Dan Erlewine talks with product designer Trevor Wilkinson about the modern VS-100 Strat Bridge

Dan Erlewine had a chance to sit down with Trevor Wilkinson, the renowned product designer to talk about his ideas for improvements to the classic Fender style bridge.

His VS-100 bridge fits American Standard Strats and Strat Plus guitars without modification and addresses several challenges guitar players have faced for decades.

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[parkerfilms]

I learned more in under 5 minutes than in some full classes I've taken. Thanks!

[TomoFujitaMusic]

So lovely to hear your story behind your trem bridge! Thank you Trev & Dan!!

[jaycobie]

Such a concise, to-the-point approach, both in his talking and explaining, as well as the design of the parts. Really really enjoy listening to him explain his products.

[malcolmhardwick]

I love watching these two guitar experts talking guitar talk ☺

[jrfrondelli]

Trev Wilkinson has always been a problem solver. I've been using his parts for years. As far as trade secrets is concerned, I go WAYYY back to when you had to actually READ them. Always have enjoyed Dan's books and tips. Learned a lot from him. :)

[christopherjbutler]

I have the same VS-100 bridge installed on my 1990 American Standard Strat and it has always presented a problem with the centering of the strings on the fretboard. It was installed by an excellent Tech out of NY who was the touring technician for Eric Clapton for many years. He knows his stuff, builds beautiful bespoke custom guitars from scratch as well. A great tech and luthier. I trust implicitly that it was installed and set up the best it could be given it needed to be a drop-in replacement so I could go back to my stock trem some day if I wanted to.

From what I saw on the Gotoh By Wilkinson site the specs for for the VS-100 show it is actually meant for a wider post spacing (56.8mm or roughly 2 1/4") than two post fender style strats use (2 7/32" or roughly 56mm). It fits anyway because one of the knife edges is a straight edge, which can accommodate different post spacing. However, the way the saddles are centered on a bridge meant for wider posts means the whole group of saddles are slightly skewed toward the high E side of the neck to start with.

Also, All the two post style Stratocaster bridges seem to have 2 1/16 inch (Roughly 52.4mm) string spacing from High E to Low E, and the VS-100 has wider spacing 54mm or roughly 2 1/8" from High to Low E, which further exacerbates the problem.

On my guitar, the high E is almost at the fret edges by about the 12th fret.

I am having the bridge swapped out for a Gotoh NS510TE-FE1 when I have the neck refretted this month The NS version of the 510 has the correct "narrow" string spacing for a two post Strat, and all the 510t FE1 bridges seem to have the right post spacing to fit the strat post positions without requiring a straight edge knife on one side. I am pretty sure that should put things back where they are supposed to be, with almost the same stability as the VS-100.

And I am hoping to get a bit more of the slinky and really delicate ease of doing subtle chordal vibrato that I can't seem to do since installing the VS-100. It very much does want to return to zero, and it is more difficult to move the bar gradually and subtly. My factory strat trem was much more expressive to me, and I believe it is due to where the bar goes through the plate, further back from the fulcrum point, giving more leverage so you don't have to screw around with swapping out trem springs for boutique ones or the like.

I have the licensed version of the VS-100 on my Carvin, and that guitar is made to work with the string and post spacing for the VS-100 to start with, so the strings and neck are aligned fine. Return to pitch is spot on, however I still notice the same resistance to subtle vibrato input to the bar on that guitar and it has lighter gauge strings on a shorter scale length and hence less spring tension at the claw.

[markforde]

I recommend trying the JHS- Vintage and Encore brand guitars that Trevor has had a hand in designing, fantastic value, great playing bits of kit.

[Allencorgan]

I've had the pleasure of being shown how to set up and maintain guitars at trevs workshop by trev in Southport england. I live ten minutes away from trevor and have sold him his latest stage piano for his daughter.

Great attitude to making instruments and a nice guy all round.

Keep up the good work.

Geat series of videos and very helpful for a guitar tech like myself.👍

[HighlineGuitars]

I love these bridges. They always make my guitars look and feel premium.

[Bertiebaby]

My (budget!) Wilkinson trem is nothing less than top notch. I go ham on it and the guitar stays in tune. Lovely fellow.

[pjaylett]

He’s a really nice guy and a true gentleman.

[frmcf]

The Wilkinson trems are great, I really enjoy them

[RORGuitars]

Fantastic to hear the in depth explanation from the original creator!

[allentroxel]

I'm in the process of building a parts caster and I know what bridge I'm going to use. I appreciate informative videos.

[skydogstudio]

I built a strat about 10 years ago using the VS100N. I was lucky enough to find a mahogany body already drilled out for the bridge. Other things I did to help stabilize the tuning was to install locking staggered tuners tusq nut and string trees and I found an old tremsetter (the kind with two spring attachments instead of just one) I have two guitars with floating floyds and this stays in tune just as well as them. See for yourself.

[hoosierdaddy]

What a great engineer and he has made guitar player's life much easier. I've not tried this one. I'm looking for a two point trem to replace the gotoh unit on my Ibanez Japanes SV 440 which is a great guitar. The gotoh trem is basically a copy of the Fender twp point trem with a push in arm, but I think these are better. I just don't know if it will fit. Plus, I love the rolled steel saddles on this design you're talking about here. I was thinking of the locking saddle design he has, but I like this one better as far as looks at least.

[musicsoundgear]

Very interesting. If my old Strat had that, I would probably still have it.

[gabrielochoteco]

I had the privilege of working with Trev Wilkinson in Brisbane Australia in the mid 1980's. He taught me how to handle a spray gun and a few other useful things. I also jammed with him at the Australian Academy of Music and disagree with his comment about him being a poor guitar player. He is just being modest as he played some great blues and rock guitar on that evening. He told me he wanted to be a millionaire and drive a Rolls and moved to LA with his wife and young daughter. There he collaborated with Fender on their first roller nut. The VS 100 trem is the epitome of intelligent design and has been my recommendation to Strat players with tuning stability issues for decades now. No other non-locking bridge comes close and the materials and build quality is superb. Japanese manufacturer Gotoh was the perfect choice for its production. Well done Trev! Rock on.

[lupit]

What a genius. I’m going to do this with my tremolos now lol

[paulchisholm]

Great video, thank you. Would you be able to tell me the size of the three allen keys that are needed to adjust the various components of this tremolo? Thank you for your time.