Hardware Question???

Okay, so I'm a rookie, and looking for guidance/advice ...

A fella I know (acquaintance) has a Mex Tele and it has a piece of hardware mounted on the face of it supposedly b-bender and drop d tuning all in one. Said he only had to drill a couple of holes in the ashtray and voila'. If someone could help me out with this I'd greatly appreciate it.

So my questions :?:

Anybody know what this is?

Is it worth any account or just a gimmick piece?

If it's something worth havin' is it difficult to install/expensive?

Thanks

Sounds like a Hipshot bender. They're real, and fairly inexpensive. You actuate it by using a hip lever instead of your strap. Timara also makes a bender system that is built into the bridge, but I've never tried one. Hope this helps.

Hipshot, for sure. You'll find just about everything you could possibly want to know about it, right here. No where else on earth will you find this abundance of knowledge and wit concerning the Hipshot. Dig in.

Thanks for the tips, and I'm well on my way to divin' in...

The dan earlewine GUITAR PLAYERS REPAIR GUIDE, had a nice section on setting up the hipshot- its a good book/read and a bible to some to guitar self-repair.

Something off topic, I still want to try out a les-trem unit, although the price is to high for my liking, a nice bigsby can be had for less beans...