[Byle]

I took my Ibanez RG652AHM with Edge Tremolo to my tech today, and he adjusted the truss rod and I told him i was having trouble with returning back to tune after using the bar. It's tuned to E standard with 10-46 gauge strings.

He adjusted the bridge for me, which before I took to him, had the knife edges visibly as parallel as I could get them, which is what Ibanez says it should be like for optimal stability.

After he gave it back to me, he said he adjusted the claw screws, and that he looks at the top of the saddles rather than the knife edge, and the guitar returns back to tune much better than before. However, the knife edge now looks different (image attached, sorry it rotated when i uploaded it for some reason)

This isn't parallel to the body, and is tilting backwards, suggesting that the claw screws need to be loosened. The knife edge not being parallel is incorrect technically since it's an Edge tremolo, but the guitar comes back into tune much better now and plays fine, but I just checked the intonation and it's a bit flat on some strings, which wasn't the case before. So should I still be worried about it not being parallel?

 

[Rich]

It's not coming back to tune better because it's setup negative. He probably stretched the strings more or something else.

The trem angle doesn't affect tuning return as much as it does set the action baseline. Negative usually plays a little stiffer, positive usually plays a little looser than dead neutral, but neither have a big affect on stability.

 

[Byle]

Yeah when I was there he stretched the strings a lot more. Before I took it to him, it was not coming back to tune that well at all, the G string for instance would be quite sharp after using the bar, and that was when the knife edge was parallel as well as I could see to the body. But now it returns back to tune almost every time, but the knife edge isn't parallel, how is that possible?

 

[Rich]

Yeah when I was there he stretched the strings a lot more.

Answered

 

[Byle]

So should I try to make the knife edge more parallel to the body or just leave it? The intonation is still flat, and I'm assuming that's from the tilted back bridge

 

[Rich]

I'd reset it to correct.

If the action is lower because it's negative then the intonation would be flat. If the action is the same the angle isn't going to make a difference.

 

[Byle]

Yeah, the action is lower now cause it's negative, so I assume when it's back to neutral the intonation will have sorted itself out. My tech adjusted the claw screws, but I think he just gave the strings a real good stretching and that did most of the work for the tuning. If the intonation is still flat in neutral I can just fix it. Thanks Rich