Kahler tremolo setup

Mark the mounting holes out with a pen using the trem as a guide. Punch out the marks with a sharp needle or pen and turn them into small holes. Its nose fits perfectly into the pick guard cutout. The two are like peas in a pod. The one drawback is that through the years with different models the runs are never exactly the same and therefore the slot route may extend out from underneath the body as seen it the picture to the left.

The slot showing in the picture below is the worst case scenario. Helpful hint: You can jockey the trem to the lower side and mount it while adjusting the saddles to the upper side to compensate.

Mounting for Fender Stratocaster using a Kahler tremolo is a snap, just place the template in position using the 2 outside of the existing drilled 6 holes. Shim neck if necessary. Skip to 8A. Mounting any stud mount system on a Gibson Les Paul or any arched top guitar with or without a one or two piece Tune-o-Matic type stop bar and bridge requires advanced woodworking skills.

It is highly recommended that you get a professional Luthier to install the stud mount systems, because the guitar is usually carved and not flat easy to route. Mark out the routing cavity.

You may place small wooden blocks on either side of the routing area for the router to rest on, so that the router will skim over the hardware and electronics, and they need not be removed. Proceed to route. Glue tap in the bridge inserts. Glue and tap in the stud inserts. Mount tremolo on guitar. If you need to you can raise the rear to achieve a shallower angle over the roller as recommended.

Kahler tremolos are the easiest tremolo in the world to install. Just follow these simple guidelines Do not attach it to the body yet. FYI: All Kahler CAM systems for guitars are in the same family, whether its a 6, 7 or 8 string, all share the same parts inside the frame. The same saddles, the same string hooks, fine tuners etc. ALL are exactly the same. Only the mounting plates frames are different. Its the same with all the bass trem's and fixed bass bridges too. The bass tremolo family share its parts within that immediate bass family, even if the saddles are reversed they are still the same saddles that are on forward roller versions.

Same goes for the 4,5,6,7 and 8 string fixed bass bridges. Frames are different but the parts are the same. Now you can actually see the maximum string spacing a Kahler has to offer and can better align the trem up with the neck. This is the best scenario for staying in tune perfectly.

The higher you make the rollers, the sharper the string bend is over the roller, and thus more downward pressure on the roller pin is created which means more drag. Drag is a tremolos 1 enemy. Remember this, and you will be fine. The Kahler works best and has the good resonance and tone at this lower range of saddle height because the string still has proper pressure on the roller.

If you go any lower, it should be for adding a radius to your strings. Please note: You can go higher with the saddles and not hurt tone or resonance, but keep in mind that more drag will be noticed. Its almost best to adjust the guitar to the tremolo when its configured as recommended. You are now ready for alignment measurements. Now turn the tuners some, just enough so the tuner grabs the strings, but yet you can still pull the strings through the tuner hole to keep the tension on them.

Basically your trying to line up the strings properly down the center of the neck using the 2 outside saddles with strings, as a fret board edge reference. There no need to wind the strings allot on the tuners for this exercise. Mark the spot. With a long tipped felt pen, and being careful not to move the trem, make a dot for the 2 front mounting holes by sticking the tip of the pen through the 2 front mount holes and marking the body.

Try to keep the pen straight up as possible when marking the spots. Remove the trem off the body now, de-string and set aside. At his point if the template seems off kilter a tad, just straighten it out Now tape down the template on all four sides.

Mark the rear holes out. NOTE: a clean, sharp line here will prevent the paint from chipping during the routing of the cavity. If needed, or for new construction, drill a string ground hole between the Kahler cavity and the control cavity. Run ground wire into one of front screw holes. Mounting an "after the nut" String lock To work at its best, the Kahler string lock must be positioned as close as possible to the original nut, but be at enough of an angle below the nut so the strings are pulled down snugly into the nut slots.

It must also be as close as possible to the original nut to minimize string slack when the string tension is reduced via the arm. The original nut will now serve primarily as a string guide for the string lock. Align the string lock. Sight through the string slots and move the string lock. Using the string lock. Screw down the nut using the provided screws and a tiny phillips screwdriver to prevent damage to the heads of the screws.

The procedures for installing the Pro string lock. To drill the pilot holes you will have to remove the finger-locking clamps.

Just unscrew the retaining rod and pull it out. The clamps will fall off. Drill the holes and mount the chassis on the head stock and reassemble. The Pro string lock. No wrenches are used. Overall best string lock position is as close to the nut as possible and with a slight string angle from nut down to string lock.

Learn what a versatile tremolo is all about. Do you know what these adjusters do? From top to bottom Turn this Allen screw to lock the tremolo and go from free floating to fixed bridge. This is where the depth of your tone comes from! The arm screws into it and you push down or pull up on the arm to actuate the CAM movement. The arm stays where you leave it when its engaged. It's fully adjustable from "stay where you left it" to "let 'er swing till supper". This unloosens the fork so you can slide it in and out for proper intonation.

You can actually do lead solos while dive bombing and stay intonated the whole time! The string roller provides the salt and pepper to the main CAM s tone. Steel gives some crispness clarity while Teflon gives your tone sustain with girth and of course the brass makes things warm and inviting. Working from the bottom, up The eye clamp you cant see it in the picture is slid onto the saddle rod. The fork is placed on top of the eye clamp and then another clamp plate sits on top of it all.

A screw holds all 3 pieces together. A small allen sits over the rod at the end of each saddle. It locks the saddle to the rod once you determine how you want your string spacing. Your actually making the springs below stronger through leverage. So the idea here is to have all the strings equally sharp a few cents. The second picture shows the CAM stop bolt extended as it would be inside the cavity. At this point your still those few cents sharp as before. Now relieve most but not all the pressure on the D-stop by barely pushing down on the arm slightly or your strip the hex out, at the same time screw the D stop down a bit further until you get to the point where the CAM was oriented before and all cents are back at zero.

At this point you cannot pull back any and when you dive and return it will stop where it is tuned at. Now when you drop any tuning on any strings you wont go out of tune anymore. But first an educational primer If you subtract any of these two forces like break a string, an equalizing reaction take place where all the forces will seek out and find their equal balance point again.

What just happened here? Answer: You broke a string and everything went out of tune. But guess what? The same thing happens when you drop tune too. Your not really breaking the string in this case, your just loosening it. Like breaking it halfway. So the springs underneath which aren't broken and still have the same pull as before, will overpower the pull of the six strings above now really five and a half , and thus the arm will go up in the air and the CAM will rotate backwards until everything re-equalizes again If only the CAM was prevented from rotating backwards during drop tuning or when I break a string, it would stay tuned.

That's where the Drop stop comes in. It acts like a stilt under the back of the CAM preventing rollback. Cart Empty. Show Cart. Qty: Price:. Fender Parts. If your saddles end up sitting lower flatter then the string can start to hit the intonation lock bolt or jump out when played. The only way to adjust this is to change the angle of your neck with a shim. Figure out the fretboard curvature on your neck using a radius gauge as shown in pic above and below. This awesome tool will show you the curve equally on the top and bottom.

With the radius gauge resting under the previously set E strings, we can now set the middle four strings following the curve. We like to start with them high and then drop down listening to the plucked string, achieve the same amount of buzz against the tool on each saddle and the curve will be bang on.

Finishing up now, we can play with the spring tension of the tremolo and therefore the angle of the tremolo arm. It is possible to go too far and the grub screw can fall out - watch it!