Edge and Lo Pro Edge problems after action change - I don't

[Kremlin]

Hi everyone, I guess before I describe my problem it might be nice for me to introduce myself..

I've been a lurker here for years now, but this is my second post ever, so go easy on me I own a JS10th Chromeboy, a JEM7VWH, a 50th Anniversary Strat Plus, and a Les Paul, I'll take a pic sometime soon... Anyways, with both the chromeboy and the Jem, I've had a problem with setting up the tremelo. Here goes....

Both the guitars arrived with the action set very high at time of purchase. The chromeboy's tremelo was pretty borked up when it got here, and isn't working quite right yet. I just got the Jem a bit over a week ago, and it arrived from Japan with very high action as well. On both of them, the neck is arrow straight, so it's easy to tell that the action could go a lot lower. Anyways, I've lowered the action on them both (without removing the bridge! Poo poo on me!) and they've both had the same problems after lowering the action.

The first thing that I noticed with both is that now the whammy bar hits knobs and switches when they swing, instead of going over. On the chromeboy, the bar even gets stuck on the fine tuners! Is there a way to raise the bar out without raising the bridge?

Next in line, is that after lowering the action, on both guitars I've found that the whammy just isn't as "sensitive" anymore. What I mean by this is that, I can press or depress the bar by the same amount I would have done so before making the action changes, but the change in pitch is much smaller! This is a pain, I liked having the very touchy bar, it made doing whammy tricks much easier while doing quick picking. Does anyone know a solution for this?

Thanks, I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say.

[Rich]

You're never gonna get a second dot at this rate! I don't now how many times I say this a month *neck shim*. It'll raise the trem back out of the guitar for clearence of the knobs and still give the same low action. On your 10th your fine tuners are probably too high, it's an Edge, you have to keep the tuners in the middle of their travel usually.

[Kremlin]

Thanks for the quick response, Rich!

That's something I definitely can't do myself, I'll have to talk to a tech sometime..

Any comments regarding the tremelo sensitivity?

[Rich]

Dude, ANYBODY can do this themselves! Get to know your axes inside and out. You're doing yourself and your guitars a great disservice by trusting them to someone else and actually paying for it too. Who's going to treat your guitar better than you?! Well, me, but I'm not there :biggrin: Pull the trem with strings attached (directions in the TECH section right here on Jemsite, as well as the answers to about any question you could have, bookmark it, read it, study it, make it your friend) Once the trem is off unscrew the neck and put a shim (a piece of paper folded 3 times 7mm by 20mm) at the body end of the pocket up against where the neck pup is. Put it all back together, make sure the neck is lined up properly (strings equally spaced on either side of the board) and readjust the action height.

Not following your sensitivity problem. You mean with bar depressed to maximum the dive isn't as low?

[Kremlin]

Eek.. I'm terrified of taking the neck off! I'm scared I won't get the neck angle back the same, or something like that...

By the sensitivity problem.. Uhh, what's a good example..

K there's a riff in The Attitude Song where there are several single notes hit one after another with a very quick whammy drop and then raised back up. I learned this song before I made the changes to the action. Now, when I press the bar the exact same amount, the pitch drops about half as much. Also, to pull up on the bar, much more force is needed to get the note to go up the same amount. I really have no clue why this is happening, but it's pretty frustrating.

[Rich]

Everybody is terrified till you do it the first time!! Pick your cheapest guitar, read the tech section, take the guitar apart and put it back together.

hmmm, let me think about the whammy thing while I work on this dna. Anybody else got a quick answer?

[bachle7]

With the exception of switching string guages/brands, my guess about the sensitivity is that you used to have the back end of the trem pitched up more than it is now. *-Andy

[YaYoGakk]

As far as the sensitivity thing goes, could it be the trem angle is too high?... I remember my yam**a was like that at one time, as you pushed the bar down the strings didn't seem to slacken up.
The neck shims are easy, man. Just follow Rich's instructions :biggrin:
I shimmed my UV. Action is awesome on it and I can bearly make cereal without ruining it LOL.

Alden

[Kremlin]

Thanks again, fellas.

I'll rip apart my Epi Les Paul some time.. no Floyd on it, but at least I won't cry if I bust it Well, not as much...

I'll try playing with the tremelo angle to see what happens. YaYoGakk the problem you described there with your Yammie is exactly what I'm getting.. I push the bar down to the body and the notes are only going down about 3 semitones on the high E.

[YaYoGakk]

Yeah, take apart the LP, my yamaha is my experiment guitar. It's been completely apart, laying there on my bed...i mean...workbench...yeah workbench. I remember when i painted it, firing the little piece of paper, used for the shim, in the garbage LOL wasn't till the tech pages here that i though... Hmmm.... you know...maybe thats why the action is so godawful high. Put same shims in...now it's sweet, well....still sucks, but the action is sweet. :laugh:

Alden

[Kremlin]

lol! *That totally sounds like something I would do.. "What're these pieces of paper doing in here? I'll just toss em out" :innocent:

[rickboot]

Sounds like you need to adjust the trem angle by tightening the trem spring anchor. Just unscrew the trem cavity and commence to screwing.

Rich is right. This is very simple and nothing to be afraid of. Driving a car is more scary at first but we all get used to it right?

Read the Jemsite tech section for more information.

Rick

[SalemB]

Just be aware that on a guitar with AANJ the screws holding the neck and body together are of two different lengths. The long ones go on the body side.

Yeah, I know. This is obvious, but I managed to mess this up myself. :innocent:

[Kremlin]

Thanks again for the help guys. I now have everything tuned up except for actually doing the neck shim....