Official Luthiers Forum!

yello. i usually put a wooden bridge and tailpiece on all my guitars. the reason being, i prefer the natural look of wood, and lumps of expensive heavy metal do not help with weight or aesthetics. i do however, wish i could make some sort of tremolo system. has anyone heard of all wood trems? i cant find any info out there either positive or negative. cheers all.

You should be able to make the bar out of wood easily enough, though I'd recommend putting a metal rod or composites in it to keep it thin and strong enough. Actually, composites would probably be important in a lot of places if you want to keep it small and not worry about it cracking.

Also, I've had trouble finding wooden springs

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

They can be mighty tricky to carve, but I bet the Padma could give you some tips!

Joe

excellent. no hard reasons why not to try it. the reinforcement is definately a good idea. cheers for that. guess i'll just give it a go and post my results. i may be some time!

I bet some kind of wooden spring could be fashioned out of a bent piece of wood. Not a corkscrew spring, one kinda like on those SG tremolos they had on 'em in the sixties. A wooden tremelo, hmmmm........
Maybe we can have a Luthiers Forum contest, see who can design and execute the coolest wooden tremolo, the prize could be some cool piece of wood for a top or a neck or something...

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Check out Jersey Girl guitars, metal trem that works well, with wood ornamentation.

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How long is that in luthyears?

Bet a wooden Bigsby wouldn't be too hard to do. I know people have been making wooden tremolo blocks for strats and stuff. There's certainly a call for it, but I can't help but think there could be a reason why there aren't wooden tremolos.

I had a Gibson SG that had a trem neck.
Every time I moved inertia would change the pitch.

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How long is that in luthyears?

I saw most of the Jersey Girl guitars use wooden tremolos.