How to Restring a Floyd Rose Tremolo
If there is one guitar maintenance job that strikes fear into most guitar players, especially the first time they try it, it’s restringing a Floyd Rose Tremolo.
A Floyd Rose Tremolo system shares some similarities to a regular Tremolo style bridge. Like a conventional tremolo it can be used to lower and raise the pitch by moving the tremolo arm, also known as a whammy bar.
The biggest difference is that a Floyd Rose tremolo locks the strings into place at both the bridge and the nut. This means that the strings maintain an even length and tension between these two contact points which prevents it from slipping out of tune during tremolo arm use, which a non-locking tremolo can suffer from.
Restringing a Floyd Rose tremolo is a task that many guitar players dread. In the attached video you will see how to do this step by step.
Before You Start
The floating bridge is balanced between the strings pulling the bridge up, and the springs in the back of the guitar pulling it back down. To achieve the best results, you should look for the bridge to sit parallel to the guitar body.
Some Floyd Rose loaded guitars will have a recessed cavity in the body to allow for the bridge to be pulled up, some will not have this and only offer a limited range of upward motion. The principles are the same for both types, the only difference is the range of upward movement.
Before you start restrinign, you’ll need a few simple tools:
- A Phillips head screwdriver
- String cutters
- A 3mm allen key.
Remember: Never force the allen key bolts on the bridge or the locking nut. Turn the key until it naturally stops in it’s travel, then using a small amount of pressure, take it slightly further. Never force or overtighten these bolts as you can strip the bolt head and cause damage to the parts.
Best Practises for Restringing a Floyd Rose
I recommend restringing a Floyd Rose one string at a time to maintain some level of tension on the bridge. If you take off all 6 strings, the undo all the string tension which means the bridge needs to be totally rebalanced.
If you are keeping the same gauge strings, you won’t need to do too much re-balancing, however, if you are changing gauge the bridge will need to be re-balanced to compensate.
When changing strings, you will need to cut off the ball end of the string. This end of the string gets clamped into the bridge and the other end goes to the tuning peg as standard. At the bridge end, the string is held in place by a small block which is tightened with an allen key bolt.
For each string you change, tune it, stretch it and check the bridge is still sitting parallel. This is why I recommend changing one string at a time, rather than removing all 6. It helps maintain the bridge balance.
Once you have replaced all 6 strings, tuned and stretched them and the bridge is level, you can replace the locking nut. Once the locking nut is back in place, you can adjust the tuning further using the small fine tuners on the bridge.
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About the Author
This article on restringing a Floyd Rose tremolo was written by Leigh Fuge. Leigh is a professional guitarist and content creator and also works alongside musicteacher.com to create guitar focused, educational and entertainment content.
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