Let's talk about trem arms

[gilla409]

It looks like the MIJ trem arm I ordered has been lost in the mail, so I'm getting ready to order another. What do y'all think of the AmPro trem arm/bushing set? Is it worth the $20 or so, or should I stick with a standard MIJ piece? Better yet, do any of you have a recommendation on a good trem arm? I'm using a MIJ '62 RI trem on this build in case that matters.

Thanks in advance!

[solfege]

The Am Pro collet won't fit, b/c your trem accepts a 10mm, not 3/8 (which is larger). The best equivalent for that is the Staytrem 10mm version. I changed my MIJ trem over to one and it's great. If you're outside the UK, you're going to have to look on Reverb, etc., to find one tho. It's also going to cost significantly more than $20. Realistically, once you're spending the kind of money in question, you might do better to just get a whole AVRI trem unit or one of the Marr ones with the Staytrem-like bushings. Really depends on your budget.

[gilla409]

Ahh, I see. Thanks for the heads up!

I reckon I'll just get another RI arm for now, and maybe upgrade to a Marr trem or a Staytrem in the future. I don't play with loads of tremelo anyway, so I doubt I'll be pining for a better unit anytime soon... I'm mostly just trying to finish up this build sooner than later.

[Rgand]

In an effort to be helpful, if you would copy the BBCode image link from Imgur and post it instead of linking to the page where your photo is, it would show in your posts.

Like this:


instead of this:

[gilla409]

Yeah, I messed up copying the imagur link instead of to the pic itself. My bad!

[Rgand]

Looks great! I like that tort with seafoam green.

[gilla409]

Thanks! It's coming along nicely, especially after returning that Eden body and picking up a Northwest Guitars body instead. I had to route the pickup cavities to fit the p90s in it, as well as drill the bridge bushing holes a bit bigger to accept the Wilkinson bridge, but that ended up being easier than expected (had the right tools on hand.) I also had to shave the pickguard around the neck pocket and bridge bushing holes, but that wasn't terribly difficult either.

All that's left now is wiring up the electronics (including drilling a hole to the trem cavity for ground,) shaping the nut, and general setup. Still on the fence about shielding the body, as I'm not sure it'll be worth the effort to do it completely/correctly. That's something I can do after it's built up though, I'm getting antsy to play!

[marqueemoon]

I’m using an aftermarket MIJ arm I got from Angela. It seems like a little slop in the collet is just par for the course with the MIJ trems. I might add some shrink tube at the top just to try to quiet it down a little.

I really don’t like the idea of a screw in arm, but I’m realizing with my new band if I want to use a JM it’s going to need some kind of humbucking pickups, and an Ampro seems like a good platform for that. Could always swap in a Descendant or Mastery vibrato down the road I guess.

[gilla409]

Yep, those AmPro models definitely look like great players. Or, you could always do what I did and route a body for your choice of pickup, and simply swap pickguards. A Harbor Freight trim router was $30, the pattern bits were $11 on Amazon, and the pickguard was $22. Not a bad deal if you're on a budget, and the job was waaaaaay easier than I expected.

Idunno, I always prefer creative/DIY solutions rather than throwing money at a problem. Then again, I'm a broke husband/dad that has to make every dollar stretch as far as possible. This entire build has cost about $550, as I had the pickups already, and I'm confident it'll play and sound as good as (or better than) a $1200 Fender.