Online since 2007 · The OG online heavy metal guitar shop
We’re the metal people not afraid of Floyds
The dive bomb. The squeal. The bar pulled back until the strings go slack — and the guitar still lands dead in tune.
That last part is the whole trick. It is also where most shops lose the plot.
Anyone can set up a hardtail. Put a floating tremolo in front of a general repair bench and the guitar often goes home worse than it arrived — sharp on the low E, dead in the bar, never quite right again.
We have spent three decades setting floating trems up, restoring them, and sourcing the parts that keep them alive. It is not a category we bolted on. It is the reason the shop exists.
People send us the guitar the last shop gave up on.
Five things a floating trem will not forgive
This is not exotic knowledge. It is specific knowledge — and specific is the part that gets skipped. Get any one of these wrong and the guitar never holds pitch again.
Stud spacing
Post spacing is not universal. Miss it and the outer saddles sit off the string path before you have touched a single screw. Geometry does not respond to setup.
Block depth
The sustain block has to clear the cavity through the entire range of travel. Too long and it stops dead against the body. Too short and the dive dies early.
Knife edges
The whole system pivots on two edges. Once they are rounded or notched, the trem stops returning to the same place — and nothing you do at the tuners will fix it.
Spring balance
Claw tension has to answer the string gauge and the tuning you actually play in. Change either one and the base plate stops sitting level. A trem that is not level is not in tune.
The order you tune in
Every string you bring up to pitch moves the other five. Work the wrong sequence and you will chase it for an hour and still finish flat.
All five, every time
That is the checklist behind every trem that leaves here. It is slower than a quick once-over. It is the only way the guitar comes back in tune and stays there.
How we actually work
The parts shelf
About 610 SKUs of tremolo hardware
Floyd Rose and floating tremolo parts, down to the small hardware most shops will not rack because it does not move fast enough.
Before you buy
We check the fit first
Send the brand, the model and the year. We confirm the part fits before you order it.
That conversation is free and it takes one message. It also prevents most returns before they can happen — which is the entire point of having someone on the other end who knows the hardware.
On request
Bench setup before it ships
Tell us how you play and it arrives ready. Drop tuning, string gauge, action and intonation dialled in on the bench first.
The difference between a guitar you plug in and a guitar that becomes a weekend project is about an hour of someone else's time. Ask for it.
The Vault
About 1,900 instruments that are not for sale
Discontinued and end-of-life guitars, basses, amps and effects, kept on record with their specs and their parts compatibility. None of it is for sale. That is the point.
When a model is discontinued its product page usually gets deleted — and the nut width, the fingerboard radius, the post spacing and the hardware sizes go with it. The guitar is still in someone's hands. They still need those numbers.
Most shops delete the page. We keep it.
What you are covered by
Every order is checked for fit before it ships, and set up on the bench if you ask for it. If it still is not right, eligible gear goes back within 30 days.
Shipping is free on orders over $499.
On the bench
Blake
Thirty years a player, and the one who actually has your guitar in front of him. When you send a model and a year to check a part, he is the person reading it.
Send me the year and the model before you order. Thirty seconds on my end saves you a return.
Bring us the difficult one
The one that will not stay in tune. The one nobody stocks the part for. The one the last shop handed back.
Metal Up! \m/