interesting way to make the Japanese trem work

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ohm-men
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interesting way to make the Japanese trem work

Post by ohm-men » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:14 am

Hi all,

I recently took my MIJ tailpiece apart. It had some rattle that did not come from the bridge. I found that when strung up and tuned, the Low E, and High E touch the srews on the tailpiece. This is due to the string plate that sits to low. The piece that is screwed to the base plate is a tat to thick. So I filed it down a bit and the string plate now sits higher, so no strings actually touch the screws on the baseplate. Trem works better as well now.

Next I took some action on the trem nut it self. Since the theeth on this piece always seams to loosen, makinf the std MIJ trem bar fall out of the guitar, I simply took a big metal washer and filed it so it would fit over the trem nut. I then inserted the trem arm and tightened the washer a bit more. I now have this tailpiece instaled back for 2 weeks now and it seams to work, works a nice now as my AV RI trem.

Third, the MIJ/CIJ trem cavety is not as deep as the ones found on vintage or AV RI guitars, just a metric vs. imperial thing I guess, but never the less anoyng, since the trem sometimes bottoms out when severly engaged. simply cut some wood away directly under the trem nut/bar. Now the trem can go deeper without bottoming out.

all three above mentioned thingies take about a hour or so, afterward you will like you MIJ/CIJ guitar a lot more if you are a heavy trem user like me. ;)
Last edited by mezcalhead on Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: intersting way to make the Japanese trem work

Post by fullerplast » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:05 pm

Thanks Jerry, those are great tips!

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Re: intersting way to make the Japanese trem work

Post by enormous » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:17 pm

I'm going to have to put this post in my archive.  Thanks.

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Re: intersting way to make the Japanese trem work

Post by ohm-men » Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:04 pm

As Soon as I got my camera back on line, I'll post some pics.
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Re: intersting way to make the Japanese trem work

Post by Soiouz » Sat Oct 21, 2006 6:18 am

I will definitely try the washer trick on my CIJ Jazzmaster... It's way better than the tape that holds it there now.

Thanks!

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Re: intersting way to make the Japanese trem work

Post by Mad-Mike » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:50 am

My CIJ Jaguar's trem has always worked fine, I still don't get why people think the Japanese trem is so terrible, I've been bangin' on that thing like some people do a Floyd for months, and it's the most stable trem/bridge setup in the whole house!

How I set mine up was to have the metal plate flat against the top plate that holds the tailpiece to the guitar, so I only have downard pitch, then I took my pliars, carefully tightened the collet just a little, wrapped some electric tape,around the ba till there was about an inch and a half left to go through the trem, basically, the tip of the bar going into the hole stops maybe a millimeter or two past the collet because of the makeshift electric tape "stop" I made.  I made sure the layers of tape where thin enough to fit through the E and B strings wtihout rubbing. I just locked the Trem-Lock button with pliars, it was flopping around anyway, and I don't use it either.
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