Back in 2015, my MIJ strat's stock tremolo block fractured severely:
I kept seeing that everyone said, "Callaham is the best, you have to go with Callaham". So I did. Having now used a Callaham block for 4 years, I can confidently say that I don't like it. His blocks are designed poorly and marketed misleadingly.
I think part of the reason my original block got messed up over the years was from constant screwing and unscrewing of the arm every time I'd put my guitar in my backpack-case. I thought that a way to solve this would be to get a pop-in arm.
I hate that Callaham sells their "virtual pop-in arm". There's nothing pop-in about it, virtual or otherwise. It's a screw-in arm, full-stop. I think this is some kind of marketing ploy on his behalf to fool people like me into thinking that it'll function like a pop-in arm. But it doesn't, at all. Callaham says you only have to do 4 turns to put it in (which still is not anything like an actual pop-in arm), but this is not really functional. If I don't screw in the arm all the way, just like a normal bar, then it sits way too high, and I can't grab it while playing.
I really like the tremolo arm not flopping down, and not being too wobbly, so I used to use plumber's tape on my old stock-arm to keep it firmly in place. Actual pop-in arms avoid being too wobbly by having a set-screw. This allows you to make the tension as tight or loose as you like. Callaham's solution for having the "virtual pop-in arm" stay in place is simply to have a rubber/plastic bushing to dampen the movement of the arm. This could be a good solution, except that after a few months of screwing and unscrewing my arm from the socket, the bushing wore down, and the arm was floppy as ever. I asked Callaham what to do. His solution: keep putting in more bushings that you have to get from him. Great! Better hope he never goes out of business, or I'm screwed. Rather than replace the bushings every few months (it's really difficult to get the damn thing out of the socket), I'd rather just use plumber's tape like I used to. I've asked Callaham several times whether this is a bad idea, and he's never actually directly answered my question.
Also, not to mention, these new bushings wear down quickly as well. His solution: try not to put in and take out the arm too much. Great! Now I just leave my Callaham-equipped guitar at home, and use a different one, since I have to remove the arm every time I take my guitar somewhere. And when I do take this guitar somewhere, I don't bother to use the tremolo arm, cause then that'd wear it down quicker. Thanks Callaham, the design of your product has made itself useless to me!
I kept seeing that everyone said, "Callaham is the best, you have to go with Callaham". So I did. Having now used a Callaham block for 4 years, I can confidently say that I don't like it. His blocks are designed poorly and marketed misleadingly.
I think part of the reason my original block got messed up over the years was from constant screwing and unscrewing of the arm every time I'd put my guitar in my backpack-case. I thought that a way to solve this would be to get a pop-in arm.
I hate that Callaham sells their "virtual pop-in arm". There's nothing pop-in about it, virtual or otherwise. It's a screw-in arm, full-stop. I think this is some kind of marketing ploy on his behalf to fool people like me into thinking that it'll function like a pop-in arm. But it doesn't, at all. Callaham says you only have to do 4 turns to put it in (which still is not anything like an actual pop-in arm), but this is not really functional. If I don't screw in the arm all the way, just like a normal bar, then it sits way too high, and I can't grab it while playing.
I really like the tremolo arm not flopping down, and not being too wobbly, so I used to use plumber's tape on my old stock-arm to keep it firmly in place. Actual pop-in arms avoid being too wobbly by having a set-screw. This allows you to make the tension as tight or loose as you like. Callaham's solution for having the "virtual pop-in arm" stay in place is simply to have a rubber/plastic bushing to dampen the movement of the arm. This could be a good solution, except that after a few months of screwing and unscrewing my arm from the socket, the bushing wore down, and the arm was floppy as ever. I asked Callaham what to do. His solution: keep putting in more bushings that you have to get from him. Great! Better hope he never goes out of business, or I'm screwed. Rather than replace the bushings every few months (it's really difficult to get the damn thing out of the socket), I'd rather just use plumber's tape like I used to. I've asked Callaham several times whether this is a bad idea, and he's never actually directly answered my question.
Also, not to mention, these new bushings wear down quickly as well. His solution: try not to put in and take out the arm too much. Great! Now I just leave my Callaham-equipped guitar at home, and use a different one, since I have to remove the arm every time I take my guitar somewhere. And when I do take this guitar somewhere, I don't bother to use the tremolo arm, cause then that'd wear it down quicker. Thanks Callaham, the design of your product has made itself useless to me!
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