May Birthdays 
I thought some of you DIYers might find this interesting.
I traded a guy some pickups I'd never use for a homemade mustang guitar body he'd never use. The routing of the body was nearly done, but it was a clean slate for the bridge. I didn't want a strat bridge, because the body is long and I think it needs something toward the heel. I could have used a Jazzmaster "tremolo" tailpiece, but I already have a Squier JM with that. It occurred to me to do something between these two possibilities.
I thought of a two-point strat-like piece to change the string tension positioned toward the heel, but with a separate bridge. I did some calculations of the forces involved and came up with a good compromise of position, string-break angle, and spring tension required. I made a mockup on a 2 x 4, and it worked well, so I proceeded to route the body.
The end result is as you see below. I have the springs tightened up so the tailpiece rests on the body. I haven't tried to have it float because tuning stability is more important to me than being able to raise a note's pitch. Tuning stability and sustain for this guitar are good.
If anyone's interested, I could lay out the dimensions. I'm also interested to know if anyone has seen such a vibrato setup.
Lee
If I'd stop buying old guitars to fix, I might actually learn to play.
Bringing instruments back to life since 2013.
