[Allen Garrow]

Well,,, I brought this up a few weeks ago. I found a Conklin GT7-T at work that was stripped. I bought it as a project guitar for damn near nothing. It had only a few small dings and a very minor heal crack. Well,,, it turned out to be a bitch to find a trem for this thing. I called "Cort" who is associated with Conklin Groove tools. They refered me to Mighty mite who in turn said they no longer had that trem. It was a great adventure,,,, I got to talk with Bill Conklin and a few others. I had other projects for work involving refurbishing Conklins so I just weasled in my project. Well,,, there were some concerns, the spacing was odd on these trem which made it hard to locate.
It was really starting to look like this thing was going to be a wall clock or something. I some how manage to find a trem that based on the specs the owner gave me on ebay should work.

Today the trem showed up,,,and it fit like a glove. Granted I hate this style trem,,,it's the floating Strat style of old. I will probably just block the thing and treat it like a hard tail. I will probably put some some Grover tuners on it for now,,, and order some Sperzels. The problem is I have to order 2 sets of 3x3 or wait 4 more weeks or so on a special order.

For the time being I'm going to put my stock IBZ's in it from my 7321 when I get my new pick ups from Eric. This will be a base line by which I will then decide first of all whether I keep this axe or not,,and if so,,,what pickups it will need to nice fat and warm. I love the way the neck feels. It's thinner than the the Ibz prestige,,,but if feels like it will be an easy transition. If I like this damn thing,,,I will go after a hardtail next. I need to do some snooping at work,,,we just got a skid of guitars that has some "Cort" boxes on it. Again Cort is the distributor of Groove tools,,,which according to some sources will be dissappearing by the end of this year. Anyway,,,

I will post some pics soon once the shit get moving.

~A

[jacksonplayer]

That sounds very much like the trem that was original equipment on the Conklin, a real POS, in my opinion. In all fairness to Conklin/Cort, there aren't many good 7-string non-Floyd trems out there, so they didn't have much of a range to choose from, especially back when those guitars were first made.

[Allen Garrow]

Yeah I agree. Personally I've been spoiled to deth with the LoPros and now Edge pros. However the Conklin quality,,,or at least on this one is pretty damn nice. I gotta believe it's a good player. I was just about to the point of just filling in the trem cavity and making it a hardtail. I'm pretty excited now,,,it's going to be cool and different.

~A

[Metal Ken]

Man, ive been jonsing for a GT7.. those are 27" right?

[Donnie]

I think they are 25 1/2".

[noodles]

Originally Posted by Allen Garrow

I will probably put some some Grover tuners on it for now,,, and order some Sperzels. The problem is I have to order 2 sets of 3x3 or wait 4 more weeks or so on a special order.

Check out Schaller locking tuners. Warmoth sells them in singles, they fit the "standard" Gotoh pattern that everyone is using these days, and they have a tighter ratio for more precise tuning. I prefer them to Spertzels (I have both).