How to stop a Stratocaster from making spring noises

Springs in Stratocaster guitars make noise, and this is how to stop that noise.

A Stratocaster guitar can, amazingly, have up to 11 springs in it. Two pickup springs per pickup and up to 5 tremolo springs in the rear.

I'll cover the tremolo spring noises first, then the pickup spring noises.

How to get rid of Stratocaster tremolo spring noise

The easiest way to muffle tremolo spring noises is to snake a piece of paper towel through it.

Take the tremolo spring out first.

Take an old guitar string (a wound string like a low-E, A or D works best) and bend it in half so it looks like this:

Push the bent point through the tremolo spring, then rip a piece of paper towel about twice the length of the tremolo spring and put it through the bent point of the string, like this:

Pull the string so the paper towel goes through the spring, like this:

Cut off any excess paper towel you have, then tuck the ends into the tremolo spring with a pen, so it looks like this:

Reinstall the tremolo spring in your guitar. Can you guess which one has the paper towel through it? No you can't, because when you do it right, it's completely invisible. It will look like this:

All tremolo spring noises are now 100% gone. The paper towel not only muffles the spring ringing, but also allows the springs to work completely normally.

Now let's move on to pickup springs.

Published 2022 Jul 28