licensed floyd tuning issues

[jojohoho]

i have an esp f-250 and for some time i have had issues with tuneing i have an understanding of the fulcrom point and such and to where i can tune and play it but over time no matter how close i get it it slowly goes out of tune until the fine tuners are maxed out one way or another, i use heavier gauged strings and tune to drop C ....i also use my buddys ibanez rg and have the same issues with his but worse.....i dont fully get the inoation and cannot afford or find a decent guitar tech that can tune it properly as well ive taken it to 3 shops and each time it would be tuned fine and then as soon as i dive with the bar its done.....this problem is so frustating and expesive with strings and shop trips i want to sell the damn thing and get a string thru or tune o matic bridge.....any advice or suggestions plz pass my way or even posible interest in buying my guitar.....xxx_usefulidiot_xxx@yahoo.com

[David Schwab]

Do you stretch your strings when you put them on? It sounds like they are stretching over time.

I give them a gentle pull, and then retune. I do that about 3 times and then after that they are settled in. Stretch them with the nut locked, and then retune with the nut unlocked and the tuners, not the fine tuners.

After the strings are stable you shouldn't have to use the fine tuners much, as the strings should stay in tune.

If you are having issues from using heavier gauge strings, make sure you adjust the trem springs to compensate.

[jojohoho]

yea i do stretch the strings and the one time i had a guitar tech who's shop is now closed set up the guitar he put waht i think were 11-52 im not sure pretty heavy strings and he had put 5 springs on wich i still use....when he had it setup i had no issues for over a year till some pos used my guitar and proceeded to twist the neck to get some strech effect and poped a string i almost killed the guy....he showed up to audition for my band with an acoustic guitar and abused and trash talked my gear needless to say he knew nothing of a floating bridge and was not invited back to jam...anyway that guy closed his shop and i have had no luck with the instrument myself....as it is setup now with the heavy strings i had to raise the bridge slightly and ajust the neck to a slight concave to stop the buzzing on the neck it will stay in tune but no whammy bar fun....

[jojohoho]

yea i do stretch the strings and the one time i had a guitar tech who's shop is now closed set up the guitar he put waht i think were 11-52 im not sure pretty heavy strings and he had put 5 springs on wich i still use....when he had it setup i had no issues for over a year till some pos used my guitar and proceeded to twist the neck to get some strech effect and poped a string i almost killed the guy....he showed up to audition for my band with an acoustic guitar and abused and trash talked my gear needless to say he knew nothing of a floating bridge and was not invited back to jam...anyway that guy closed his shop and i have had no luck with the instrument myself....as it is setup now with the heavy strings i had to raise the bridge slightly and ajust the neck to a slight concave to stop the buzzing on the neck it will stay in tune but no whammy bar fun....

[billyz]

Welcome to the Wonderful world of the Floyd Rose nightmare.

I charge extra to work on these for good reason, and this is one of them.
First, before tightening the nut (it should be almost tight, but the string can still move thru) stretch and tune. You must do all the strings to pitch and all in tune. Then Repeat, Continue to stretch and tune until the string no longer stretches. There is no magic number to how many times you must stretch and tune. Then tighten the lock nut and recheck again. Of course you have already backed out the fine tuners. You may still find that the string has gone sharp due to tightening the nut, hopefully you have enough fine tuner left to compensate.
If not, loosen the nut retune the string with a hair of fine tuner left, retighten check it all again.

This assumes your fulcrum points are in good condition and the metal is of great quality. Otherwise, it will still go out of tune when you dive bomb.

Also, in my experience, Floyds do not respond well to strings heavier than 10-46 and really prefer 9's or even 8's. The dropped tuning would compensate some for this.

[jrfrond]

I recently had a problem with a licensed Floyd not returning to proper tune, and as it turned out, the studs were wearing at the knife edge contact point. My guess is that these weren't hardened studs. As a temporary fix, I just turned the studs a half-turn to expose some fresh contact area, but it will happen again. Since it is my own axe, I'll just wait until it happens again before I take it apart and install some new original Floyd studs.