An Interesting New Slant On Things

[IanHenry]

A business called Lightning Guitars released a product that may be of interest to anyone considering top wrapping their guitar tailpiece:

 Lightning Guitars

 

[merciful-evans]

Curious. I have never tried a top wrap. Also I've no idea what a tail piece should cost, but that seems a lot for a plated casting.

I suppose the idea is to save your tailpiece getting string marks on them.

[jdgm]

"The new stop-tailpiece is designed to be fitted tight to the body of the guitar which means more sustain. The reduced break angle gives a lighter feel for easier bends with less stress on the saddles leading to fewer string breakages."

Well.....

I'd like to try it but am dubious that it would make any difference at all; nice (and obvious) idea though.  Think it may have been done before?

Edited December 18, 2023 by jdgm

[Narwhal6]

String breakage is a real issue with the stop bar tailpiece. I raised the posts as much as I thought was reasonable on my LP, always wondered if that affected sustain and resonance.

Used to use GHS boomers as well but seemed like they were always breaking, switched to D'addario and haven't bought GHS since.

The guitar is more of a case queen nowadays but the gizmo in the op seems like a clever idea of lessening the severity of the angle over the bridge and down to the tailpiece without having to raise the posts.

[sparquelito]

Thanks for posting.

Looks like something worth looking into.

🙂

[saturn]

Interesting slant. String break angle. I see what you did there. 

[IanHenry]

8 hours ago, saturn said:

Interesting slant. String break angle. I see what you did there. 

I couldn't help but to do it🙂

[NighthawkChris]

Bad neck angles lead to having a raised bridge. So these help those guitars out. Nice. Also some believe that to get “maximum tone” the bridge needs to be decked. These bridges might help that too. Not here to profess any further, but just noting the market that would be interested in these quite possibly. 

[Murph]

Never was a top wrapper.

I got maximum sustain from tube power.

[Dub-T-123]

Look how square and sharp the corners are. Looks like they got about 80% of the way there and called it a day 

[merciful-evans]

On 12/19/2023 at 1:11 PM, Murph said:

Never was a top wrapper.

I got maximum sustain from tube power.

 

I got maximum sustain from my plastic guitar (which is a Switch Wild IV Vibracell). 

[Phil OKeefe]

On 12/18/2023 at 10:12 AM, merciful-evans said:

Curious. I have never tried a top wrap. Also I've no idea what a tail piece should cost, but that seems a lot for a plated casting.

I suppose the idea is to save your tailpiece getting string marks on them.

Looks like they are charging close to twenty bucks more than for a standard Gibson tailpiece (which sells for $59). If you're worried about marring up the top of the tailpiece, a factory replacement part isn't hard to get or terribly expensive.  Use the new one to top-wrap with while keeping the original part "all original and pristine." Problem solved. 🙂 

The tailpiece in the OP is an interesting idea, but I'm not so sure it's really needed. You can either top-wrap, or raise the tailpiece to achieve basically the same thing. Yes, some cork sniffers will tell you that the tailpiece should be slammed all the way down, but in my experience it really doesn't make a huge difference in terms of sustain, but does impact the amount of downward force on the bridge. If you're breaking strings at the bridge a lot, check the saddle(s) first to make sure they don't have any issues, and if that doesn't solve the problem, raise the tailpiece. It's adjustable for a reason, folks!  Of course, you can go too high to the extreme and lose sustain, have buzzing issues at the saddles, or even knock the strings out of position as you play, but that's more of an issue that Fender Jazzmaster players have to deal with - a properly set-up Les Paul usually isn't going to suffer from those problems. 

 

[merciful-evans]

On 12/21/2023 at 4:12 PM, Phil OKeefe said:

Looks like they are charging close to twenty bucks more than for a standard Gibson tailpiece (which sells for $59). If you're worried about marring up the top of the tailpiece, a factory replacement part isn't hard to get or terribly expensive.  Use the new one to top-wrap with while keeping the original part "all original and pristine." Problem solved. 🙂 

The tailpiece in the OP is an interesting idea, but I'm not so sure it's really needed. You can either top-wrap, or raise the tailpiece to achieve basically the same thing. Yes, some cork sniffers will tell you that the tailpiece should be slammed all the way down, but in my experience it really doesn't make a huge difference in terms of sustain, but does impact the amount of downward force on the bridge. If you're breaking strings at the bridge a lot, check the saddle(s) first to make sure they don't have any issues, and if that doesn't solve the problem, raise the tailpiece. It's adjustable for a reason, folks!  Of course, you can go too high to the extreme and lose sustain, have buzzing issues at the saddles, or even knock the strings out of position as you play, but that's more of an issue that Fender Jazzmaster players have to deal with - a properly set-up Les Paul usually isn't going to suffer from those problems. 

 

 

Thanks for confirming that Phil. I suspected as much. 

[Phil OKeefe]

You're welcome!