The Electra Forums

Here is a better picture of mine - taken with a real camera and I have the bar out.



It looks just like yours except you are missing that collar nut. As Corsair says - not an easy fix. Adding insult to injury, you might have some stripped threads in the block as well (I can't say for sure, just from what you have said). I don't think my bar really looks deeper than yours.

What are your options?
a) finding the part - good luck - I just went through a bunch of bridges and parts online.
b) making a part, as he stated from a floyd rose piece (will likely be able to find the floyd part)
c) finding another bridge. Not easy, none out there now, but I see about a half a dozen bodies and those guys evidently had bridges at one time. But if your threads are stripped inside the block, you may need one.
d) buy a westone or electra that is in bad shape, steal the parts off it and sell off the rest for parts (or keep them for later projects).

I have some other ideas, I have not tried - I don't know how viable either - so attempt at your own risk!
1) There are two floyd arm variants (well, more than that, but these are the more common). You could "possibly" buy and arm with the locking nuts or the style with the finger tight collar (buy the bar and assembly) and modify the bridge so it will fit. This would involve CARVING out part of the block. I don't know if this would work or not. To try it you may ruin the bridge. But I think it is a possibility
2) Maybe replace the bridge all together with a new replacement. I have done that with the vintage style tremolo - finding out the spacing was US spacing and other black bridges would fit. But I DON'T know of one that specifically fits bendmasters. I have heard some Gotoh style floyds may fit but I don't know if they will intonate, so you would not want to do that. Someone here or on the Westone forum probably has tried this already. I haven't. I just checked and Chad has put a gotoh floyd on his dimIV and discusses on the westone forum - so I'd look that up if you consider it.

Finding that floyd piece sounds like a good idea now. Or a buddy with a machine shop! Would be helpful to borrow a real collar piece if you are going to attempt to make some.

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Thorny

Thorny

I'm a little confused. I have been looking at the collar fix from the site corsair provided as follows:

http://www.westoneguitars.net/fixme/har ... placement/

The FR arms they show going into the new inserted collar are not threaded on the end but the arm has its own collar that screws onto the permanently inserted block collar. I guess where I'm confused is your arm in the post above is threaded?

From what I can see, I don't think my threads are stripped. Platefire

The 6MM threaded arm should contact threads instide the block. So mine is threaded, yours is threaded. They also have wider threads at the top that the collar goes into. I don't know what those are. My thoughts were to take the FR collar and make it look more like the stock collar in the picture. Then you could thread your 6MM are through the collar and it would bit inside the 6MM threads deeper inside the block. Works fine for mine with the original collars.

Yours is missing the collar, but the actual solution they are saying to do is adapting it to use with the "finger tight" style floyd bar. It is kind of what I was suggesting might be possible, but I didn't read this prior so I didn't know that is what they were doing. They are installing the collar to adapt it to use the newer "finger tight" style floyd bar, but doing so by threading that "double threaded" collar of the floyd into the threads on the block, exposing the other side of the floyd style threaded collar so that the "finger tight" style bar will work with it. Essentially you are adapting it to use a newer style floyd bar with the finger tight adapter - and you are doing it in such a way it does not require you to alter the block to make it work - VERY COOL.

Do you get it? You can't use your old bar this way, you'd need to get the newer finger tight bar and the collar and assembly and modify it to work with the bendmaster block. I get it.

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Thorny

I really do think the modified FR is a good fix; I'll drag one of my two out of storage and photograph for y'all this morning!!

The FR bar is a press in type with the knurled cover part of the bar - the nylon crush washer keeps it in place; you unwind the knurled cover, pull the bar and its attendant nylon bush out the hole.

No, it's not OEM and no, it doesn't even look close to OEM but it works beautifully and only cork sniffers like us know the difference!!

Thorny, the carved off chunk of sustain block to fit another style of trem has been done before by one of the Westone lads and he found that the sound of the guitar was significantly unfavourably altered!!

The Gotoh bridge that Chad used did the job, but it's rather like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, eh, when the less expensive and intrusive alternative exists....

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

OK, now I understand, it's made for the newer type un-threaded FR Arm.

