Need Help with Floyd Rose

This is a basic outline of the procedures needed to be taken when playing with action levels on a floyd rose designed guitar. First things first, get comfy and be in a good mood as a stressed mind will not be good if things get complex! You can start by unscrewing the lock nut on the neck of the guitar so it is not putting any tension on the strings. Also, you wil need to undo all the fine tuners until they are all the way out. Once this is done, turn the fine tuners approx. 1/4 to 1/2 turn back in to stop them sticking on the threads!

To explain the next steps please read and follow instructions: grab your guitar and check to see that when the guitar is in tune, the floyd rose bridge is very close to parallel with your guitars body. If the bridge is leaning towards the front of the guitar (head) read the next step. If your floyd rose bridge is leaning towards the back of the guitar read from the **** futher down this page.
Towards the front: start by using the normal tuning heads to tune all the strings flat because it is alot easier to set up the floyd rose if it is already too far back. From here, open up the panel on the back of your guitar (spring cavity) and tighten the spring adjustment screw in a few turns (clockwise) which should result in the face plate of the floyd rose to tilt back slightly once all the strings are in tune.

Once you have re-adjusted the spring adjustment screw, begin to re-tune your guitar (use a digital or an analogue tuner). Start with low E and work your way up the strings ending on high E. The desired effect you are lloking for is the floyd rose to be parallel to the guitars body. This procedure may take a while so be patient. It takes me roughly 4-6 full tune ups before my guitar is "in-tune"!!! You will notice that after about the 2nd or 3rd pass, the strings will require less and less tuning. Make sure you don't make the tuning too sharp or over pitch! As the time rolls by you will reach a point where you no longer need to tune your guitar up. From this point your guitar should be roughly in tune, with the floyd rose now pointing further towards the body of the guitar, rather than the head. Of course for some of you, you may of set up the spring tension/string tension 'perfectly'. This is the case if the floyd rose is running parallel with the body of your guitar. If so well done, your doing better than me.

Towards the back: so your floyd rose is now leaning towards the back of your guitar. This can be fixed by adjusting the spring tension screws out approx 1/4 turn at a time. Once you have released some tension by a 1/4 turn, start to retune your guitar again with the low E to high E.

Note: Due to the design of the floyd rose system, you cannot use the spring adjustmet screws to obtain the units parallel. The reason for this is the floyd rose system works as a counter-tension to create the 'floating' bridge. There needs to be an equal tension between the springs and the strings plus the bridge to run parrallel with the guitars body to obtian a 'perfect pitch.' Once the faceplate of the bridge is almost parallel to the guitars body, making sure that the guitar is in tune, re-lock the lock nut (if ya have one) on the neck and using the fine tuners now, obtain your perfect pitch by starting on low E working your way through to high E. It may take a few tries to get it down right but like everything practise makes perfect. Happy playin'.