• Callaham Cold Rolled Steel CNC Machined Gibson Stopbar Tailpiece.

Callaham Cold Rolled Steel CNC Machined Gibson Stopbar Tailpiece

Introductory price of $107.50 plus shipping

Machined from the same alloy as our ABR-1 bridge, the steel tailpiece yields the additional definition and frequency response so many Gibson styled guitars need. The tone change can best be described as being equivalent to going from a dead set of strings to a new set of strings. Coupled with our steel ABR-1 bridge, the instrument starts to take on piano like qualities. The notes are absolutely solid and the feel of the response is highly touch sensitive. Retweaking of your amp settings is not out of the question. You should be able to flatten out the response so that switching from bridge to neck is more balanced.

Sustain; I am always amused by the claims that aluminum tailpiece adds sustain. Aluminum will NEVER come close to the sustain produced by our steel tailpiece.

You can use your existing studs or whatever studs you want. We are firm believers in 1 piece studs but changing over to our 1 piece design is not easy and only for experienced repairman. If you are doing new construction and have an interest in our 1 piece custom studs, inquire via e-mail. Our testing involved stock Gibson studs, aftermarket studs, and our 1 piece studs. With the steel tailpiece the effects of the studs is minimal. We do suggest the studs are tightened down firm.

As with all of our products, we do not believe in repeating the mistakes of the past. The original 50's tailpieces were made from aluminum because it was easy and cheap. Producing a tailpiece from steel and machining it is three times as hard in all areas of the manufacturing process. But it is the best material if you are concerned with your sound. The myths that have been propogated over the years regarding weight as some important property are completely false and based on zero science. The same principles that apply to a trem block also apply to a tailpiece.

We were concerned with maintaining the vintage look. And with the help of customers with original 50's tailpieces we used them as guides. After machining all the tailpiece are hand sanded and polished to recreate the same feel and look of originals. We do not purposely try to recreate the flaws and lack of craftmanship that so many of the originals exhibit. Having said that, we do not try to make them look perfect and exact from part to part. They all have their own individualality depending on which one of us was doing the handwork. They are only available in nickel plating, and unlike the other aftermarket parts where the plating is piled on producing a cheap looking part, our plating is done with care yielding a graceful finish.

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• LEFTY American Standard Block enhanced.

  We did a limited run of Lefty American Standard enhanced blocks.
  Price is $79.00 plus shipping.

  This is the only page that will list this part.

• Tele Neck Pickup Marking Tool.

  This is not available anywhere but here. After seeing several "Do-It-Yourself" Teles with holes all over the cavity and the assembler asking "how do you do that", here is how we do it. With your neck and bridge installed, put the marker in the cavity, and install the pickguard so it is squared up. Push down on the marker, and you have where to drill your pickup mounting holes. This marker is set up to work for vintage styled Tele neck pickups.

  Price for the marker is $35.00 for Aluminum plus Shipping.

• Callaham Parts on Larrivee and Seymour Duncan Guitars.

  We would like to thank publicly both Larrivee Guitars and Seymour Duncan for choosing our bridges for their instruments.

Larrivee has introduced their Bakersfield model electric which comes standard with a Callaham Vintage T Model Bridge (shown left) with enhanced saddles. You can see the new Bakersfield model at www.larrivee.com .

Larrivee is a company of craftsmen that produces excellent instruments. It is an honor to have our parts on their fine work. I would strongly suggest you ask your local dealer about this model and take it for a test run.

In collaboration with Larrivee, Seymour Duncan introduced the Seymour Duncan 35 Limited Edition Guitar. Only 35 are being produced of the legendary "TeleGib" that Seymour built for Jeff Beck in the 70's. Again, we are very honored that Seymour chose our ABR-1 bridge for this special instrument. You can see the new Seymour Duncan 35 Limited Edition Guitar at www.Seymourduncan.com.

Both these companies could have purchased hardware from cheaper sources. But when sound quality is the most important criteria, they came to us.

 

• Callaham CNC Machined Steel Billet ABR-1 tun-o-matic bridges for Gibson Guitars.

  We started this project in February of 2009 to solve the problem of a completely inferior bridge material used by Gibson since 1954 and copied by every aftermarket bridge maker since. All ABR-1 bridges and their aftermarket copies have been made of ZINC (pot metal). Zinc is a tremendous dampener and never should come in contact so directly with the strings as it does on an ABR-1 bridge. But casting a bridge body in zinc is very cheap. I try not to use the inflated adjectives used by so many in this business, but our machined billet steel bridge body will make any guitar using an ABR-1 or a Nashville Tun-o-matic bridge into a true stringed instrument. The widening of frequency response, the focus and note separation of chords, and true singing effortless sustain will be obtained. We have stainless steel stud/thumbwheels kits for changing a traditional ABR-1 bridge and a special stud kit for converting guitars with a Nashville bridge to our ABR-1 bridge.

  Please read our ABR-1 bridge page and if this page does not answer your questions, please feel free to e-mail us.

Callaham CNC Machined Steel Billet ABR-1 tun-o-matic bridge for Gibson guitars