Basic headless hardware

Jez6345789 · February 8

I am thinking of putting together a Strandberg style headless as a project.
for me to goof about on, I doubt it will be something that sticks as it will only get used as a blues rock machine as anything technical is way above my pay grade but fancy building something that is not a Strat or tele or les Paul.

So I was looking at hardware and it seems you are in about 300 quid for the top end stuff and about £100 ish for Alnicov Guyka on Amazon and EBay. I have had a couple of bits from those Chinese brands for a tele I did for a friend last year as Wilkinson was out of stock at the budget end and other than Chinese low grade screws it all was ok.

Is the headless stuff usable for a scratch build or for headless you need to throw money at it

thanks all advice welcome

Roland · February 9

I’m sure that there are some good, cheapish headless tuners coming into the market, but I haven’t found them yet. Of the ones I have tried:

Roland said:

Overlord tuner is crap. Don’t waste your time unless you want a metalwork project converting it. Overlord string retainer is unusable. More discussion here.

J-Custom tuner is heavier than the others, but works. Build thread here.

Nova is good, but has limited adjustment. Also fiddly to use - you have to take apart to change strings. String retainer is good, but screws into neck from the front, so needs thick area at head end. I reduced this by using threaded inserts instead of screws.

Hipshot is the best. Feels like a conventional Tele bridge to use. Can be improved by using the ball races described here. String retainer screws onto end of neck, so no thick area needed. However it is very expensive, and can easily cost as much as the rest of the guitar and parts.

Grainger do a string retainer. Nice design which hides cut end of the string. However you have to cut the string to length before use. Since I use round core strings, which unwind if cut, I can’t use it.

Whichever tuner you go for it’s worth modifying it with these