I guess I never showed anyone the results!

Some time ago I got an American Standard Tele and turned it into a bending machine, with a lot of help from the good folks on this here forum. It's all Hipshot stuff.

It was sold to me with a Hipshot B-Bender, and I also added a G bending unit and bought three drop tuning levers. I put those on the A string as well as the E strings. This means I can get into open G with the flick of three levers, and also means that the only unmolested string is the D string. While I like that a lot, it adds quite a bit to the weight of the guitar, as it turns out.

It also turns out that this was very expensive, and not really easy to do. I had all the parts, and ended up having to send the unit and the parts back to Hipshot for them to do it. I guess I didn't have a stabilizer bar that prevented the bar from rolling out of tune when the G string was bent. I really don't see it now either, but it stays in tune, and I'll call it a done deal.

I also had to purchase the Hipshot bridge, which is really not a good bridge. The main flaw with it... outside of the preposterous expense... is that the saddles comes to an angle rather than the string rolling across it on a nice, smooth, groove. This means that with the lighter strings I like (I use .10's and prefer .09's) the high E string rattled in the groove. I solved this by taking the good pre-drilled saddle from my previous bridge, and replacing the other Hipshot saddle. The other strings are heavy enough and don't rattle in the cheaper saddles.

I also had to replace a Hipshot screw with another longer one so that the high E drop tuner would tune properly. I have come to think that Hipshot is not a company that doesn't need their products tweaked from time to time.

As far as the intonation, I could see that I wasn't going to get a screwdriver in there very well, not even an offset one. So I replaced all the screws in the bridge with ones that have Allen wrench backing, which is still painstaking to do, but I was afraid I'd just strip out the Philips head backed screws over time.

It took me a long time, and cost me a lot, but it's a pretty unique guitar and a lot of fun. Very heavy. If I could do anything to it now, I'd replace the B-Bender unit with another palm lever rather than the hip lever.

Maybe I will one day... but Lord, I need to just play it. It's not like I really have learned how to use all this stuff yet anyway!

Thanks for all the help!

I that a guitar or an early telegraph machine?

Seriously though, it's cool.

**Edit** ooh wait, I got another one...Edward Benderhands.

I that a guitar or an early telegraph machine?

Seriously though, it's cool.

Or a loom for wool... yeah, about midway through it I was like, "What on earth am I doing here?"

It's now, frankly, a very complicated guitar. Good thing I'm building a few Teles... one of them will be something fun to just sit and strum.

yeah man! that is seriously bad ass!!

Sweet!

Just one quick question though - I couldn't help but notice that the guitar appears to be a righty in one pic and a lefty in the other - which is it? :smile:

It's both. I told you... I tricked this guitar out.

I'm kidding... it's right handed, I just didn't know how to make my camera take a proper photo (I used Photobooth on Mac and a webcam).

Haha, thanks :lol:

Time and money???

I know what you mean....:shock:

good.

Very nice. I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with that! Looks sharp, too, with the white pearl on black and all that hardware!

Has a sort of steampunk feel. aesthetically at least, like it.

Eggs Ackley the same set-up I've used for 30 years! Great for a stage guitar. You get the dropped D tunings, and G for bottleneck. I just used a top-loader bridge, and had no problems, although I first tried all sorts of goofy experiments with a tone-sucking roller bridge I pieced together with a Tele plate, and Schaller roller saddles. Totally unnecessary!

Yeah, I think I pretty much got the idea from you and someone else on here- it's nothing original with me. I just wanted to show everyone how it turned out, and maybe turn someone else on to the possibilities.

Even if I never used it, I would put that on my tele just for the looks. :smile:

how heavy is that? does it affect the balance?

Yes, it's quite heavy, and it does affect the balance. It's oddly not so bad with a strap while standing, it mainly wants to pull off your lap while sitting.

But it's heavier than my Les Paul with a Bigsby, and like I say, I am glad I'm building more Teles. The ones I'm making will be simple, and have the vintage 7.25" radius, which I like for just pick up and strum guitars. So the American Standard sort of isn't that anymore, so be aware.