Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

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blimpage
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Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by blimpage » Fri Oct 23, 2020 10:56 pm

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This is my Mustang. It's a 2007ish Japanese reissue, and it's had some rough treatment as you can see. Some of that by a previous owner (who scuffed up half of the finish without much of a clear plan), and some by me (who slapped a humbucker in the bridge and taped the switches in place so that they're locked to just the bridge pickup).

This guitar is super fun to play, but I've never been able to use it live reliably because of the tremolo. No matter what I do to set it up, I can never get it to return to tune after using the tremolo. And even if I leave the arm off and don't use the tremolo at all, the cigar still finds some way to wiggle and send the whole guitar out of tune. I'm not sure if it's a fault of the tremolo unit or (more likely) something to do with my setup or playing, but it means I don't end up playing this guitar.

So I bought a hardtail plate, to hopefully eliminate the tuning issues and transform the guitar into something that'll get used! I had my eye on Faction's Mustang hardtail plate for a while but it was perpetually sold out (of course it's back in stock now 🙃), but I ended up buying this one that popped up on Reverb from Expressway Guitars. It's very nice, I'd recommend it!

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Things were, uh. A little unkempt under the tremolo unit. Some of that rust cleaned off with alcohol, but some of it stubbornly stuck around.

I knew ahead of time that I'd need to route the body underneath where the ends of the strings anchor, to make room for the ball ends of the strings. Both Faction and Expressway mention that this is necessary, but neither provide any instructions for how they recommend doing this. I started by laying the plate on the body and marking out where the strings would sit so I'd know where I had to remove material.

What I didn't expect is that none of the plate's screw holes lined up with the existing mounting holes for the tremolo unit. I expect that's because the plate is designed to replace a different spec tremolo unit (American vs. Japanese?), rather than an error with the plate design. I don't mind dowelling the existing holes and drilling new ones - as I said this guitar has already taken a few beatings, so I'm not fussed about giving it a few more scars, especially if they'll be obscured under the plate anyway.

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The base plate for my trim router is slightly too big to get into the area that needed routing - it'd hit the bridge thimbles and control plate. Rather than unload all those parts from the body (and probably waste several hours struggling to get the thimbles out), I made a plywood baseplate for the router that'd give it clearance over the thimbles and control plate.

Then I could clamp a fence to the guitar and make a few passes with a cove router bit to clear out some space for the string ball ends. I tried to remove just enough to comfortably get strings in and out.

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With that done, I cut some dowels, drilled out the old screw holes, and plugged them up. The finish chipped out around the dowel holes in a few places (I'd love any advice for avoiding this next time!), but nothing that'll be visible with the plate on.

I only let the glue on the dowels dry for about twenty minutes before chiselling the tops of them flat and drilling new mounting holes. Then I could install the plate!!

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And here it is all strung up! I haven't had a chance to give it a proper test run yet - we're locked down pretty hard in Melbourne at the moment so my band hasn't been able to rehearse in months. But so far from noodling around the house, it feels great and the tuning seems stable. And I reckon it looks fantastic!

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I have noticed that because the bridge posts are designed with room to rock with tremolo use, they're now just sitting hard up against the front of the thimbles. I'm not sure if the bridge will move from there during use. If it still causes tuning issues, I'll wrap the posts with washers or tape to keep the bridge still.

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This was a fun little mod that I've been looking forward to doing for ages. Hopefully it'll help this guitar get a little more use!

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by lamp » Fri Oct 23, 2020 11:08 pm

That looks great!

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by guitalias » Sat Oct 24, 2020 1:10 am

blimpage wrote:
Fri Oct 23, 2020 10:56 pm


With that done, I cut some dowels, drilled out the old screw holes, and plugged them up. The finish chipped out around the dowel holes in a few places (I'd love any advice for avoiding this next time!), but nothing that'll be visible with the plate on.

G'day, like the look of this. I've got a couple of Squier Bullet Mustangs, will keep this bridge in mind. Next time try have over the hole b4 u drill, even better clamp down a piece of play or made with a small guide hole. Stay safe from WA, locked in, not locked down!

