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Where to buy headless guitar hardware?


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Headless tends to be one of the more esoteric choices for a build, so hardware options are quite restricted.

Dedicated headless suppliers that I know of are Hipshot (USA), ABM (Germany), Technology For Musicians (Italy) and Mera Guitars (Ukraine). Strandberg used to sell their hardware to the public but suspended their sales last September. Maybe they'll resume sales in the near future?

Either way, all the above options tend to be made-to-order and are subsequently quite pricey, as you've probably already found out.

I've seen some guitars where the builder has simply taken regular tuning machines and fitted them to the body behind a Tune-o-matic tailpiece. The "nut" can then be a simple metal bracket secured to the top of the neck that retains the ball-ends of the strings. Not the prettiest solution, but certainly cheap.

Chinese clones of the Steinberger headless system are easy to find on eBay, but quality would be highly questionable.

Headless USA sell repro Steinberger bridges and headpieces under the name J-Custom. I have no experience with them, but I believe the parts are made in Korea, and are (were?) considered credible alternatives to the original Sterinberger parts. A 6 string fixed bridge and headpiece appears to cost about $200. They also have an eBay outlet under the user name "green-axe".

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If you have a machine shop close by you could have a bridge made. if you look through my threads I have a post about a headless guitar that im making with a home made headless system. I asked a local machine shop what it would cost to have a couple made because quite frankly im a terrible machinist and dont want to spend the time making any more and they said it would run about 150- 175 usd to have them made which is quite a bit cheaper than ordering one. Once I'm finished with the build im going to post files so people can use the design.

 

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