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Japanese Tremolo

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:07 pm
by brian gardiner
I have a cheap strat/mustang hybrid style guitar on the bench and it has an odd tremolo. It had a few parts floating loose inside the tremolo cavity, so I'd like to figure out how it goes together, and if I'm missing pieces, which I suspect.

It is a 2 piece bridge, with a mounted top piece, and a floating under bridge piece. The strings attach to the bottom piece via a piece that comes up through the top plate. I'll try and include some pictures below, and thanks for any help identifying this tremolo style or in putting it together properly.

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2017 3:04 pm
by David King
Can it be replaced with a Jaguar style trem unit?
http://www.stewmac.com/Hardware_and_Par ... fgodPAIOnQ

this might give you some hints as to what's missing or how it was supposed to go together. You're definitely missing the bridge and saddles so unless you know exactly who made it and have time to wait for one to pop up on eBay a wholesale replacement is in order. BTW these trems are terrible so if the fellow intends to play it then a hard tail bridge or a real trem might be in order

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 12:36 am
by brian gardiner
Hi David

Thanks for your help.

Actually I do have the bridge and saddles, I had them off when I took the pictures.

That golden age tremolo is very similar, definitely the same style, just the shape of the top plate looks different.

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 2:35 pm
by David King
Fender has lots of exploded view PDF diagrams, I found this one with a casual google search that might be helpful:
http://www.pastranaguitars.com/sites/de ... iagram.jpg

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2017 12:47 am
by brian gardiner
Your first post, David, was actually very helpful. It gave me some search terms, which got me to an offset tremolo system as a name for this contraption. Once I knew that, the rest came together nicely and I found this:

http://offset.guitars/the-goodies/setti ... lo-system/

That's exactly what i needed.

Thanks again for your help. Got to learn something new this week, that's always a good thing.