Monday, February 24, 2014

Craftsman EG-95 Review Part 1

This will be my first time discussing guitars on this blog. :) My motivation for this post is that I saw some people selling their Craftsman EG-95  (maybe because of the problems that I encountered as well). I would like to share the solutions that I compiled to overcome those problems.

Last week (Feb 17 2014), I bought a Craftsman EG-95. This is just an experimental guitar since I don't have any previous experience with Floyd Rose (FR) setups. After trying it, the stock setup gave me some tuning instabilities. Before buying the guitar, the saleman warned me that Craftsman EG-95 is a little problematic and if I could extend my budget, go for the Charvel Desolation Star, which is a very nice guitar but has only one pickup. :(

Since, we engineers love to solve problems (and at the same time cut some cost), I decided to get the Craftsman EG-95. When I came home, the problems had already surfaced. Anyway, since I am a firm believer of the famous quote:
"The more we are exposed to problems, the more we learn. "
I started to dig deeper yesterday and studied the details of the Floyd Rose from the internet and I learned a lot (and still continue learning as of the moment). Here are the things that I leraned:
1. Never adjust the knife edges under pressure. I learned this rule a little late since I adjusted the action of my strings.
2. According to what I read, when the FR is removed, the knife edges should be stable when screwed to its holder since this is very crucial for tuning stability. In the case of EG-95, there is a very big play on the knife edges. So what I did, is to put teflon tape on the screw thread. This solved the play on the knife edges.
There are also tips to put Chapstik on the knife edges' contact to the FR tremolo, but I used petroleum jelly since I dont have any Chapstik at home. :)
3. Using conventional tuning, it will take time to tune the guitar. But when I saw this youtube link , I was able to tune my EG-95 quickly.
4. The thread on some of the saddles are a little bit sensitive. I have two saddles that have lost their screw thread. :( What I did is just bolt cut the long screws and use a metal file to narrow the tip. This solved the problem however I don't like this as a long-term solution. As of the moment, I am still searching for a saddle online since I don't want to replace the whole FR.

After all of this, I tried to play the guitar and it seems that it is more stable than before. Although, I like it to be really rock-stable even when you use the whammy bar intensely. Here are the things I am planning:
1. Add more springs. Currently, it has 3 springs. I read that having 4 to 5 springs can contribute to the tuning stability.
2. The guitar has a 1 year warranty. If the saddles will not be covered by the warranty, I am planning to look for a saddle or worst case, replace the whole FR with a new one.

Despite of the problems encountered, I am happy that it went this way since I know this will be a very valuable learning experience.