what the hell? bridge studs?

[GuitarBizarre]

Back in the day, the grub screws caused a lot of problems when people who didn't know what they were doing tried to lower their action with them locked, applied stupid amoutns of force, and ended up breaking things. Then ibanez went to non-locking studs to avoid it, as with the edge pro.

Of course, that wasnt a good solution for us guitar techy people who want the best, because now the studs weren't as good.

So this is the next best thing: We get locking studs if we want them, but people who know nothing about setup don't have locked studs to break, because the grubs aren't instaled unless we want them to be.

[Grn1z]

Its good to know there are a lot of patient qualified people on this forum....I bet you couldnt have gotten this in depth or this much help anywhere else...(at least not as quickly) Kudos to this thread and those of you willing to help new Ibanez lovers out. (some of us are slow to catch on.. as I played Fenders for 20 years) anyhow thanks to Rich and GuitarBizzare for your knowledge and patience.

[GuitarBizarre]

Originally Posted by Grn1z

Its good to know there are a lot of patient qualified people on this forum....I bet you couldnt have gotten this in depth or this much help anywhere else...(at least not as quickly) Kudos to this thread and those of you willing to help new Ibanez lovers out. (some of us are slow to catch on.. as I played Fenders for 20 years) anyhow thanks to Rich and GuitarBizzare for your knowledge and patience.

To be fair, Rich deserves the credit more than anyone else here. The vast majority of any technical info anyone here knows about ibanez, has probably come from his posts and his site at some point.

[Rich]

The kudos goes to the board itself. I've probably picked up as many tricks here as I've shared here.

As for the set screws not being installed, they're just being daft. When the sets were factory installed the guitars shipped with them unlocked. In fact, screwed all the way into the stud. The only way anybody could have a problem with them is if they locked them and forgot about them, or, they locked them and took it to an unqualified tech for a setup, that was, daft. If you never knew they were there you never locked them, and you never had a problem with them.

Now, they're not even installed, so average Joe has to go through this routine of figuring out how to even install them before he can simply lock them. I've brought this up with Mac several times, it's about the dumbest thing going on Ibanez these days.

[GuitarBizarre]

Really? I heard it was the reason I gave above, somewhere on here at least.

Oh well, will acquiesce to you on this one.

[GilkyBear]

Originally Posted by Homebake

why the hell don't they just install the grub screws at the factory???

http://www.ibanezrules.com/tech/setup/stud_mod_03.htm

[Grn1z]

Oh yeah, and just a tad off topic Ive checked out Rich's site extensively- which just follows up what I stated earlier....it takes a lot of time and effort to help out the more "average joe"
especially for FREE !!! so one last time Kudos to Rich and anyone else on this Forum who contributes to this site and or thread. Some of us do not have qualified techs at our local music shops so this will be an invaluable resource for me both for information and fun.
Thanks again guys-
Chris (newest Ibanez junkie)

[Rich]

Originally Posted by GuitarBizarre

Really? I heard it was the reason I gave above, somewhere on here at least.

Oh well, will acquiesce to you on this one.

That was the official reason, I'm just pointing out how dumb their reason is

[GuitarBizarre]

Originally Posted by Rich

That was the official reason, I'm just pointing out how dumb their reason is

I see.

[Homebake]

i also levelled out the trem angle properly, it is now completely parallel to the body of the guitar. since i use .11 guage strings, the main springs in the back are more stretched than they were (the bridge was slightly above parallel before) and now it's got a pretty stiff down push and a really easy pull up.

i hope this will keep it in tune better? it says in the manual that the edge pro is designed to perform optimally at a parallel level so i'm assuming it's the same for the zero.

[JohnnyRG1527]

yeah, i've been playing my RG548 which has an origional edge for the last 12 years with the studs unlocked because i didn't know it had them untill i set it up last night and noticed the small hole in the center lol

Studs are rock solid now

[GuitarBizarre]

Yep, its the same for all tremolo systems. The edge kind have an angled baseplate though, so make sure its the knife edge of the trem that you're setting as parallel, not just the top of the body of the trem.
Heres a pic: http://www.ibanez.co.jp/products/ima...tures_jp/9.jpg

See how the back of the trem is thicker than the front when you move back from the pivot points? You don't want the top of that to be level with the body, you want it to be slightly raised like it is in the picture.

The part you want to be level is the actual hardened steel pivot point itself, which if you look at the side of the tremolo, you can see has been inserted into the side of the baseplate, parallel with the bottom of the unit.

[Homebake]

when i say parallel, i've been looking at the back of the trem, the baseplate that the fine tuners are on top of. and yeah, the thicker back side of the trem is slightly raised.