which headless bridge should I choose?

[Leonardo Silva]

I have a project and need to craft 2 headless guitars on a tight budget and so far I have 2 similar headless bridges options.

The first is "Overlord of Music"




and "Tremolo Bridge Licensed under patterns"




the second one seems to have roller saddles, something I'm inclined will enhance tuning stability with the use of the tremolo but I kinda like how the Overlord of Music looks (more squary instead of the other one), I will also purchase some brass one ball-end adapter for the clients to use normal strings instead of those two ball-end weird strings that can't be found here in Chile (25$ each, can't afford those fancy 70$ complete head change)



oh also, the overlord of music has some sort of locking nut, while the Licensed as something more similar to the original steinberg ones (uses a zero fret), maybe it will matter when I use the brass adapter.

yes, I know those two are not the best ones out there, but the budget went to some really good pickups and the next step would be a 399$ J-Custom korean headless bridge or 157$ J-custom fixed with no tremolo, yeah, expensive, so the customers agree I should use a chinese one (65$ each).

anyway, anyone have experience with this kinda of headless?, does the tremolo work only lowering the pitch, can it raise it?
(never had a headless guitar before)

should I be smote by considering using this bridges?, are they REALLY that bad?

[Leonardo Silva]

of course I will share the entire proyect once I start with it, it's amazing, my first headless xd.

[Paul E Buerk]

I have no experience with either, however I've also had my eye on both of these bridges for some time. Yet to hear of a positive experience with the Overlord bridge, but that doesn't mean there aren't happy users.

On the second bridge, I'm wondering how the saddles are fixed to the base. Any idea? Or are they just floating?

[Leonardo Silva]

both bridges has some sort of locking mechanism on the side that make the saddles stick to that place, it uses an allen key for that I guess.

[Sam Farris]

I converted a short scale travel guitar to headless using a similar bridge, where the tuning knobs used a worm gear to turn a roller (not the roller bridge, but a larger roller that the string wound around). I was not happy with the result - tuning was very inaccurate and sloppy and even a slight touch of the knob make the string go way out of tune. I don't recall the exact brand - this was a few years ago - but I bought it on eBay and it looks very much like the ones you pictured. I never tried the tremolo.

The worm gear - roller design is NOT like the original Steinberger design, which pulled a ball-end string along a threaded shaft. If "licensed" means it uses the Steinberger design (I couldn't tell from the pictures) you might be ok. I would steer clear of the worm gear-roller ones, unless the quality is much better than the one I tried.

I make my electric headless 5-string TranjoCaster banjos using the individual Steinberger gearless tuners from StewMac http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guit ... uners.html. These work very well and I've used literally hundreds of them over the past few years. You might consider using those tuners with a conventional bridge - no way to get a tremolo though.

[Leonardo Silva]

by any chance this is the bridge you were talking about?



this is the second one "licensed under patterns", not the overlord.

[Sam Farris]

That's the one.

[Leonardo Silva]

excellent!, so I'll go with the overlord of music for now.

[John Catto]

Have you considered ABM, their stuff is very high quality. Personally I think there's no big deal with pot metal when it's a tune-o-matic base or a stop tailpiece but its a whole other thing when dealing with something actually mechanical like this. Consider that routing for these sort of things is pretty specific and it's hard to go to different hardware if your choice turns out to be a failure.

http://www.abm-mueller.com/PDF/Catalog_2011_B.pdf

[John Catto]

I recall also there being a ton of info regarding hardware on the "Building the ergonomic guitar" site.

http://buildingtheergonomicguitar.com/

[David King]

I looked at a lot of headless vibrato bridge hardware last summer. ABM's prices have gone through the roof in the last few years and they don't have a tremolo headless guitar option. ETS is another source for headless and they used to do custom work. I would stick with the "Licensed" trems that use a direct pull. Strandberg makes a really nice one but the price was nearly $500

[John Catto]

This is the Strandberg one? Looks great http://buildingtheergonomicguitar.com/2 ... emolo.html

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[Leonardo Silva]

thanks for the ideas xd, but I'm on a tight budget, If I had the chance I would definetely go with some ABM, strandberg or even an original steinberg headless tremolo system, as that ain't along the budget, I will have to choose from those two.

and btw, the "licensed" does not actually uses steinberg tuners like the original, is something completely different, as seen in the last photo, it's something like a worm-gear as Sam Farris pointed (you put the strings through a hole in the wormhole), the Overlord of music has that ball end pinch think that's pretty much similar to the steinberg one, as well as being more similar to the steinberg overall.