#22420 - StealthElement - Sun Jun 20, 2004 8:01 pm
I was watching an instructional guitar video and the instructor said that Eddie Van Halen used to grease the nut on his guitar(had a traditional non-locking tremolo) to keep it in tune. Does anyone know how that worked? It contradicts the whole idea of the locking tremolo!
#22427 - col - Sun Jun 20, 2004 11:38 pm
| StealthElement wrote: |
| I was watching an instructional guitar video and the instructor said that Eddie Van Halen used to grease the nut on his guitar(had a traditional non-locking tremolo) to keep it in tune. Does anyone know how that worked? It contradicts the whole idea of the locking tremolo! |
hmm... what exactly does it contradict about the 'whole idea of the locking tremolo' ?
Col.
#22430 - isildur - Mon Jun 21, 2004 1:28 am
Well, greasing the nut made the strings come back in place after using the tremolo. Sometimes a string could get stuck a little and be off tune after using the tremolo. A locking tremolo prevents this by eliminating the slipping of the strings. So the strings always stay in tune.
#22521 - StealthElement - Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:13 pm
So...the grease prevents the strings from getting stuck? If this works well, why is there a locking nut?
#22522 - isildur - Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:38 pm
Well, I'm not sure it works as well as a locking nut. It's just that some guitars i.e the Stratocaster loses its vintage look when you replace the original tremolo by a locking tremolo. If you really need to play with the tremolo a lot and must stay in perfect tune, then you are better off with a locking one. Also, the strings don't just slip and get stuck at the nut, they slip at the bridge too. Anyways, it doesn't hurt to try the greasing, maybe it will work well for you.
(Keep it greasy so it will go down easy. Frank Zappa)
#22543 - col - Thu Jun 24, 2004 12:50 am
If you want to lubricate your nut or bridge - don't use grease, use graphite.
get a knife and a graphite stick or a soft pencil, and make a pile of graphite powder, use this on the grooves in the nut !
you can even buy replacement 'graphite impregnated' nuts (at least you used to be able to) They probably do teflon coated ones now...
These days there are some really nice locking machine heads available. much better than locknuts ... schaller, sperzel, gotoh.. lots of different brands no need to butcher that vintage strat to keep it in tune :)
cheers
Col
#22583 - StealthElement - Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:25 pm
[color=darkred]Thanks! It's hard to get an answer around where I live...[color]