Hardtail bridge on a non-hardtail body?

[normantrophy]

So, a friend of mine is bugging me to pick up a hardtail bridge for another friend of his (neither of them has a credit card, don't ask!), the friend is supposedly "sick of losing the tremolo," whatever that means, but basically he's wanting to put a hardtail bridge on a tremolo-equipped body. Can this even be done?

I told him I didn't think there was anything to screw it down to, and told him a cheaper alternative would be to either "lock" the tremolo with more springs, by tightening down the "claw" to increase tension, or by immobilizing the tailbock with a small wedge or block of wood, so I think I covered all the bases. I also told him that if the chief problem was just that the arm flops around, that I have a few extra tremolo arm springs, if he wanted one. Can this be done (short of putting a block of wood in the body cavity)? Is there any advantage to this? I should think that, even if he does pull it off, there's going to be an unsightly block of wood (or a hole) showing where the tremolo arm should be.

[0racle]

Your ideas are the best alternatives for him, because what he's describing can't even be done short doing about $500 woth of work to a body worth half of that...all to produce some sort of Frankenstein, that would be worth half what it is now unmolested.

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who gets pulled into conversations like this, as I was starting to think I was some sort of magnet for crazy customer requests...a recent one :

Q : "Can you you paint each fret a different color, so it looks like a rainbow ?"

A : "Sure I can, but I have to charge you $ 50 per fret"

Q : "Why ?"

A : "For wasting so much of my time, when I could be getting multiple projects done, instead of doing multiple work on one project"

[PhatTele]

You told him the right stuff. Those are really the only practical alternatives short of buying a new body or guitar.

[MulliganChebichev]

The best that I can think of is this

[0racle]

Originally Posted by MulliganChebichev

The best that I can think of is this

This bridge that you refer to will NOT work better than blocking the trem, for a variety of reasons...and given the fact that it's a top loader, it will not only decrease the sustain, but will probably require stiffer string tension to tune it. I did work on one recently, and these were the problems I noticed.

[boris bubbanov]

I had a chance to thoroughly inspect that conversion bridge plate by 'Custom Shop' as it was shipped to me by mistake.
I send it back, it is rubbish. The plate and 'backplate' are actually two separate cast pieces that have been screwed together, and it is made overseas somewhere. The saddles and hardware are of poor quality.
Worse of all, you'll have to drill mounting holes in the top of your Strat body to use it which would be crazy obvious if you decided to get rid of it, each about 3/8ths inch outboard of the existing plate. I mocked it up, it looked crummy.
The product has nothing whatsoever to so with Fender's Custom Shop.

It has the same inherent design defect that has plagued the stock Squier 51 bridge assembly, and it appears it'd be an even bigger issue with sound quality, not to mention string loading nightmares.

Bubbanov