Faber hardware results on my H535

[nuke]

A few months ago, I bought a used 2001 H535, blonde with HRW pickups. It had the typical Schaller roller bridge and top-loader tailpiece. 

I bought a Faber locking tail and locking bridge kit for it. Found that the tailpiece bushing holes were not deep enough to take Faber studs. Hunted around for a 11mm Forstner drill bit, eventually found one and sunk the holes another 0.21".  

While I had it out, the H535 bushing inserts were surprisingly short and easy to pull out. I had to raise them to get the Faber locking spacers on them to work, and it wasn't all that stable with the bushing not all the way down. 

So I opted to replace the tailpiece bushings with the Faber 11mm/Imperial thread, and got the INsert bridge studs while I was at it. 

Wow, that made a big difference. The tone greatly improved with the addition of the bushings. It really brought out that dry, woody, semi-hollow-body laminate sound. 

The tail studs are about 0.90" long, steel, and just slightly oversized, so they fit and bite into the wood tightly. It took some effort to press them in and flush with the to of the guitar. 

The real trick though are the bridge studs that replace the "Nashville/Schaller" threaded inserts.  The Faber ones are much longer and have much deeper wood contact. On the 535, they couple not just to the upper laminate shell, they reach into the maple center block. 

Between the two, really good acoustic coupling into the wood. Made quite a tone difference in a very good way. Had the bridge and the aluminum tail on for a while now, but the bushings really did the trick. 

The original bushings in the H535 are on the left, the ones on the right are Faber (aged nickel).  

[Kuz]

Yep, I have Faber locking ABR-1 bridges and locking stoptails on all my Tuneamatic/Stoptail guitars.  

I hear more sustain (especially with the Aluminum stoptails) and all the hardware is locked down tight, the hardware won't move if you remove the strings.   The Faber hardware is superior to any other locking hardware made, both in the materials used and the locking mechanisms.

[nuke]

Yeah, I had opportunity to play it for a month or two with just the bridge, then just the aluminum tail piece, then locked the tailpiece. 

The bushings though, made a lot of difference in sound. More so than I would have expected. I tend to think the bridge INserts were the biggest part of that. The odd ringing overtones are gone, leaves a really nice, dry, woody, mods-forward tone that I was looking for. A lot like the very expensive Collings I35-LC I played a few weeks ago. That was a nice playing and very good sounding guitar. 

I was a little on the fence about the bushings and inserts. Skeptical that the tail stud bushings would make any difference, and was not certain I wanted to make a change that precluded putting the original Schaller hardware back on. Once I did though, super happy with it and decided to go with the refret. 

I've got the frets off the H535 now, in the process of properly leveling the fretboard and re-fretting to get the playability up where it should be. I think this one left the factory with a poorly leveled fretboard, and I think a few people had a go at it over the years trying to correct the problem by leveling and crowning the frets. They still had the nibs, so it was factory frets. Someone had a ham-fisted go at it with a crowning file at some point. 

Also found the radius was 10" instead of 12". Not that unusual, but kind of a pointer at lax QC when this guitar was made. 

I think it will play super nicely. I have a CNC'd nylon 6/6 nut waiting to go on as well. (like Gibson in the 50's and 60's used).