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by guitalias » Sat Oct 24, 2020 1:10 am

blimpage wrote:
Fri Oct 23, 2020 10:56 pm


With that done, I cut some dowels, drilled out the old screw holes, and plugged them up. The finish chipped out around the dowel holes in a few places (I'd love any advice for avoiding this next time!), but nothing that'll be visible with the plate on.

G'day, like the look of this. I've got a couple of Squier Bullet Mustangs, will keep this bridge in mind. Next time try tape over the hole b4 u drill, even better clamp down a piece of ply or mdf with a small guide hole. Stay safe from WA, locked in, not locked down!
Last edited by guitalias on Sat Oct 24, 2020 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by Steadyriot. » Sat Oct 24, 2020 3:01 am

That's rad!

The plate feels much more square without the cigar on there, weird how shapes can distort like that.
"If someone duetted with a Bald Eagle, they could rule the Country charts from here to eternity." ~shadowplay

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by jvin248 » Sat Oct 24, 2020 4:37 am

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Nice mod!

I'd next pop the pickguard and remove the switches you've got taped up to hard wire the circuit to make sure the guitar is even more 'battle hardened'.

.

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by preservation » Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:01 am

Love it. I have one on my silver JM and yet another from Expressway en route to me now.
I love a good tremolo, but there's something nice about the no-nonsense on some guitars.

both of my fixed plates have that diagonal alignment.

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by adamrobertt » Sat Oct 24, 2020 7:48 am

You could buy some of those nylon washers that come on the American Professional offsets to lock the bridge. I like them a lot. Darren Reilly sells them AFAIK

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by AcrylicSuperman » Sat Oct 24, 2020 11:50 am

If you have any vintage spec kluson style bushings (not the vonversion bushings) they'll drop right into the thimbles and keep your bridge from rocking.

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by adamrobertt » Sun Oct 25, 2020 6:48 am

AcrylicSuperman wrote:
Sat Oct 24, 2020 11:50 am
If you have any vintage spec kluson style bushings (not the vonversion bushings) they'll drop right into the thimbles and keep your bridge from rocking.
Hmm, interesting. Probably would be good for a hardtail setup like this. But what I like about the plastic ones is that they actually allow for a little bit of rocking - enough to stay in tune but without the bridge flopping around.

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by MattK » Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:12 pm

In case anyone reads this and would like to go hardtail Mustang without routing, the pivoting posts in a Mustang trem can be replaced with bolts which lock the tube in place. Washers between the tube and the plate give clearance for strings to pass under, so you keep the same break angle and it strings up the same way. Keeps the original look and the mod is completely reversible.

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by blimpage » Mon Oct 26, 2020 3:21 am

jvin248 wrote:
Sat Oct 24, 2020 4:37 am
.

Nice mod!

I'd next pop the pickguard and remove the switches you've got taped up to hard wire the circuit to make sure the guitar is even more 'battle hardened'.

.
I think I'd like to play with some different pickups in this guitar soon, so it'll probably get a new pickguard for those!

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by jagstanger » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:44 pm

Looks pretty cool. Nice work and mod!! Had the same tuning issue with my Jag Stang with the same Vibrato and just couldn’t keep it in tune. I also ended up locking it.
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you!

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Re: Mustang gets a hardtail plate!

Post by jagstanger » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:48 pm

MatthewK wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:12 pm
In case anyone reads this and would like to go hardtail Mustang without routing, the pivoting posts in a Mustang trem can be replaced with bolts which lock the tube in place. Washers between the tube and the plate give clearance for strings to pass under, so you keep the same break angle and it strings up the same way. Keeps the original look and the mod is completely reversible.
Yes. This works really well. Did that some weeks ago. You don’t even have to change the posts. Just shim the original ones. I thought that washers don’t look that good, do I made myself some spacers for it on the lathe. Pics can be seen here: https://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/v ... 8&t=117715
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you!

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