Chapter 4 - Planning For Floyd

I had two major mods to do on the body, one for the Floyd Rose and the other for the controls.  I'll explain how I approached the planning first.





With everything removed, I had to see how the Floyd would line up inside this body.  First, I had to create some spacing for the tremolo arm.  So I put the Floyd on top of the body, and just marked enough space to cut out.

I removed the old posts (one was stubborn so I used a claw hammer to carefully lift it out), and after two minutes with the jigsaw, the tremolo arm could now fit.

Now I could plop the Floyd in, and see if I had given the arm enough room, but not cut away too much.

So far, so good.  


I had decided I would "sink" the unit into the body, rather than float it on top.  Three reasons, first I thought it looks cooler, second, FR's are quite bulky and when I played other FR guitars, they interfere with the palm of my right hand, and three, I didn't want to shim the neck to accomodate the extra height.


I had to plan out the cuts.  I roughed out the area with tape.

I put the new posts in (not all the way) to make sure I didn't have to fill the existing holes, and re-drill.

Perfect post fit.  Now the Floyd cavity is ready for the router:

Note I'm going to go almost twice as deep at the back to allow for extreme pull-ups.  Now, onto the controls in the next Chapter.