Super Vee Double-Locking Trem Installation On A Fender Mexic

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blackbunny
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Post by blackbunny »

How is your Strat tuning-wise now Simon? Are you using the Super Vee bridge, or sticking with the stock Fender 6 screw bridge? Are you happy with the LSR roller nut?

I'm thinking about a Super Vee bridge for my "vintage style" Strat as well, but I might use a Gotoh Floyd Rose locking nut rather than one that mounts behind the nut. :hmmm:

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Post by DrNomis »

blackbunny wrote:How is your Strat tuning-wise now Simon? Are you using the Super Vee bridge, or sticking with the stock Fender 6 screw bridge? Are you happy with the LSR roller nut?

I'm thinking about a Super Vee bridge for my "vintage style" Strat as well, but I might use a Gotoh Floyd Rose locking nut rather than one that mounts behind the nut. :hmmm:
I tried to fit the LSR nut to my strat's neck but I think I made the nut-slot a bit too wide and also I had a real hard time getting the bottom of the nut-slot flat, after I'd fitted the LSR nut I really didn't see any improvement at all in the tuning stability to be honest so I wasn't happy with it (maybe I should have been more careful when installing it).... :thumbsup


I've had so much trouble getting the Super-Vee trem system to stay in tune like the manufacturers claims, that I ended up removing it from my strat entirely and reverting to the original bridge system, as I've said in previous posts, I feel that the "Achilles Heel" in the Super Vee system is the Super-Vee Locking Nut, they really need to re-design it as I feel it's the most important part of the system, it's not as good as a Floyd Rose Locking Nut, the way it is designed so that the locking part fits into a socket on the nut means that changes in string-tension through whammy-bar abuse will make the locking part work lose in the socket in the nut, which will in turn cause return-to-pitch issues.... :thumbsup

I'd recommend using the Gotoh Floyd Rose Locking Nut rather than the Super-Vee locking nut... :thumbsup

One other thing, Super-Vee suggest using wood-working glue to glue the metal nut in place, I tried this but found that wood-working glue just isn't strong enough, Super Glue seems to work better but the nut eventually becomes unglued.... :thumbsup


I've just recently bought a new Genuine Fender all-maple replacement Stratocaster neck on eBay, which cost me about $250.00 all up, hopefully I should be receiving it in the post sometime this fortnight, anyway, once I've got it I'm going to use it to replace my strat's original neck, and I'm going to replace the original vintage-style bridge with Super-Vee's Bladerunner bridge later on this year, in the meantime I'll at least be able to play my Mexican Stratocaster again, will let you know how it pans out.... :thumbsup


I've been trying out a new product which Super-Vee sell on their website, basically it's a specially formulated Nut-Lubricant, similar to Big Bends Nut Sauce, it's white in colour , I've tried it on my PRS guitar and it does seem to help reduce string friction in the string-slots cut into nuts, so once my Stratocaster is back up and running I'm going to try some of the nut lubricant on it and see how it goes..... :thumbsup

Will post a pic of the Super Vee nut lubricant tomorrow so stay tuned.... :thumbsup
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Post by DrNomis »

Here's a couple of pics of Super-Vee's Nut Lubricant:

Basically you put a small amount of the lubricant in each of the string slots, tune each string up to pitch and then give the whammy bar a good workout and then you should find that the nut slots should be friction-free, I've used it on my PRS guitar and it does seem to work.... :thumbsup
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IMG_1574[1].JPG
IMG_1573[1].JPG
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Post by blackbunny »

Thanks Simon, I think I will try a bone nut with carefully cut & polished string slots and some of that Super Vee nut lube.

I'll be staying far away from that monstrosity of a locking clamp....although it looks like something from a sci-fi movie - H.R. Gieger's design work in the Alien movies comes to mind. Cool looking but useless. :roll:

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Post by DrNomis »

blackbunny wrote:Thanks Simon, I think I will try a bone nut with carefully cut & polished string slots and some of that Super Vee nut lube.

