Hardware for headless build

[Omzig]

Bit of thred necro.....

So after milling my own Custom head block for the Sith lord i found i pref the solidness of the single unit over the smaller individual piece's...but it was a PITA to mill and tap...

Had these units pop up on my recommened buy list at aliexpress...£14/$20 inc shipping and i need a unit to match up with my Koloss Trem for my next build so i thought what the hell

It arrived this morning and yep it's a great little unit, very well made & tapped ,id have been happy with it a x2 the price, also avalible in 7 & 8 units.

Guyker Store

 

[ElRay]

Bit of thred necro.....

This is a good necro. Better than scattering info across half-a-dozen threads.

 

[dmlinger]

Bumping this thread up. What's the consensus on the hardtail headless options out there? I love the simplicity of the Hipshot headless set, but I refuse to part with $300-400 for a bridge and head piece.

Saw some nice looking ones from China on eBay and they seem to be good quality. Any thoughts or experience with these?

All brass Headless guitar bridge 6 strings Guitar Parts | eBay

Material: all Brass. Including all installation accessories as shown in picture.

www.ebay.com

Brass 6 String Headless Guitar Bridge in Chrome | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Brass 6 String Headless Guitar Bridge in Chrome at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Omzig]

Bumping this thread up. What's the consensus on the hardtail headless options out there? I love the simplicity of the Hipshot headless set, but I refuse to part with $300-400 for a bridge and head piece.

Saw some nice looking ones from China on eBay and they seem to be good quality. Any thoughts or experience with these?

All brass Headless guitar bridge 6 strings Guitar Parts | eBay

Material: all Brass. Including all installation accessories as shown in picture.

www.ebay.com

Brass 6 String Headless Guitar Bridge in Chrome | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Brass 6 String Headless Guitar Bridge in Chrome at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

I haven't used either of these but the 2nd HS ripoff is Much cheaper direct from Aliexpress via Waaah Music Store if your a new user you also get a small discount, Ive brought stuff from WAAAAHHHHH before it was all good qualitiy and they pack well and dispatch very quickly

Reviews for the unit seem Positive, one guy pointing out that the saddles needed a bit of inner edge cleanup, that's the thing i like about buying on Ali over ebay, the user reviews are much better and they even give you the option of adding pic's of the items you have
received which with some seller can be a lot different that the ones they picture!

 

[LiveOVErdrive]

I've got a set of these lying around that I built most of a guitar for and then made a horrible mistake and had to start over and then... didn't start over.

Chrome 6 String Fanned Fret Headless Guitar Brass Bridge Saddles Set | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Chrome 6 String Fanned Fret Headless Guitar Brass Bridge Saddles Set at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

The quality is pretty good. My biggest complaint is that the included screws to hold down the bridge bases are absolute garbage and will strip if you look at them wrong. Theoretically one could get replacements that would be stronger and longer, but I never finished that project.

The actual bridges themselves are pretty good. No complaints there.

EDIT: now that I look at the picture, it looks like the design has changed a bit since I bought it. The base screws look longer and stronger, and the head pieces look more ergonomic. Nice.

 

[dmlinger]

I'd like to go the single-unit route vs the style with individual saddles. It's a shame there aren't more commercially available offerings in the US from more companies that are well known.

 

[LiveOVErdrive]

I'd like to go the single-unit route vs the style with individual saddles. It's a shame there aren't more commercially available offerings in the US from more companies that are well known.

Totally get that. I played around with cnc millimg a mounting plate for the saddles to get essentially that, but aluminum was too soft to hold the threads. And I don't think I can mill steel.

 

[Omzig]

Just to keep this stuff in one place i'll add these images and info for some of the Guyker Single Headless Bass unit i just got.



Units seem well made, but do not seem to have much throat on the rear tuners, maybe only about 5mm pull so strings will need a bit of pre tightening in the headless block, no chance of adding a thrust bearing on these.

