Nitro,
It seems to me that the original tailpiece, the break angles and distance from bridge were very exactly and purposefully engineered. Why else would the string holes be staggered if not to manage string tension for each string?
I myself like to design modifications and finish and assemble guitars, and I don't claim to be a professional designer – I'm pretty much an experimenter happy with a playable result.
But it seems to me that the design features of a Hallmark, which is not a terribly cheap instrument, have been created with the purpose of producing a certain feel and sound. Folks that buy Hallmarks seem generally pleased with them. Can you discuss how the need to change up all these things arose? A broken guitar I'd fix, but to redrill tailpiece screw holes and string holes on an otherwise pristine Hallmark seems a drastic defacement.

Nitromessiah wrote:

Stock vibrato/tailpiece

my modified vibrato/tailpiece

mounted and strung up

Squink Out!

JOBeast, I've played Strats all my life and wanted a Mosrite Ventures model guitar. The Hallmark was the best bang for the buck, I couldn't afford a "real" 60's guitar. The 'defacements' were improvements that should be done in the production model, but I understand a lot of people want something to sit and look at, not actually play professionally. This guitar will be my #2 stage guitar along with my #1 Strat. I play a mix of styles, with no particular focus on surf or Ventures songs. As I'll explain below, everything I did was thought out and done to improve as well as maintain "the look". Unless you look at the trem directly, not a single mod can be detected.

Sancho, everything you said, word for word, is wrong.

How would break angle change the tuning? If your "thoughts" were true, every Les Paul on the planet would be out of whack... Jaguars? Jazzmasters? Coronados? geezus man!

Semie was ANYTHING but an engineer. 98% of his 'designs' were seat of the pants and quite honestly, butt ugly. The Gene Moles design that became the Ventures model was his one and only non-flop. The holes in the trem were laid out like that for artistic value, there's no "engineering" in the layout.

As for tuning, the guitar tunes much better and holds said tune much better. The sustain, resonance and TONE are infinitely better. It's a win-win-win, there isn't a single detriment or drawback to anything I've done. The stock tuners are the cheapest kluson knockoffs available. They are low ratio, poorly cast and are sloppy. Compared to a Schaller, Grover or Sperzel, they are scrap metal. I will not be using locking tuners. I've decided on Grover 102-18C, actually.

I called Bob Shade when I bought it to verify the age, it was made in November of 2013, so it's exactly 1 year old. According to Bob, the only difference in the latest model is he now moves the trem up as I did... so my mod was actually a retrofit.

The Hallmark has issues, some inherent to the design it's modeled after and some in keeping the relative cost down as low as possible. It is without peer in the quality of wood, workmanship and value in the Mosrite clone world. Some people into old musclecars like using the stock, narrow tires they came with. Those tires sucked then and they suck now, and if you push the car into really working, those tires will let you down in every way. I understand the attraction to the look and vibe of true vintage. But as a player not a collector, I want my machines to perform the best the can while still maintaining the vibe and appearance. Everything I did IMPROVED the guitar to the point where it's now a non-genre specific instrument. If I want to play Diamond Head, it sounds close enough to a "real" Mosrite. If I want to play Don Rich country licks or Billy Gibbons blues licks, it sounds great doing it. The G string intonates and tunes perfectly, and now it sounds like the other 5 strings in timbre, resonance and sustain. Before it sounded like a piece of screen door wire pulled over two nails.

The bridge on the Hallmark is a generic piece used on a great many cheap guitars. It's a pretty lousy design compared to a Fender or even a Gibson, but I made it work better than both of those. Appearance wasn't a prime concern because the Hallmark bridge in no way looks like a Mosrite... yet I actually enhanced the appearance IMHO.

As you said, to each his own. I just wish I could put this guitar in the hands of a stock Hallmark owner, and have someone else comment on the differences and whether they help or hurt.

In the end, I guess we should all go back to 1 gauge of strings with a wound third, and not change pickup height, trussrod adjustments or bridge height. Just plug it in, hold it in the classical position and use proper Mel Bay determined technique. Leo should've stayed with radio repair, and never borrowed that guitar from Paul Bigsby... And Semie should've kept his ass at Rickenbacker.