I'll be staying far away from that monstrosity of a locking clamp....although it looks like something from a sci-fi movie - H.R. Gieger's design work in the Alien movies comes to mind. Cool looking but useless. :roll:

I reckon a bone nut should work well, even though I haven't used them before, and yeah I agree with you, to be honest I'm not really liking Super Vee's Locking-Nut at all, they claim that it doesn't kink or distort the string like a Floyd Rose Locking-Nut does, I found that claim to be untrue, the strings actually feed through the Floyd Rose nut straighter when locked than they do with the Super Vee Locking Nut, the strings get kinked sideways and the low E-String is the biggest offender, you can see it in the pics I posted, the sideways kink means that some of the strings don't sit straight in the nut slots and when you pluck the strings you get a buzzy tone that sounds a bit like a Sitar, moving to a heavier gauge of strings alleviates the buzzy-tone a bit but doesn't cure it completely.... :thumbsup

When I ordered the Nut Lubricant from Super Vee it cost me about $17.00 Australian, which I think is pretty reasonable and I'm thinking of ordering at least one more or maybe two so I've got a good supply handy..... :thumbsup
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Post by DrNomis »

Okay time for an update:


Last month (September 2013) I bought a new Genuine Fender Replacement All-Maple 21 Fret MIM Stratocaster Neck on eBay for about $250.00 Australian, yeah I know it's a bit pricey but I think it was worth it in the end, the neck turned up in the post yesterday and I took the old neck off the body and fitted the new neck, it went straight into the neck pocket with practically no modifications needed so I'm pretty relieved about it, I think the neck is a 2013 vintage judging by the serial number stamped on the back of the headstock (MX13363643), the fretwork is really nice on it and the neck looks like it is straight, I did a basic setup on it and the guitar seems to play fine, there's only one issue, the action at the first fret is way too high, Fender specify about .018 inch for the first fret action and I measured it with a set of feeler gauges, it looks to be about three times that to me, so I've decided to bite the bullet and buy some tools to sort the first fret action out, I've ordered a special string-height gauge from Stewmac (yes, it's my very first purchase from that company), I've also ordered a set of nut-slot files from eBay in the correct sizes for the strings I use, Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalts 42-09 gauge, and I ordered a set of radius gauges from a company called Australian Luthiers Supplies, I've decided that if I'm going to do the setup job myself I'd make sure I had the right tools to do the job properly, besides I've been meaning to buy myself a good set of radius gauges for some time..... :thumbsup

For some strange reason the tuning stability seems to be better with the new neck than it ever was with the old neck, and I swear that if my ears aren't telling me porky pies, the guitar actually seems to sound better with the new all-maple neck than it did with the old rosewood neck, the old rosewood neck tended to sound a bit brittle, the best way I can describe it, maybe it's my imagination, or just my ears playing tricks on me, I honestly don't know.... :scratch: :lol:

Played through my Marshall's clean channel the guitar seems to have a 3-Dimensional quality to it's tone (best way for me to describe it), it sounds great through the Overdrive channel too, and if I add my Rangemaster pedal it screams when in Boosted Overdrive mode.... 8)
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Post by DrNomis »

Here's a pic of my Mexican Fender Stratocaster with it's new all maple neck installed:
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New All Maple Neck Installed
New All Maple Neck Installed
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Post by DrNomis »

New Update:

Well, I finally got the nut slot files and all the other stuff I bought, I went through the process of filing the nut slots to the proper depth to give .018 inch (Fender's Spec) clearance at the first fret, I tuned the guitar up and listened to the guitar while playing it through my Korg PX5D Pandora,and......the G-String seems to buzz like a sitar when played open, I tried filing the back of the nut slot down a bit, but it didn't fix the buzzing,turns out that some of the strings don't pass through the nut dead-straight but actually bend towards the tuners ever so slightly sideways, this is causing tuning stability issues as well as buzzing so I've decided to give installing an LSR Roller-Nut a try again, this time I'm going to be more careful when doing the installation..... :thumbsup
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