Bridge Assembly for Hipshot B Bender with Drop D Lever and G Palm Lever

Go to the Bender forum, there's plenty of good info there - even some posts by Will Ray, the guy who helped develop the Hipshot bender.

- D

 

The titanium compensated saddles are a great idea!
I have em' on my avatar guitar.
No more string saw-through/sitar-I got!

 

Thought these might be similar, I've been watching these, six under $11:

6PCS Guitar Saddles Metal Guitar Bridge with Roller Bridge Guitar Repair Parts. | eBay

but don't have the string-thru the adjustment screw.

 

They're Called "Vented Fasteners". You can find them on Amazon in various sizes, or get them directly from McMaster.

The problem is, to find one that will fit your current saddles/bridge, have a hole large enough to accommodate your string gauge, AND be made of a material that won't cause extreme wear on the string and thus cause extremely frequent string breakage.

Most vented machines screws you'll find in the correct size for your saddle, will have a through hole too small for anything larger than your B string. And even that will be difficult to find, pretty snug, and made of steel, which will all cause excessive string wear.

I've bought some of Chase's screw/saddles (the string saver version), and they're well worth the price. And a Much better solution than trying to make standard vented fasteners work.
Have been using them on my tele with a hipshot (b bender + drop d lever). For Six months or so now, haven't broken a single string, even with excessive use of the bender. And they easily fit my heavy Low E string (52), and allow the drop lever to function as it should.

 

if your bridge has top loader holes, don't change a thing at first - get some silicone bicycle brake cable tubing (you can get it at amazon). It's just a small, thin, smooth and flexible tube. When you string your Bender strings rout them through the top load holes and drop a short piece of the brake cable tube in there, centered on the top loader holes, to ease passage of the string. That gives you a good break angle for the string and required no modification of the guitar. You might need the brake cable but if you rout through the top loader holes you are creating a point of friction and possible breakage point, problems which the cable eliminates.

 

Oh, PS I just realized about the roller saddles. Totally unnecessary. I've had Hipshot benders on three teles, never with roller trees and never had any tuning or return to pitch issues. The break angle is too shallow to need them.