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That would work perfectly well - you would need either short M4 screws or longer spacers to lock it down flush. It's a completely reversible mod and makes no changes to the existing components at all. Would probably take five minutes once you got hold of the right screws. Although - if increasing the break angle is a goal, going straight-through would not be as good as passing strings under the cigar.
By the way this trem came from a Jag-stang, hence the metric screw. I presume the vintage trems would use 5/32" diameter screws or something.

Wow dude THANK YOU this is absolute gold. I bet there is no other picture on the entire internet of this modification.
I'm gonna go hit the hardware stores, if and when I succeed I'll post the pics.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to make the photos.

Sometimes small machined metric screws are hard to find at hardware stores. However, I've had no problem finding them on Amazon. The important thing is the threads. To help figure out what threads everything is, you can use an existing screw to figure out what the threads are. For instance:

1. Computer case screws are almost always #6-32. Internal components are usually mounted with M3 screws.
2. American Strats, Jaguars/Jazzes, have #4-40 socket set screws for saddle height adjustment, some American basses and also aftermarket bridges (Hipshot, etc.) also have this. These are super skinny and I hate them. 6-saddle MIA Teles as well.
3. Most American-made basses, especially two-saddle bridges or three-saddle Tele bridges, will use a #6-32 screw. These are nice and fat and hefty and easy to work with.
3. Asian and MIM guitars and basses almost always have M3 screws for height and intonation, I've yet to see an MIM or Asian made guitar that wasn't a vintage repro that uses anything other than M3 screws.
3. American-made ABR-1 style Tune-O-Matic bridges have #6-32 posts.
4. Asian-made ABR-1 style Tune-O-Matic bridges almost always have M4 posts. M4 is slightly fatter than 6-32.

TREM HAS BEEN LOCKED SUKKAZ!
Holy Shitballs, TEH KURDTZ is like a whole new friggin guitar!!!!! The lil bastard is f'ing ROCK SOLID. The tuning peg issues are no more. It was all the trem's fault.

BTW, the spring posts are M6.
So I bolted it down and put washers underneath the cigar. Trem-Lock success

I also flipped the saddles around so I could push them farther back, for example I couldnt intonate the G string before because the saddle was backed up all the way, now it should work like a champ.

The most difficult part of this adventure was getting the springs off the bassplate. I did so without messing them up but had to straighten the ends. The springs were connected to the lowest position on the posts. And had I tried to put them on the highest position, I would have been fighting with it for possibly hours. The hell with it, I never use the trem anyway so locking it has made me happy as a clam.

Dude, I want to see the thing with a mustang trem and bass strings. Plz.

Cymbaline wrote:TREM HAS BEEN LOCKED SUKKAZ!
Holy Shitballs, TEH KURDTZ is like a whole new friggin guitar!!!!! The lil bastard is f'ing ROCK SOLID. The tuning peg issues are no more. It was all the trem's fault.

BTW, the spring posts are M6.
So I bolted it down and put washers underneath the cigar. Trem-Lock success

I also flipped the saddles around so I could push them farther back, for example I couldnt intonate the G string before because the saddle was backed up all the way, now it should work like a champ.

The most difficult part of this adventure was getting the springs off the bassplate. I did so without messing them up but had to straighten the ends. The springs were connected to the lowest position on the posts. And had I tried to put them on the highest position, I would have been fighting with it for possibly hours. The hell with it, I never use the trem anyway so locking it has made me happy as a clam.

Yay, glad it worked for you!

Hope you enjoy the guitar.

Ha - well I thought the screws were M6 but it was 2 years since I did it, so I assumed my memory was faulty. Glad it worked. I took another photo if anyone needs a side view.

aen wrote:Dude, I want to see the thing with a mustang trem and bass strings. Plz.

Oh no, here comes another wave of guilt. I have let this sit unfinished for 2 years because I've had lots of other projects and the next step of this one is block filling and routing for pickups, as well as reshaping the body ... it's basically a cheap VI using a 30" bass neck, Jazz body, Mustang vibrato, Jag switches (I think, maybe Mustang switches for each pickup) and 3 Strat pickups.

SS design / build thread here:
Digging for the bottom end - Mustang VI
In this form it strung up to pitch and played really nicely, but no pickups obviously.
On the plus side, these photos made me get it out, and I am going to have a tinker over the next few days to see what's what. And I ordered a Mustang plate for it, should arrive after the Easter break.