Units were not very well packaged, and were all laided together side by side in a thin mylar bag...as you can guess this resulted in the units clanging and rubbing together in the post, they were boxed but it was oversided so the bag and units just bounced around inside...so all the units have this type of finish damage....Not great but after opening a case will Ali CS i got a 33% refund..seller wasn' to happy about it but agreed to save funding the return costs.....



these are going on a Peavey Bromberg Headless 5 string ive planned out./ripped off ..

I'll try and fix the other pic's id uploaded in this thread...Flickr kept sending me threats so i canned the account.....

 

[GuyB]

I think that's the difference between the #F and the #FF - the F's have a fixed baseplate and the FF's have individual bases.

One other point to note, according to the online support, the sets are available in more color combinations than shown/listed. When your order, note what color you want (e.g. all chrome or black body w/ chrome knobs).

KOLOSS HEADLESS BRIDGE

The difference between #F and #FF seems to be that the #FF base plate is slanted for fanned frets. #F is not slanted.

Scroll to the diagram pics here:
https://www.kolossofficial.com/product/56.html
https://www.kolossofficial.com/product/57.html

 

[Omzig]

Might be picking one of these up off of Ali



Ali LINK about £/$ 60 delivered, no feedback from other buyers ATM but i've purchased hardware from this seller before and it's always been well made, i'll add feedback if i do grab one.

 

[bostjan]

Interesting. I paid a little more than that for my headless hardware - I got the one where the tuners stick up out of the bridge (I was trying to minimize length for a travel guitar). I feel like the quality of these Chinese parts is really inconsistent... sometimes everything is great, and other times everything is crooked and wonky and stuff ends up crossthreaded or borked in some other way.

Looking at the photo you posted, I'm not super impressed with the apparent alignment of the tuners, which seems to be a common issue with stuff like this. Hopefully you get a good specimen, though. These designs are really pretty cool, so it's great when QC isn't an issue.

 

[Omzig]

Interesting. I paid a little more than that for my headless hardware - I got the one where the tuners stick up out of the bridge (I was trying to minimize length for a travel guitar). I feel like the quality of these Chinese parts is really inconsistent... sometimes everything is great, and other times everything is crooked and wonky and stuff ends up crossthreaded or borked in some other way.

Looking at the photo you posted, I'm not super impressed with the apparent alignment of the tuners, which seems to be a common issue with stuff like this. Hopefully you get a good specimen, though. These designs are really pretty cool, so it's great when QC isn't an issue.

the ALP type with the little key? if so yep i got one of those in the trem version and it was a bit rubbish, the base plate was monkey metal and all the intonation threads stripped out, i think theres a second version of it on ali now which look a lot better qualitiy.

Just found this total HS ripp off with a headpiece for less than half the cost of just a HS headpiece here in the UK...

LINK

I kinda like the bearing's on the tuners in the other unit(they really help) might have a dig to see if i can find some that small to add to this HS rip off.

 

[GuyB]

I'm looking for a 7 string neck string clamp. I have used the type shown below successfully, but only after changing all the hex bolts and screws to high quality tensile steel (Standard practice with most China stuff). The double hex bolt string clamps work well, I have had one on the 6 string I built for about 3 years.

Are there any better alternative neck string clamps for 7 strings?

 

[Omzig]

Are there any better alternative neck string clamps for 7 strings?

For multiscale i haven't seen any,but for a single block style i got a few of these (a 5 string bass and 6 string guitar type)

LINK
Grubs on these aren't cream cheese btw but screw well as you say best to just replace them with real steel.

 

[Chri]

the ALP type with the little key? if so yep i got one of those in the trem version and it was a bit rubbish, the base plate was monkey metal and all the intonation threads stripped out, i think theres a second version of it on ali now which look a lot better qualitiy.

Just found this total HS ripp off with a headpiece for less than half the cost of just a HS headpiece here in the UK...

LINK

I kinda like the bearing's on the tuners in the other unit(they really help) might have a dig to see if i can find some that small to add to this HS rip off.

I’ve only the one experience to go off of, but it seems like Guyker’s parts are pretty ass. I got one of their 7 string Hipshot bridge copies just to putt around with and there’s just so much off about it. Poor quality metals, screws/grubs that strip instantly, parts sizes that are just flat out uncommon, etc. I was contemplating on grabbing another Eart and one of these bridges at some point for fun, but I’m turned off by them until I hear otherwise.

