Question regarding whammy-bar's

[Apple-Joe]

I am used to a PRS standard 24 guitar. Tonight I tried a SX SST 62K guitar, quite a bit cheaper, but it felt great playing it. However, there was one thing I noticed and that was the fact the whammy-bar seemed to be a little "hard". It had to be "screwed" in position, as opposed to the whammy-bar on my PRs which only needs to be pushed into its place.

Now, when the bar finally was screwed on, it created little vibrato considering the movement of the bar. Is this common for this guitar, or did we anything the wrong way?

As a final note, the bridge is a Vintage fulcrum bridge.

[EricV]

Well, that´s a vintage style bridge, similar to older Strat-style bridges. Those were not supposed to be used quite as recklessly as, say, a Floyd Rose ( I always thought of PRS vibratos as something in the middle between vintage style bridges and Floyd Roses regarding ease of use and amount of "pitch movement" )
You could probably make the bridge on it a bit easier to move if you´d loosen the springs on the back, yet it will still feel different from an FR or PRS wang bar.

It´s also normal that the bar had to be screwed in... that´s the way it used to be back then. There still are modern bridges that you have to screw the bar in to... and many that you simply stick it in, like on your PRS.
Hope this answers your questions
Eric

[Apple-Joe]

Thank you. You provided some great information in that reply, I think. The core might be the idea about loosening up the springs. I have never experimented with such things before. Thanks for the advices.

[Len H]

Another problem I see with vintage type bridges is that they are screwed down too tight. If it uses the older Strat type bridge there will be 6 screws holding it in place. Back the middle 4 out a couple turns so there is a gap between the bridge plate and these 4 screw heads. At this point the only things limiting your bridge's movement are the 2 remaining screws. Now go ahead and back these 2 out a half turn each and check the whammy bar for ease of use and range. Just go a little bit at a time with these screws until you get a free moving whammy. If you go too far, the bridge can jump around which does no good for your tuning stability. Once the adjustment is made you can tighten the 4 middle screws down to the same level as the 2 outer screws, or leave them a little higher. If you have a more modern vintage bridge it might only have the 2 outer screws, in which case you simply back them out a little at a time until you are whammying free and easy.