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Joined:
March 2006
Posts: 482
Location: enid, ok | Have any of you thought of, or actually installed a whammy bar on one of these guitars? I've given it years of thought and finally concluded that it was cost prohibitive due to having to move the pre-amp to do it for a fulcrum-type, like a floyd or similar, which I prefer. A first-rate repairman here in Tulsa suggested a bigsby, and I thought about a kahler, but I'm still iffy about it. Any thoughts?-M |
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Joined:
August 2006
Posts: 2804
Location: ranson,wva | if i was to put any kind of vibro or trem on a solidbody it would be a bigsby...jason |
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Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13997
Location: Upper Left USA | Paul Temp and Miles have a couple of the solids with one form or another of Bigsby's or Hipshot whammys. Check out their Gallery shots. |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7247
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | My alltime favorite guitar is a Viper with a Kahler installed. Also the pre-amp on the Deacon would not be in the way.
I have done several versions, and what is now the final is awaiting my time to complete it, but some of the versions include.. and I'm not real proud of any of these... they were just to test the idea..
- Mounting a Bigsby style arm near the tail, the strings left the Bigsby and went UNDER a set of rollers, then over the regular Ovation bridge.
- The next version replaced the stock saddles with roller saddles.
- The next version, eliminated the in-between rollers and moved the Bigsby unit closer to the stock bridge that had roller saddles.
- Final prototype, the stock bridge removed, and a Kahler was poorly fitted. I say poorly because although the rear of the Kahler was mounted to wood, the front was setting on the stock height adjustment screws that were just inverted (to expose the flat bottom). The front mounting screws of the Kahler held it tight. A custom pickguard hid the gaps and such.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Kahler, when flush mounted, is too high, and I had a pickguard width shim to raise the neck to the right height. This worked well for some reason, but it was just wrong on principle.
- The final, the stock bridge removed, and the area filled and then routed for the Kahler so the Kahler was inset, allowing the neck to be mounted as normal.
Although, I knew back in the early 80's this was going to be the result, I went through the other rather lazy iterations just because I had to I guess. The guitar isn't all together yet, but I duct taped a Pickup in place and stung her up, to see how she played. It really feels nice. The true final step will probably be to have someone cut me a an exact duplicate of a viper body and properly route it. I'm sure the filler will last a long time, but it's just not the right way to do it.
I think a Breadwinner with a Kahler Pro would be an awesome instrument. |
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Joined:
July 2005
Posts: 3411
Location: GA USA | A Bigsby on a Deacon would look terrible, imho. I have been guilty of doing the "neck wobble" tremelo with the Deacon a time or two. And the bridge is actually mounted in such a way that the right pressure on the rear of the bridge will give some whammy also. It will rock back and forth. |
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whammy bar on Deacon/Breadwinner?
