The Shop > Wood & Stuff
Scalloping the guitar fretboard - possibly also renovation of the instrument
sorveltaja:
The roller nut was tested, and results are not as good as I expected. Strings get still out of tune after bendings. Reason for that may well be the type of strings that I use: coated ones.
The specific breed, that I use, is Elixir Polyweb, as they seem to have most durable coating.
As the sweat from my fingers is like battery acid, uncoated strings are ruined in just few days.
This type of roller nut, with bearing balls, might work a lot better with metal-to-metal contact, as with uncoated strings.
But enough of that. I think that using real rollers instead of static bearing balls could be a better bet in this case, and therefore forthcoming subject for testing.
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Ongoing, 'tongue in cheek' -test subject is this:
So, it's basically a part of a tremolo, thrown together from the parts, that were at hand. Exception is the spring, that had to be made.
At first, I tried the Strat-style tremolo springs, but even six of them together hadn't enough tension, to get the strings tuned for a standard tuning.
Next I looked for online spring tension calculator, only to find out, that it produces plenty of values of different variables, that I have no idea about.
Numbers aside, it was again time for parking the ball in the dark.
Strat-style springs, that I have, are made of 1.4mm spring wire. To have a single spring to take care of the combined strings tension, it needed to be stout, so 3mm wire/round bar was used.
Surprisingly, with the spring on above pic, the 'sweet spot' is a lot closer. In practice, when tuning the strings, they don't go higher than G(when using 'A' tuning fork).
As it's intentionally a 'floating' system, perhaps adding an adjustment screw to pull the springs' opposite end away from the bridge to 'compensate'.
In the end, if nothing else, this is an attempt to find the pitfalls, that many of the tremolo designers must have stumbled upon.
sorveltaja:
Now the (possible)tremolo design has the end adjustment, allowing it to be tuned to the standard tuning:
Next thing is to find out, how to attach a tremolo bar, that moves the string retainer back and forth. If it goes well, then the lumpy one is replaced with something like this:
Round 12mm brass bar will be used for that. Bit of machining for a change.
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Even at this early point, that floating string retainer has already a Floyd Rose-ish(or other floating system) feel in it, which makes the string bendings/vibratos very easy. For me, at least, that alone is a jolly good thing.
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What comes to binding, when bending the strings(especially non-wound ones(G-B-E)), it is definitely located at this roller nut. When the string goes out of tune(flat) after bending, pushing down the portion of string, that is between the nut and tuning machines, brings it back to tune.
sorveltaja:
Strings have now a new retainer:
When thinking of what kind of tremolo bar mechanism could be used, probably some sort of linkage is needed anyways. To make one, that fits under the spring and retainer, it would require a whole lot of machining.
Easier way, I guess, would be to silver solder some steel/brass bits and pieces together.
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Before entering the tremolo stuff, the nut needed to be sorted out:
It's using brass rollers with printed body. At first, the strings got out of tune, when bending, but finally, after plenty of string stretching/retuning, it got better.
The way the strings are currently wound around the tuning machines' posts, isn't best possible, as they get tuned and loosened dozens of times, while testing.
sorveltaja:
While waiting for the ordered silver solder to arrive, some fiddling with different tremolo ideas, bits and pieces:
So, using two hinges ganged together, to provide even pressure to the string retainer, could be an option. As it is in the above pictures, it doesn't work that well, as the hinges tend to press the retainer down, and detuning the strings, when the tremolo bar is released.
Inserting a suitable thickness metal piece between the retainer and hinges makes it a bit better, without the need of retuning the strings after pressing down the tremolo bar.
Even better way would be to attach something like 'connecting rod', that converts the hinges' rotary motion to linear one.
Currently the tremolo is 'one way' only, decreasing the tension of the strings. When proper linkage mechanism is added, it should be possible to make it to act both directions.
Adding the tremolo is also an attempt to test the spring, that I made. There is nothing special about it; I used a mini butane torch to heat the 3mm wire, when winding it around the 8mm axle.
No further heat treatment. I'm not quite sure about the material, but it's harder than mild steel, maybe closer to piano wire.
I'm surprised, that it works as a spring, having enough tension to keep the strings in tune. After all, sometimes the guesstimating seems to work.
sorveltaja:
Today some silver soldering:
So, the second test version of the tremolo uses two 12mm eccentrics to move the string retainer.
First test setup, again, using bits and pieces at hand:
I have only one 12mm ball bearing, but when pushing the wrench, there is rather smooth movement, although the ends of the eccentric rod doesn't have too much of bearings yet.
Needless to say, perhaps, that there should be a pair of bearings, to get all the strings 'tremoloed' at the same time.
The above ball bearing is a bit too big for the purpose, as it has 28mm outer diameter.
To add linkages, or "connecting rods" between ball bearings and string retainer, this is, what I have in mind:
Green parts are 12x18x4 ball bearings, that I ordered. In the mean time, I might do some simulations with similar size slide bearings.
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