So, the plan isn't that cunning really. My friend JayGee said, on seeing a Speedloader equipped guitar, that it would make far more sense to use them to make headless guitars than what BC Rich did with them.
Here is the RS10V alongside my Speedloader Mockingbird and I've had a go at swapping the tremolo across to see how it goes together.
The nut fits quite nicely, but I kind of always expected it to.
The bridge isn't quite there though. At first glance it looks like it should work and the studs have a standard 74mm spacing. Before buying the guitar I also checked that the scale length of the RS10V is 25.5" (by measuring the RS8V) so I knew my stash of Speedloader strings should work.
Unfortunately in another bit of non-standard madness, Washburn placed the bridge studs 25" from the nut when common fitment is about 25.1"-25.2". This is opposite to the issue I had with the RR2V.
The Speedloader only works by being in a very very specific place relative to the nut, so as you can see the strings are all flapping around, not under tension at all. A quick measure up shows the bridge needs to be roughly 25.25" from the nut.
Despite this problem, having mocked up how this fits together I reckon this can be resolved and a Speedloader fitted. There's a fair bit of wood in the area of the bridge studs so moving them back should be practical. I'll need to route the top more deeply for the tremolo too, which will be interesting because of the carved top, but it's all grist to the learning mill.
Now I need to haunt eBay to pick up a Speedloader as I don't particularly want to strip down the Mockingbird. Whole BC Rich guitars fitted with one come up occasionally and often change hands for a pittance as they were really unpopular. Although it's a little random and sometimes you get a couple of people who fancy one bidding against each other so the price goes right up.
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