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Price:
$39.00
Plus
$3.00 shipping & handling
At
“All Things Strat”
we see a lot of new guitar-related items and once in a while,
we come across an item that really rocks! This is the case
with the “Rock Steady”.
The
“Rock Steady”
is made using the same high quality standards and by the same
company as the “Tailfeather”
hard-tail conversion kit.
What does the Rock Steady
do?
To answer this question, we need to first understand how a
Strat floating tremolo works. Simply put, a correctly setup
tremolo is a fine balancing act between the tension of the
strings and the springs inside the back cavity. To maintain
the proper 1/8” gap at the bottom of the bridge, the
spring tension has to be just right.
Because
of this balancing act, breaking a string or changing strings
is made into a tedious process because each twist of the tuning
key throws all the other strings off balance, causing you
to tune and re-tune until everything comes into balance.
For
a gigging musician, breaking a string during the middle of
a set can be just like a nightmare. Even though it will eventually
go away, it can be scary and you don’t want it to happen
again.
This
is why we have the Rock Steady.
In the event of a broken string, the Rock
Steady locks the tremolo so that the string-to-spring
balance is not allowed to excessively change. Replace the
string, tune it, and with some very minor tweaking of the
other strings…you’re set to get back on stage!
Installing
the Rock Steady…
Although the installation is pretty simple, if you aren’t
familiar with how to set up your Strat, you should probably
follow the instructions carefully. After a proper installation,
your Strat should have the same setup with the saddles of
your bridge being in the same place.
 After
removing the strings, I removed the back cover and springs.
Next, I loosened the bridge saddles and screws that hold the
inertia block to the bridge plate. You don’t have to
remove the screws. Just loosen them.
The
Rock Steady was
slid into place between the bridge plate and the inertia block
and the screws were tightened. The tremolo springs were put
back in and some strings put on.
 I
adjusted the tremolo to factory specs with the bridge plate
floating 1/8” off the body of the guitar. Further adjustments
were done to the springs so that when the Rock
Steady would be in the locked
position, it wouldn’t touch the body.
Testing…
To test it out, I simulated a string break by loosening the
high E string. I checked the tuning before and after the “string
break” and with the Rock
Steady engaged, the tuning was only a bit
off. I “replaced the high E string” by bringing
it  back
in tune and after a minor tune up of the other strings, I
was ready to play. Re-tuning took about 20 seconds, where
as before this process of stabilizing all the strings might
have taken up to 5 minutes.
To
further test and compare, I did a full-string change with
the Rock Steady
engaged. I found that it saved me about 50% of the
time that it normally took to re-string and tune my guitar.
Removing the springs with the Rock
Steady engaged kept the tension
on the springs and when tuning up  the
new set, the strings were not required to pull the springs
from a full-resting position.
Conclusion…
If you are floating your Strat’s tremolo, this is a
very cool gadget that will save you a lot of time. For performing
musicians that don’t want to spend all of their break
time trying to stabilize tuning after a string break, this
is a dream come true! Thank you www.tailfeatherz.com.
Keep up the great
work!
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