For the record, I’m sure it would be decent enough if I swapped out the replaceable parts with genuine steel as someone else mentioned, but it wasn’t worth the effort in my case. It was only $20.

 

[Omzig]

Necro Bump

Just wanted to throw some info pics on a pretty cool super easy & cheap headless tuner mod i found out about via thefretboard forum

These are mini Thrust Bearings, the ones on the Bass Bridge are F4-9M & the one's on the Hipshot and Steinberger units are F3-8M

SO much better than the teflon/plastic washers, you can grab these of Amazon/ebay Or ali (ali is way cheaper (like 50% cheaper) if you don't mind the wait.

Also if anyone is looking for a nice good quality headpiece that isn't like £100+ or those crappy single string units, i can recommed this brass unit from ali at about just £10 shipped!

LINK

Crazy well finished/machined if id have paid £50 for this id still be happy.

Laters

 

[Chri]

Necro Bump

Just wanted to throw some info pics on a pretty cool super easy & cheap headless tuner mod i found out about via thefretboard forum

These are mini Thrust Bearings, the ones on the Bass Bridge are F4-9M & the one's on the Hipshot and Steinberger units are F3-8M

SO much better than the teflon/plastic washers, you can grab these of Amazon/ebay Or ali (ali is way cheaper (like 50% cheaper) if you don't mind the wait.

Also if anyone is looking for a nice good quality headpiece that isn't like £100+ or those crappy single string units, i can recommed this brass unit from ali at about just £10 shipped!

LINK

Crazy well finished/machined if id have paid £50 for this id still be happy.

Laters

Are these thrust bearings/washers what are supposed to help the machine turn easier? The bridge that's on the headless NK I just got has made the side of my index finger super calloused after just having it for two days now
If these don't work I may swap them out for the Hipshot solos, or possibly have someone in my machine shop whip up some kind of tool to use like the KD bridges have.

 

[Omzig]

Are these thrust bearings/washers what are supposed to help the machine turn easier? The bridge that's on the headless NK I just got has made the side of my index finger super calloused after just having it for two days now
If these don't work I may swap them out for the Hipshot solos, or possibly have someone in my machine shop whip up some kind of tool to use like the KD bridges have.

Does your NK hardware have M3 threads attaching the tunning knobs? ive had a look at their Ali page and they have quite a few types of bridge units.

and yes they make tunning a hell of a lot smoother/easier.

 

[SalsaWood]

You'd think a stiff tuner button would help with tuning stability. I'm actually amazed they don't make locking ones tbf. Everything is in line with an archimedean gear rotation, instead of traditional tuners where it is perpendicular to the shaft.

 

[foreright]

Necro Bump

Just wanted to throw some info pics on a pretty cool super easy & cheap headless tuner mod i found out about via thefretboard forum

These are mini Thrust Bearings, the ones on the Bass Bridge are F4-9M & the one's on the Hipshot and Steinberger units are F3-8M

SO much better than the teflon/plastic washers, you can grab these of Amazon/ebay Or ali (ali is way cheaper (like 50% cheaper) if you don't mind the wait.

Also if anyone is looking for a nice good quality headpiece that isn't like £100+ or those crappy single string units, i can recommed this brass unit from ali at about just £10 shipped!

LINK

Crazy well finished/machined if id have paid £50 for this id still be happy.

Laters

Glad to see this thread still ticking over - I just received one of those brass headpieces this morning and I’d agree that it’s crazy good for the price. Will likely replace the grub screws for some SS ones but they seem better than the usual cheesium ones you usually get.

I also got a headless bridge and alternate lower profile headpiece which ironically shipped without grub screws so I’ve just gone straight in with some SS ones I have lying around.



The bridge is surprisingly heavy and looks to be well made and looks *WAY*better in person than in the pics - I’m quite pleased with it although it will need to be recessed as the min saddle height appears to be 14mm or so. Will be putting it into a new 6 string build I’m planning on starting in the next week or so which will be have a mostly 3d printed body.