Floyd Rose Action Set Up (Have I Made a Mistake?)

[nononebulan]

Hey guys, I just got my first Floyd Rose equipped guitar.
Action was little high for me so I decided to lower it turning the posts but I did it while guitar was in tune.... I didn't know that you are not supposed to do that.

Have I ruined my guitar? or that's something I shouldn't worry about?

My Floyd Rose is 1500 series.

Thanks guys

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Yep. Dead. Throw it away.



Nah, it's all good. That's just an old wives' tale.

 

[bracky]

It does wear the posts a little but so does using it. I wouldn’t worry about it.

 

[nononebulan]

Relieved!

Thanks guys!

 

[Scordare]

A small drop of oil in the post groove helps too.

 

[NoodleFace]

I've done that for 20 years and never had an issue

 

[Matthew Shelton]

As long as your intonation is on point, you don’t have dead notes and your neck relief is to your liking, you’re good to go

 

[jl-austin]

hmmm.....
Excuse to....
Buy another guitar!

It will be fine.

 

[vilk]

I push the trem bar down to lower tension while I do it. Makes them turn easier

 

[BrutalRob]

It does wear the posts a little but so does using it. I wouldn’t worry about it.

It is not the same. i use, it is only force due to pressure. When adjusting the height with the strings on tension, there is additional shear force and that is the crucial part.

That being said, doing it once or twice won´t hurt. But you should not do it like this all the time. i learned this the hard way.

 

[Grumpyrocker]

I push the trem bar down to lower tension while I do it. Makes them turn easier

This is what I do. Divebomb the trem to slacked the pressure. And then adjust the trem height.

 

[jwoods986]

What about the rear springs? Ok to tighten with strings at full tension/in tune?

 

[3xt3rm1n4t0r]

Tightening in full tension/in tune is no problem. You will have to retune after you tightened the springs so I would recommend doing it with the top lock loosened.

 

[h410G3n]

I push the trem bar down to lower tension while I do it. Makes them turn easier

This not right. Remember that the springs also excert force so there will always be pressure.

 

[marke]

You can potentially ruin your knife edges doing this I've heard, but never experienced it myself. Doing it once will not ruin anything, you're fine. I've done it to lower quality FR special with nothing happening (I checked by removing the trem), so yeah..

Still probably not recommended, but worst case scenario you'll have to replace the tremplate. It costs something, but not that much in comparison to your guitar.

Adjusting action with FR the "safe" way is a bummer and has a risk of damaging the guitar finish when learning. At least I was a bit too nervous and smacked the trem around a bit, but I was learning FR maintenance with an old guitar. It's a simple construction and nothing to be afraid of, but honestly I'm so lazy I'd just press the bar down, adjust the action once to my prefrences and forget about it. Pressing the bar is not a perfect solution (due to spring tension), but might help.

Again, not recommending anything, but this is not as big of a deal as people make it to be. If I had a FR equipped new custom shop I'd rather risk the knife edges than the guitar finish.

 

[mattier303]

The one thing I’d advise is making sure to loosen the locking screw that is inside of some tremolo Posts. i have some 96-99 jcustoms that have these small Allen key screws inside the post. You don’t want to crank down to hard on them Or on the post itself as it will drive the screw in so deep you’ll never get it out. They lock the posts in place and work very well, just tricky if you don’t know they are there.
as far as lowering the trem while in tune I used to be hesitant and always tune down a step, I do think it can wear on the knife edge as someone mentioned but it would take a hell of a lot of micro adjustments to damage them.

 

[NoodleFace]

What about the rear springs? Ok to tighten with strings at full tension/in tune?

Yes, absolutely

 

[vilk]

What about the rear springs? Ok to tighten with strings at full tension/in tune?

It is in fact a necessary step of setting up a Floyd Rose

 

[trem licking]

No one at the factory/store or first 5 owners loosened anything when they adjusted the action on said guitar, so it's already been done on EVERYONE'S guitar. It will damage nothing. Adjust it quick and be done with it

 

[torchlord]

The one thing I’d advise is making sure to loosen the locking screw that is inside of some tremolo Posts. i have some 96-99 jcustoms that have these small Allen key screws inside the post. You don’t want to crank down to hard on them Or on the post itself as it will drive the screw in so deep you’ll never get it out. They lock the posts in place and work very well, just tricky if you don’t know they are there.
as far as lowering the trem while in tune I used to be hesitant and always tune down a step, I do think it can wear on the knife edge as someone mentioned but it would take a hell of a lot of micro adjustments to damage them.

I just put some aftermarket Gotah Style locking post in my guitar after I kept having the heavier gauge string post original get too much play in them. I have even bought some aftermarket titanium ones that eventually got play in the threads of the posts and the bridge actually started having a noticeable detent-like effect similar to centrally detented volume pots that I could feel as I moved it through the tremolo motion. I can tell that locking in the post solved that issue. I actually thought the bridge's knife edges were worn out, but they looked pretty equally worn out on both post edges but I felt like it shouldn't have been enough to cause such a dramatic effect. I don't get why all Floyds don't have the locking mechanism in the posts. I think it will solve this issue permanently.