![]() What's nice about them is that because there's no back rout or even string ferrules as on a normal hardtail, you can fit a Kahler (admittedly with a lot of woodwork) and it will look like a stock fitting. A small detail, but it must have taken a minute or two extra to wire and increases switching noise and unreliability.Ī word of warning for anyone who sees one of these advertised, as it hasn't been mentioned yet - it's quite common to find the necks transplanted onto completely non-Fender standard Strat-type bodies, including some real cheapos, and then sold as a 'Fender Strat'. There's also a really stupid piece of extra cost that someone wasn't clever enough to spot and remove - there's only one tone control, but rather than simply connecting it to the volume control, it's connected to all three switch poles on the normal tone-control side, and then linked to the other side of the switch. It still amazes me that the cost saving of not having to rout the body from both sides was enough to justify the money that must have been spent on the design and tooling for that piece of crap. Again, all features that we would now associate with Ibanez. Speaking of the neck, the fingerboard radius was 12", the frets were huge and the profile was skinny. It might disguise the original rout but the neck pitch angle would need attention. I dare say that this design could be attached to the front of an '83/84 Stratocaster. Thirty five years of guitar development has brought us the Floyd Rose FRX. The main problems with the Freeflyte are that the strings are anchored just below the baseplate (much like some Ibanez guitars), the saddles are crap and the whole assembly refuses to sit flush with the top of the guitar body. Spring tension is adjusted with an Allen key - rather like some Kahler Pro models. It does save the production line time that it takes to turn a body over to rout the other side. Running the tension springs in the manner shown makes no great difference from the traditional Fender location. (Yes, bolted! There are threaded inserts underneath.) Rather like the Ibanez Power Rocker, the knife edge on the baseplate engages with a precisely machined strip of steel that is recessed and bolted into guitar body. As this photograph provided by H7 illustrates, the Fender Freeflyte vibrato bridge behaves as a two-piece design. ![]()
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