always reading, experimenting. always tying to improve. And better myself .
I can imagine some inexperienced person going to Depot, picking up some shit buck brothers chisels and proceeding to hack into the the top of a nice guitar.
Curious as to why you’d use a “paddle bit” instead of a Forstner
Did you use a marking knife to pre score the outline of the shape? Oh maybe that was what you meant when auto spelled “ scrub”..lAlso couldn‘t figure out wyou meant by “I learned a lot about “Shizzles” And I’ m dying to know .
Oh please no worries about the spelling, I’m the most brutal speller and suck at texting. Feel like I have sausage fingers after workiing with them all day.
thanks for the chat-Matt
It certainly could be easy for us, We are skilled craftsman With experience.
I make mortise and tenons, dovetails, carve arch top Hollowbody tops from exotics. I use hand tools as much as I can.
If we compared The quality of our earliest projects to our most recent ones, I’m sure we’d see drastic improvements. I’m always leaning, always reading, experimenting. always tying to improve. And better myself .
I can imagine some inexperienced person going to Depot, picking up some shit buck brothers chisels and proceeding to hack into the the top of a nice guitar.
Curious as to why you’d use a “paddle bit” instead of a Forstner
Did you use a marking knife to pre score the outline of the shape? Oh maybe that was what you meant when auto spelled “ scrub”..lAlso couldn‘t figure out wyou meant by “I learned a lot about “Shizzles” And I’ m dying to know .
Oh please no worries about the spelling, I’m the most brutal speller and suck at texting. Feel like I have sausage fingers after workiing with them all day.
thanks for the chat-Matt
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I've thought about this before as well. One of the things I've noticed though is that on typical metal guitars like Ibanez, Jackson, Esp they compensate for the nut width when building the necks. Look at the edge of the nut that faces the fretboard and the distance from there to where the headstock starts. On fixed bridge guitars with a standard nut I think it would look a bit weird to slap on a locking nut. The ones that come with it seem to have a slightly longer neck to compensate for the wider nut.
Neon_Knight_
SS.org Regular
I'd never thought about the necks being different lengths, but as I have an RG652FX hanging on a wall-mount between an RG655 and an RG2550Z, I've just had a look. As well as it being visibly obvious at the nut (now that I'm looking for it), the bottom of the body on the locking nut models hangs almost 1cm lower.
I see your point and I thank you for eloquently making it.
Also I'm kind of ADHD so I tend to learn things pretty quickly if they interest me and stuff that I don't learn easily I tend to abandon.
Most of the shops that I worked at were all fully Equipped I didn't have the tools myself.
Most of what I do is electronic based.
Or metal. Yeah the 1st time I did something To a guitar I was about 14. It turned out all right but I guess again like I'm saying being 46 and with that much working on stuff I also learned a lot about carpentry and woodworking from our local handyman and from my grandfather.
We did a lot of stuff growing up like building houses and such. A lot of renovations.
I had to learn early on to use what tools that I had. And yes the 1st time I used The Home Depot style chisel I was like nope.
I happened to like the 2 cherries From Stewart McDonald. And I have a couple no name brands because they're about 20 years old and they were given to me from a friend.
But I can't say the 1st time I ever professionally did anything with a guitar and would working it turned out flawlessly.
But I also had a guy who worked for Gibson tell me what to do.
He was very thorough in his knowledge.
But I guess the point that I was trying to convey more was that you have to start somewhere and If you take your time and your slow and precise reason you can't have a good turnout.
I feel this is just my personal feeling if you have to know where your precision lies at you know if you're a cook and you don't think that you can drill through a guitar or use a router or do something like that then don't attempt it.
Or if you're like me and you prefer to stuff that you can cut and Weld. Maybe it's not in your wheelhouse.
But I feel you're like me and you grew up in a time where you kind of had to learn how to do stuff. When my stuff broke I had to learn how to fix it or I had to work and learn how to make money.
I did both.
By the way it's I learned a lot about chisels. Lol
Yes they typically have a buildup right there so that they can put the locking nut on there.
But there are aftermarket locking nuts that allow you to do the same thing without adding anything.
Personally I'm a Guthrie goven fan. I redid an Ibanez with a locking trem but it had no Fine Tuners I put locking Turners on the headstock. called it A-day
