Tools used for the job are as follows, BOSS TU80 tuner, 18” precision straight edge, low tack masking tape, Fender detailing cloth, Planet Waves peg winder, metal polish & cloth, Philips screw driver, wire cutters, 2000 grit - 6000 grit sandpaper pads, 2.5mm ball ended allen wrench (important to get the correct size) Lastly, strings, and a good work surface, i’m using two Fender work bench mats.

First put your trem arm in and push down in order to slide your cloth under the rear of the tremolo. This is done for two reasons, firstly, it protects the bridge cavity by acting as a cushion for the bridge. Once the strings come off, the bridge will have allot of tension pulling on it from the springs in the back. The second reason is to save time. If you can keep the bridge in roughly the same position by keeping the bridge held up, it will reduce time in the tuning process.

With the bridge nicely padded, grab the correct size allen wrench, in this case i’m using a 2.5mm ball ended key. Loosen and remove the locking nuts and put them safely to one side.

Now take your peg winder and slacken off all the strings. This is when the bridge will start to sink into the cloth we placed behind the trem earlier.

With the strings slackened off, you need to loosen the string clamps, these may be located at the rear of some other floating trems. Turn the nut counter clockwise, just enough so the string end pops or pulls out. The little blocks that clamp each string in place will be loose at this point. If you need to turn the guitar over for any reason, just tighten them back up again.

With the strings now off and disposed of, it’s time to focus on the fretboard. Sometimes frets need cleaning and other times not. These look a little tarnished so i’m going to polish them up. The board itself is clean so no work is need there. See the PRS setup page for cleaning your board and guitar body.

Mask the guitar body off using either card or paper. Then mask each fret using low tack tape. This is a rosewood board with no clear coating on the neck, so you’re quite safe to marks the entire board in one go. If the neck has a clear, or it’s a lacquered maple board, then you do have to be extremely careful not to pull any finish off with the tape. It’s safer to mask and clean each fret one at a time, or safer again, just use fret guards. Please see the “82 Fender fret dress” article.

With the frets all masked off, it’s time to clean and polish. I like very smooth clean frets, so i’m starting with a 2000 grit polishing pad and working up through 3600, 4000 and 6000 grit. This removes any light scratches and marks that may be present. Resulting in a very shiny and smooth fret and in better condition than when it first left the factory. This takes a little time to complete, but it’s worth it, and for extremely dirty frets, it’s very satisfying.

Once the sanding precess is complete, it’s time for a little metal polish. This isn't that necessary, but it will help protect the frets and help extend the time before this process needs doing again. This is the paste kind of metal polish, rather than the liquid kind. Just a little safer using this type around the instrument. You only need a tiny amount for each fret.

You can see here the frets that have been done, and the ones that haven’t. Mask off the remaining frets to finish the job. Keeping the frets and board clean is very important. Dirt, sweat and grease all build up on a fingerboard and if not taken care of can lead to loose frets, string life being reduced and loss in tonal transfer, not to mention it feels horrible playing a filthy board.

You can see how clean these frets look after a bit of time has been spent on them, bring on those super smooth bends!. This board isn’t dry so there’s no need to apply any lemon or linseed oil. Remove all your masking, it’s time to string up.

Start with the low E string and slide it through the tuning post hole. Pull the string most of the way through towards the bridge giving you enough slack to wind on. Keep the string tucked under the string tree located by the nut in the picture above.

The ball end of the string will prevent it coming all the way through the tuning post. Now at the bridge end, push the string down into the saddle and tighten the string block to clamp it in. Be careful not to over tighten the nut or you may thread the bolt. It does need to be tight but don’t force it. You may need to loosen the nut slightly to ensure the string slides all the way in.

Tune the string up, not necessarily to pitch, but just so it’s taught. Make sure you wind on enough slack, or your string will start to slip on the post. On the plain strings you want to double the amount you wind on as these slip more so than the wound strings. You can see in this picture where the string sits under the string tree and then rests in the nut. Work your way through the other 5 strings in the same way.

Will all the strings securely on, snip the excess off with your wire cutters. I like to cut as close to the machine head post as possible, looks neater and you wont stab yourself on protruding string ends.

Keep the string nice and taught as you’re winding it on and you’ll end up with a very neat job. A neater job like this will vastly improve tuning stability. With the strings stretched in and the winds neatly butted together like this, the string has little to no room to move and shift.

This is where floating trems are known for being a pain. As the strings are being tuned, the bridge will either rise up, or drop down. The picture shows exactly where the bridge should be with the guitar tuned to the desired pitch. The bottom of the bridge should be parallel with the body. The bridge will often move if you’re changing the gauge of strings, or alter the tuning on an already setup instrument.

Should the bridge begin to move either too far up or too far down. Remove the back plate where you’ll see this type of spring setup, with two large screws going into the body. These two screws determine the spring tension pulling on the bridge. So, if you’re bridge is raising up too much, you need to increase spring tension. Simply tighten each screw half a turn. Should the bridge be dropping too far, then loosen each screw by half a turn. Retune and adjust again if necessary, this can be a back and forth procedure.

Once the bridge is at the correct level, it’s time to check the neck. I’m using a precision 18” straight edge. The guitar should be in the desired tuning, and you should check neck relief in the playing position. Neck relief is measured at the 8th or 9th fret. Adjusting a neck is too long to discuss here, so please see our dedicated article on this subject. This neck is perfect, so no adjusting needed.

The last step on this guitar is setting the action, or string height. String height is measured at the 12th fret, and is altered by adjusting the two bridge posts seen in the smaller picture above. To lower the action,tighten each bridge post, to raise action, simply loosen. I like as low as possible with minimal buzz. I usually set the low E to about 2mm, and the high E to 1.5mm for most floyd rose guitars.