Last edited: Nov 20, 2014 07:24:48

Nitro,
Some kudos; some polite critique:
What you did with the bridge posts is something I've done with many of my Mosrites. I replaced the bridgepost screws(and saved the stock ones) with the type of machine bolts you used or, alternately,the "headless" type that screw down via an Allen wrench from the top. For those, I usually have enough space under the bridge for a hex nut; so a lock washer and another hex nut can be locked down on top. The bridge no longer has that back and forth sway when the whammy bar is used. Just make sure the rollers aren't seized.

I can appreciate what you did with the tailpiece itself with the additional metal milling for the 'G' string etc.. But you could put a gun to my head and pull the trigger before I'd do any of that to a vintage Mosrite.

Bob Shade really has made good compromise between old and new with his products. I have one of his (very early) 59 Customs. The "bridge" is a bar of light aluminum as is the tailpiece (complete with the Moseley "mistake plate"). The guitar is for home use only -not because it's too pretty to take out;but because it really has no 'ring" or sustain with the light metal bridge and tailpiece. I bought a bridge as used on the 60s customs to replace it but haven't gotten around to it yet. If it does go on, all work has to be completely reversible- i.e. back to stock. Such is not the case with your tailpiece work. As much as you improved things and it is, after all, your guitar, you took $$ value out of the instrument. That's how the market works - good, bad, or indifferent.
J Mo'

The guitar comes to tune, stays in tune, and intonates from head to heel. If your G string is fucked up, then it's operator error... I've never had to make any special marks or connotations for tuning a guitar after I'd set it up. Buzz Feiten and Earvana make nuts to "fix" that problem you mention, but the same can be done with a nut file (or crowning in the case of a zero fret) and some patience. Maybe I am lucky, maybe I'm good, maybe I am like Leo and everything is a divine intervention or ancient alien genius.

Whatever it is, I really figured people wanted guitars that worked, not just ornamentation to hang around your neck.

I do have a background in motorsport engineering, but the guys that actually did the machine work have created stuff for NASA that went to space among a zillion other projects of lesser repute. Semie might've had a better handle on the woodworking but that's about the extent of his skill set. He himself admitted he didn't know what he was doing most of the time, history reflects that.

Like you said Johnny, I would never modify a vintage Mosrite and I have nothing but thanks and praise for Bob Shade and his great shop. He pleased the majority of people. It was 80% there, i just added the 20% it was missing to be a viable professional grade working instrument.

Just bought a Custom 60 model!

_

Hi, I'm Gellert, guitarist for The Fintastics.

https://www.facebook.com/TheFintastics

Last edited: Apr 04, 2015 07:36:37

All,
Speaking of mods.. there is some poor soul with a black Hallmark 59 (it looks like a Custom 60 to me) presently on Ebay. The owner or some foolish pre-owner put Grover tuners in the headstock and didn't fill in the holes - BUTT UGLY.
If you look closer at the instrument, the bridge pole pieces don't line up with the strings - a real possible factory defect. To add a cherry to the mess, the silly owner drilled a third hole for another volume control and put on a no-matching knob. HIDEOUS.
There oughta-be-a-law. Then again, I guess any fool can do whatever they want to their guitar. Just painful to look at.
J Mo'

Noel,
A guitar for the Bizarro World??
J Mo'

Jake,
I'd add that knowing how to wind a string helps also.

In the mature scheme of things, hopefully we own guitars for a period of time and intend for the instrument to outlast our own mortality. That makes us owners/caretakers for our own estate.
To your last point, when I was younger, dumb, and foolish, I put Grovers on a 1966 ES-335. It was very much in vogue at the time. I still have the guitar but had to have the headstock refin'd over the screw holes and special bushings installed to use the original tuners. It wasn't too big a value hit as I bought the guitar with a visible but stable headstock repair. It still plays well all these decades. And it tunes just fine.

But today I wouldn't even install a Bigsby on a guitar that didn't originally come with one.
So with guitar mods .... if it can't be backed out, it shouldn't be hacked out.
J Mo'