This project includes woodwork and drilling.
 
DISCLAIMER: I'm talking about a cheap guitar, and a mod that gets the job done. I'm not talking about aesthetic perfection.
Also, the tools I use may shock people who strongly love their guitars.
 
 
The floating bridge (think Floyd Rose copy) on my first (and only) electric guitar (an Ibanez RG270DX) soon proved to be a nightmare. It never returned to zero point and every time I used it my tuning was then way off.
So I decided enough was enough, called up the Ibanez dealer and asked what sort of real Ibanez Edge bridges they had. The most affordable bridge of known quality available was a Lo Pro Edge, an older model, for $120 (now ibanez has redisigned their bridges, but that doesn't mean the old Edges are bad).
 
The first thing you'll notice if you take a Floyd (or a copy of one) and an Edge and compare them, is the profile. The floyds stick up away from the top of your guitar and require a minimal routing underneath them. The Edges have a low profile and need a much deeper routing underneath them.
But force-fitting is my middle name ;P .
 
I took out the old bridge and the soft mat covering the bottom of the routing and preserved it for re-usage. I used a hammer with an end for removing nails and used it to pull out the old stud anchors by keeping the studs well screwed into them and using the hammer nail-remover on them. I had to, because the new studs and anchors were larger in diameter.
The first to fix were the studs. With a drill safely smaller in diameter than the new stud anchors I enlarged the holes, both in diameter and in depth. Making the holes too wide would have been a very very bad thing. I favour using a hand-drill rather than a power-drill. It allows much better control and accuracy. There is no coming back if your powerdrill slips. Wood is not so hard to need a powerdrill anyway. When the holes were ready I hammered the new anchors in place and screwd in the studs. They had to be in place for me to be able to find the proper bridge position and modify the routing accordingly.
Then with primitive tools, a rasp and a razor knife, I widened the bridge routing to accomodate the bigger bridge and different arm holder design. That was easy. The hard part was to deepen the routing without having a router. I used chisels instead.Painstaking and rough job. When the cavity was deep enough so that the bridge could float freely and could even be pushed in a little, I padded the bottom of the routing with the old mat.
There was no reason to modify the spring cavity in anyway. I used the old claw.
When I was done routing, I painted the rooting the same color as the guitar. Since in my case it is black, I didn't bother about making it perfect. The bridge hides most of it anyway
 
The reward was great! I have never had any reason to complain about my bridge ever since I swapped it, two years ago.