Japanese Tremolo

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brian gardiner
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:46 pm

Japanese Tremolo

Post 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.
Attachments
This is all the pieces together. Hopefully you can see there's a large spring, plus a small spring and a small screw, the latter two of which were floating around loose in the cavity.
This is all the pieces together. Hopefully you can see there's a large spring, plus a small spring and a small screw, the latter two of which were floating around loose in the cavity.
top plate, attaches to the guitar via 5 screws
top plate, attaches to the guitar via 5 screws
This is the bottom plate.
This is the bottom plate.
This is how the bridge looks on the guitar. You can see an arm comes up that a tremolo bar would attach to (no tremolo bar included with guitar).
This is how the bridge looks on the guitar. You can see an arm comes up that a tremolo bar would attach to (no tremolo bar included with guitar).
David King
Posts: 2690
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2012 10:01 pm
Location: Portland, OR
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Re: Japanese Tremolo

Post 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
brian gardiner
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:46 pm

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Post 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.
David King
Posts: 2690
Joined: Sat Jan 07, 2012 10:01 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Post 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
brian gardiner
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2014 8:46 pm

Re: Japanese Tremolo

Post 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.
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