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Hey it's Ben! I'm new here and I am planning on building a custom guitar this
summer. I want to put an original non-recessed Floyd Rose tremelo on it. I
heard that the neck pocket has to be a certain angle when doing it this way
and I was wondering if you guys knew what the angle would be? Thanks!

Are you making a bolt on neck ?? If so, its not htat big a deal, you shim the neck to the angle you need usually. I prefer to plane an angle into the neck heel and fit that to the pocket instead. I dont measure any angle witha protractor - its likely very small, and you wont be able to cut it that acurately anyway - ie, is that 1.5 or 1.7 degrees - it makes a HUGE difference.

What I do is have the bridge in hand (very important, cant e done without having the parts) and an idea of where the ridge will sit, both from a comensation standpoint, and whether or not it will float, or be locked down. Assume you wnat it to float a bit - then shim the bridge up with some veneer pieces, to wherever, say 1/16 above the guitar body top, placed in the right position for mounting. Now start fitting the neck into the pocket, and check the plane of the fret tops to see where they lie with respect to bridge height - you will want the lie to be about 1/8 under the saddles height (the 1/8 approximates your string action, twice the 12th fret hieght of say 1/16 !!!). If the neck isnt aiming at there, then you need to adjust the necks angle either up or down as required - I do that with a finely set block plane.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

And another WELCOME!

_________________
Waddy

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Welcome to the OLF Krug, you lucked out with Tony posting an answer for you first as he is one of our most experienced and knowledgeable members.

Cheers

Kim

[QUOTE=TonyKarol] Are you making a bolt on neck ?? If so, its not htat big
a deal, you shim the neck to the angle you need usually.[/QUOTE]

Yes, it is a bolt on. Thanks for the help!

However, now, I'm still confused. There's two normal ways. There is slightly
angles like with a Tune-O-Matic bridge or plain 90 degree angle like with a
Fender trem. I know it would be flat with a recessed Floyd, but in my
experience these non-recessed Floyds are a lot harder to tune. Somewhere I
thought I heard to cut it like you would for a Tune-O-Matic, but I'm not
sure.

*recessed are harder to tune, sorry.

* the point I was making is the non-recessed Floyd looks like it sits higher
up. would it be like the Tune-O-Matic?

Most Floyd license bridges sit at 90 degrees, no angle required. Some of them have multiple set screw holes for locking down the saddle, thus giving enough movement to get the guitar intonated. What I am talking about is neck angle, in order to get the bridge to sit at the correct or desired height with a given action height. All bridges are different. One of my friends was working on an SG tyle at home and dropped around to show me his progress - being Friday the 13th I had to ruin his day of course - he had set the neck completely flat to the suface of the guitar top, and was planning on using a Gotoh tune-o-matic, which has a height of 10-11 mm - so even if the bridge sat flat on the guitar the action woudl only be usful for playing slide !!! So off came the fretboard and truss rod, and we cut the neck off it - time to start again.

So ... route a neck pocket to fit your neck in some scrap (you make the neck, or is it factory - you will need a template to do this neatly BTW that corresponds to you r neck dimensions ??) such that the fretboard is completely above the guitars top (like a strat - take a good look at one) - best ot practice this way until you get hte fit you want.

With your bridge sitting on the guitars (or the piece of scrap thats been routed) top (you may have to remove the trem block to do this) and maybe a shim or too if you want it to float, how does the lie of the frets look with the neck in its pocket ???

Here is where you decide what to do next - is it close enough that you could shim under the neck when mounting it to achieve the desired result - lots of strats have a plastic shim in them to change the neck angle in the pocket -or do you need to alter the necks angle at the heel first to get it closer ??? this step, plus putting the bridge in the right place, are the two most critical things to building an electric - the rest is routing simple pickets and sanding -lots of sanding !!!

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"