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Artist Custom TOM & Stop Bar Upgrades - Tell Me Your Opinions


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Bought a new (to me) guitar (my first Hamer), LOVE IT, but the luthier and tinkerer in me doesn't grasp the concept of "good enough" or "leaving well-enough alone," so I think my first order of business will be the Schaller TOM and Gotoh tailpiece.

What have you installed as a change/upgrade on your Artist? Did you notice a significant change in tone? How far did your installation go - did you just put the new hardware on the old mounts, or did you pull the bushings and inserts and install the new ones that came with your new kit?

I'm leaning heavily towards the steel Callaham ABR (with one-piece Nashville inserts) and tailpiece, along with the matching locking tailpiece studs, but I will have to pull the bushings and inserts to install them, since they only make Imperial threading and Hamer used German and Asian (metric) threaded parts. I've done the full Callaham install before on a customer's Nashville-equipped Les Paul, but I'm more hesitant about doing it to my minty 2001 Artist without seeing anyone else here having pulled the inserts. Seems like an awful lot of upgrades are done with Tonepros parts because they offer more threading and plating options, but 1) They don't use steel for the bridge (brass, aluminum or zinc seem to be your universal choices) and 2) better-than-zinc inserts will effect tone, so it would be a shame to spend $300+ on a new bridge and tailpiece and not get the best out of them because the parts they are mounted to are still shitty zinc!

To be clear: I'm not afraid to pull the inserts (that Schatten Stewmac puller is a great tool), but I'd like to know if any special precautions are needed to do this to an Artist, or if it shouldn't be done because of likely damage. Gibson construction is sometimes impeccable, often not. The biggest concern when pulling from a Gibson is scoring the finish over the top of the tailpiece insets before you pull, but they usual slip right out after that. Are the inserts in my Hamer likely to be tighter in the holes? Did Hamer ever do anything dumb, like gluing in the inserts? I'll wait to order my new parts until I've heard from all you geniuses!

I wanted to do this to my LP Special, but ended up with a Tonepros bridge and Gibson Historic "Lightning Bar" aluminum stop bar for vanity reasons - My LP is a 1992 Custom Shop Edition (one-off, I was told), and came with gold hardware, but Callahan only plates in nickel, so that decided that! It sounds better than original, but I doubt it sounds as good as it would with full steel and tighter tolerances.

Tell me your Artist upgrade stories!

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I use Faber locking hardware on the tailpiece for all my axes--no need to pull the inserts.

EDIT: The only reason I do this is so the tailpiece doesn't fall off when changing strings or cleaning the fretboard. 

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Don’t fukk with it, leave it stock. I went through the requisite, TonePros/Faber, hardware, “upgrades” phase years ago. I find the tonal benefits don’t warrant the cost and hassle. 

The stock hardware is fine. The above-mentioned companies make great products, but a lot of it is marketing.

 

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My main Artist Customs both have Schaller locking tuners replacing the stock ones, and graphite string saver saddles installed into the original bridge. Both upgrades are for reliability- not necessary for everyone, but preferable to me.

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I have a '98 Artist Custom that I got from a trade with caseygree that had the Tone Pros tailpiece. It works fine. I don't hear any difference from the original tailpiece (which wasn't included in the trade) being played at stage volume. I only like to do mods on the guitar, if it needs a repair or an upgrade that complements its sound or performance. I think sometimes people tend to modify or add too many things on to a guitar without really playing the guitar at gigs to know the differences in how that guitar should sound or feel with the stock OEM hardware. The options of hardware & mods available is like going down a rabbit hole of buying hardware/don't like it/swap it out/get something else guitar consumerism is a fetish for a lot players/tinkerers. The guitar is so modified to a point that it loses its resale value when the guitar owner/tinkerer ruins or damages the guitar that it ends up being someone else's project guitar. I think the time & effort to doing guitar hardware mods is better spent on learning to improve your playing style. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Guitar George

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Thank you all for your input! I'm leaving her stock for the time being.

I agree, an awful lot of the "reviews" and manufacturer literature is little more than hype when it comes to a description of "the benefits" of a new bridge or tailpiece. Factually, the benefits and changes we noticed in the 70s LP I swapped the Nashville out of for the Callaham (massive improvement in tone; went from thin and anemic to full, defined, and ballsy) are unlikely to be remotely as dramatic if I went to the trouble of doing the same to my Artist, because the Schaller bridge is significantly better quality than those crap hollow castings Gibson made the Nashville out of (that's why Nashville bridges are known to collapse, and virtually anything will be a noticeable improvement). As for the Gotoh tailpiece, I might try some Tonepros locking posts and/or a different material (brass, aluminum or steel) down the road, but I'm not pulling the inserts without reason.

She's more than "good enough" in stock form, so only the strings will be changed!!!

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Well, she's all restrung and set up with DR nickel 11's (Jersey boys gotta play Jersey strings!), and the neck Seth is just straight Woman Tone! Having the tailpiece at the right height instead of tightened all the way down made a huge difference in overall resonance, too. No need to change anything, now that everything's properly adjusted. Never had to worry about break angle on my LP Special - even tightened all the way down, E strings easily clear the back of the bridge - but it makes a world of difference on the Artist.

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