I really don't have the ability to thread the collar as shown on the site. If I understood well enough what was required to instruct someone else, I could possibly buy the part and take it to a machine shop and have them thread it. It mentioned having to cut the threads off or it would bind in the block---not sure what they was getting at there! The only thing that came to me on that was decreasing the diameter a bit with some kind of tool. I think I do understand flattening the middle part off with a file to get a wrench on it, to tighten it into the block. I am a pretty good handy man but not a machinist. Platefire

That's the ticket; yes; for an unthreaded bar!

Here's the collar/socket....





... and the end of the bar itself...





... and all plugged in...





You still need a stout little spring in the hole to stop the bar swinging all over the shop like a dog's bollocks, but it is an elegant and cheap(ish) way around a problem.

Yep; the thread on the FR socket/collar where it goes into the sustain block has to be cut to 9x1mm, from memory and the length of the recut section needs to be shortened a little to avoid the socket/collar binding on the bottom of the sustain block.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Black-Guitar ... 5d4410bbf6

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Floyd-Rose-T ... 3a9c9e0bb2

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Genuine-Orig ... 41947545b1

Get a hold of the bar and collar from eBay or Stewmac or whoever, and then whistle along to your friendly local engineer and tell him you'd like a thread cut on the socket of 9x1.0mm and the overall length of the piece shortened to 19.52 mm. Easy peasy!! If you have a vice and acquire a die nut, you be able to do it yourself!

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

Thanks Much Corsair, very good shots of the new installed bridge collar makes very easy to see--plus the arm and its attachment collar. I do have a lite duty vice but never cut threads before. I do have a very close friend who is maintenance man at a local hospital and has much ability and many tools in his shop. I'm pretty sure he could do this. I may could do it with a little understanding. So you place the collar in the vice and just screw the die nut on the blank end to cut the threads. What do you hold and crank the die nut with?

Question? The way I'm interpreting your instructions is to thread the blank end of the block collar with 9x1.0mm threads and then cut it off to 19.52 mm. It seems to me it would make more sense to cut it off to the right length prior to threading it. Like I said before, I'm not a machinist so I felt like I needed to clarify that.

Thanks for the effort you have made to help me with this. I would like to get the ol Electra working right. Platefire

There is a specific tool you need to run a die nut up a shaft...

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DIE-HOLDER-T ... 19bac4dd38

.... and you also have to lubricate it as it cuts its way up the shaft with cutting oil or similar. It also must be absolutely square on the shaft!! It really is not hard to do and I find it to be quite therapeutic, if I'm honest....

Remember, too, you must file a couple of flats onto the flange that will accept a 10mm (or 7/16th) spanner, and I would do this as the first job so that I could then put it in the vice with the new flats square on to the vice jaws.

Yep, you could indeed trim and then cut the thread; it's just my personal choice that would have me do it the other way round.

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

corsair

I need to make an order to StewMac anyway. I've located what I think is the right item for the arm and collar at the attached link. Please check it out to see if this is correct:

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Par ... _Rose.html

So the Black one is $16.30. I'll find a way to get it threaded. Don't think I want to purchase the die and die holder but thanks for the info. I'll be talking to my maintenance buddy to see if he can do it or let me borrow the tools. Thanks a bunch, Platefire

Yep; that looks to be pretty right!

Keep us posted, eh!

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

OK, Thanks

Another question, on filing the center ridge off to accept a 10mm or 7/16" spanner. When you say spanner are you referring to a end wrench. I'm not familiar with the term "Spanner"?? Platefire

Yep.

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

Sweet! I got 7/16 and 10mm spanners both

OK, then; you're golden, mate!!

I would suggest, in the interests of uniformity, that 10mm might be the way to go, given that every other nut, bolt and screw will be metric fine!!

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"... and on the eighth day, God created New Zealanders.

Because even the Australians need heroes."

It's ordered and on the way. Not too familiar with reading mm so I been brushing up. I picked up a small scale with mm and inches today at wally world. Also I downloaded a fraction/decimal/millimeter conversion chart. So regarding the measurement from the flange on the blank side to be cut off at 19.52mm it appears to be between 49/64 and 25/32 long. So I guess that measurement must be from the bottom of the flange to the cut off point---right? Then thread the nub that's left

Please take a look at the link to my FR trem assembly. At the bottom of the page is a detailed drawing of the part to be threaded. Right below the flange is a section of the blank area that is knurled. Will that be a problem with the threading? Thanks, Bob

http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Par ... nfirmation