More on the Trem

When working to get the trem set up correctly, I noted to my horror that the posts were rocking back and forth. I removed the bridge and found that I could just yank out the ferrules by pulling on the posts.  This is the kind of thing that made people complain about Paulownia (though perhaps it could have been avoided by my having used a smaller drill size in the first place).  I glued some shaved down toothpicks (courtesy of Artie's Deli) into the holes, let it dry over night, then pushed the ferrules back in.  For one, I had to lightly tap with a hammer to get it in, which made me feel as though I was doing a good job.  And now it works!  Since I don't intend to do any heavy trem stuff, I hope to be fine.  I've got the tremel-no in there, and I'll probably just leave it tightened.

The guitar is in pretty decent shape now.  Here's my current list of problems

• I stripped one of the intonation screws (B or G, I can't remember).  I need to replace it and also cut the spring so I can get the saddle further back.  Intonation is not bad in general, but it needs some work, in particular this string
• It's sounding pretty decent other than the bridge pickup.  I ordered a Lace Sensor Burgundy on ebay as a replacement.  
• The neck is ok, but I am now lusting for a nice Warmoth neck.  The one I want is $277, with  a lot of that cost being the "vintage blah blah satin nitro" finish.  I expect I will get it eventually
• I dinged the pickguard a bit when dremeling it to fit (the trem was hitting it a little).   So I should probably replace it.

A bit more on the pickups.  The Lace site has nice information on the differences between the different models.  I ended up with Burgundy, described there as follows:

New! Lace Sensor-Burgundy: Recommended as Bridge pickup for slightly fatter tone.

• Position: neck, mid, bridge
• Resistance: 8.9k
• Peak Frequency: 2700
• Inductance: 4.44 henries
• Music Styles: Rock, Blues, Fusion, Progressive
• Think: Page, Gary Moore, Santana

Then I may ultimately try Bill Lawrence's NF's (280/280/298).  As always, I'd be better off playing more and tinkering less, but this is a lot of fun if nothing else.

I've also been thinking about trying something with a full size humbucker and a coil splitter on a push-pull pot. This would be a new project, though.