Posts made in April, 2009

I returned yesterday from two exciting days at the 2009 edition of the FUZZ Guitar Show in Gothenburg. Last time I attended a music related trade show was roughly 20 years ago. At the time, I exhibited my guitars in the booth of Uppsala Musikverkstad (which is now 4Sound Uppsala), and the show was also set in Gothenburg. Imagine my surprise when I realized how little had transpired in 20 years. Sure, I don’t have things like the width of Floyd-Rose locking nuts for different brands of necks and things like that committed to memory any more, but I don’t feel at all like I have missed anything during this time (unless something has happened and disappeared again). I have to give credit to the organizers for putting up a well organized show. I didn’t exhibit, so I don’t know how well the logistics worked, but as a delegate I had a pleasant experience. The café on the exhibition floor served high quality food at very reasonable prices and had a packed schedule of performances by a great range of string-related performers. The few points of criticism would be: cash-only entrance, poorly signed up-stairs exhibits and the fact that some exhibitors were allowed to be very loud at the expense of...

As of today, the 14th of April 2009, I am sold out of fixed bridges. I am taking orders, but will need approximately 6 weeks to ship. As a consolation, I will offer free shipping (up to 20 EUR value) for any orders placed during this period. I am selling off my prototype stock of tremolos, two black and two silver. One of the black tremolos has customized saddles to give it a lower action. They all have a hardened steel knife edge, which has proven durability and sound qualities but is not corrosion proof (i.e. it may rust). Part of the design, however, is that the knifes may be replaced and may be so by a later solution. I will extend the offer of free shipping to cover the tremolos as well. To keep costs (and prices) down, I will from now on offer black as the standard color, which means that silver will be offered as a custom color going forward. Please contact me with any questions, and preferrably always before placing an...

I am receiving quite a few inquiries from people with Steinberger string locks that want to use double ball-ended strings. To date, I have turned them down since the string has to be threaded through the tuner and the single ball acts as a stop. But as I had been working on a custom string fastener for Italian luthier Michele Benincasa (see future post) I got to think in some new ways. I realized that by very small modifications to my current tuner, I could indeed support double ball-ended strings. And, by no small coincidence, the length of the tuner housing is very close to that of a Steinberger R-Trem, which means that the string length will be just right. The pictures below show work in progress and are not finished. The string lock. Michele wants to use six of these mounted behind a tune-o-matic bridge instead of a regular tailpiece. He does not want to run the strings through the body of the guitar, which is the reason for this design. However, these will work equally well at the head of the guitar! I do not have to rely on a Steinberger headpiece, but can continue to offer per-string pricing and packaging. Here, you see the ball end...