Hard tail tremelo

[jaberwock]

It has always been my dream to have a Tele with a tremolo, I've tried a Bigsby, and a Stetzbar and they really change the sound of the guitar; as my career started as a product designer, before I somehow moved to architecture, I've spent some time coming up with a design with the strings anchored in the back of the guitar as per a regular Tele, and the tremolo, incorporating the the steel bridge plate, mounted in a one inch deep recess on the front of the guitar body. I've made up five or six prototype designs with my 3d printer, which I can try at low tension with super light strings, it won't do huge huge dives, it has a maximum range of about one full tone down, and a semi tone up, tremolo action is similar to a Strat type.

I'll get a working prototype machined up soon, and buy a cheap allparts body to experiment with; it will probably require several stages of refinement, and then I might start thinking about getting a patent.

Question is how much interest do you think there would be for something like this ? provided it worked well, manufactured in Taiwan it wouldn't be took expensive, and could be made to a high quality; the big obstacle as far as I can see would be the recess mod required to the guitar.

Any opinions would be gratefully received Jaberwock

[polara]

As a marketer, I tell people you have to be prepared to answer only one question:

"How does your product or service meet my needs better than your competitors?"

And "competitors" can include "buying no product or service at all and maintaining the status quo."

So I guess the question is, what does your design do better than Fender, Floyd Rose, Khaler, Stetsbar, Bigsby, Hipshot, Wilkinson, Super-Vee, TremKing, etc.?

What unmet consumer needs are filled with your design? Then you can guess potential interest and how much effort you should put into the project.

[burningyen]

I would be interested if the pitch range were wider.

[Tres Aardvarks]

what material did you use with the 3D printer? I've got a project I want to have made, and was going to go that route for the prototypes (before having the next phase made in metal).

[jaberwock]

I would be interested if the pitch range were wider.

I really tried,but without some kind of gearing, which becomes complicated and prone to wear, it's very difficult to get a bigger pitch drop within the depth constraints of the unit, as I want the strings to be anchored in a minimum three quarter inches of timber to maintain as much as possible of the traditional Tele tone.

From my plastic prototype set up with super light strings, it behaves very much like a conventional Strat trem, but without the ability to dive bomb; an aluminium version set up on a real guitar might be an entirely different beast; the choice of metal for the cam would be extremely important tonally.

"So I guess the question is, what does your design do better than Fender, Floyd Rose, Khaler, Stetsbar, Bigsby, Hipshot, Wilkinson, Super-Vee, TremKing, etc.? " Well hopefully it would offer the tonal qualities of a string through body guitar, whilst offering a superior tremolo action to Bigsby, and Stetsbar, haven't tried any of the others, and I may be generalizing, but I don't think Tele players wouldn't normally go for a Floyd rose, Kahler type system.

I suppose I'm imagining this unit would be fairly similar to a Parsons B bender in terms of market appeal, which realistically isn't that great.

Thanks for your replies Jaberwock

[jaberwock]

what material did you use with the 3D printer? I've got a project I want to have made, and was going to go that route for the prototypes (before having the next phase made in metal).

Just the standard plastic material which came in bead form when I bought the printer, surprisingly durable, although the prototypes tend to fail after about five minutes under tension.

Jaberwock