B-Bender Tele

[mayfly]

Hi Folks,

After successfully completing my first warmoth tele, I got the urge to do another - this time with a B-Bender.  I figured this was unusual enough to start a new topic for it.  And besides, all you tele guys and girls out there have to admit you've always wanted a B-Bender in that guitar of yours.

What's a B-Bender?

A B-Bender is a device that raises the pitch of your B string by a pre-set amount when you press down on the guitar's neck.  This actuates a lever that's connected to the guitar strap and via some rods and bell cranks pulls up on your B string.  Think of it as a bit of a pedal steel inside your guitar.  It was invented by a guy called Gene Parsons specifically for another guy called Clarence White, who played for a little band called the Byrds.  Other famous users include Jimmy Page (listen to "all of my love" - ever wondered how he did those licks?), and more recently country guitar hot-shot Brad Paisley.

Installing one of these puppies requires extensive routing of the back of your guitar, plus other bridge and top modifications.  Not for the faint of heart!

OK - which Bender?

The first thing that I had to figure out was which bender to use.  There are not many out there, but there were some that came with unfinished pre-routed bodies.  In the end I was concerned about the quality these pre-routed options, so I decided to use a warmoth body with a genuine Parson's-Green Bender kit.  Manufactured by hip-shot, this is the same bender used in fender's Nashville B-Bender tele.  To put it in, you just drill a hole for the bender tower through the top, rout out a pattern on the back of the body, then drop it in.  Well, it sounds easy - let's see how it goes!

Attached is a photo of the bender, right out of the box and ready to go.  Yep, this gizmo bolts to the back of the guitar once you've carved a great big hole in it.  This view shows the various levers and cranks, plus the pull tower.

In the next installment I'll show how I made the routing template out of 1/4" lexan.

 

[Tonar8352]

Go Clarence White and Jimmy Page!!!!!!!!!!

I’m on board with you.  I’ve been thinking about doing one which I have the body and neck for but I have to much money tied up in other projects at this time.  I am thinking of doing the route before I finish it so  the finish will be in the route channel.

Here is the link to Gene Parsons’s web-sight if anyone wants to look into benders some more.
http://www.stringbender.com/bender/classic.htm

If you want to see them in action check youtube and watch Jimmy Page use one on his Tele.  You can find a fair amount of stuff on using one on the tube.

I'll be watch this thread to see your progress

 

[mayfly]

Thanks Tonar!  I hope it comes together well.

The next step is to make the routing template.  I first got a 1/4" piece of clear lexan from Reno Depot.  The Parson's green bender kit comes with full sized drawings of the back rout, so all I had to do was transfer the image to my lexan piece, mark it up, then cut it out. 

I don't have access to a scroll saw, and my jigsaw is temperamental and untrustworthy, so I just drilled big holes into the lexan at the corners of the rout, then cut the straight lines with a hacksaw blade.  This took me a couple of hours start to finish. 

With the cutout rough cut, I used a circular rasp bit in my router table to smooth out the interior edges.  This is not recommended use for this kind of bit, but it worked really well!  The lexan just kind of melted away like butter, leaving a smooth contoured finish around the curved parts of the lexan.  The results are the attached pic. 

So far, so good.  The warmoth parts have yet to arrive, so for next time I'll be taking a hacksaw to a brand new Joe Barden 3 barrel compensated Tele bridge.

 

[mayfly]

Hi Folks,

No warmoth parts yet, so It's time to hack up the bridge.  The reason you have to modify the tele bridge is to allow the b-string to pass through it on the way to the pull tower located behind the bridge.

I bought a Joe Barden compensated bridge for this project, and I was nervous about hacking it up.  Turns out I worried for nothing.  I used a new blade in the hacksaw, and the bridge cut away like clothes fall off Paris Hilton.  A little dressing with a needle file and a few shots of compressed air, and this is what it turned out like.

 

[mayfly]

So, I find a delivery notice on my door when I get home.  I rush to the local UPS joint in great anticipation...

... only to find that my pickups had arrived.  A bit disappointed, but I must say the pickups (a set of Lollar special T's) look like they will do the trick.

BTW, for those who care, Lollar is a very smart guy who makes great sounding pickups.  One of the better boutique pickup guys out there IMHO

 

[mayfly]

Folks,

It's been awhile, but I finally got all the parts for the B-Bender project.  We have:  one warmoth pro neck (maple/rosewood), one lightweight swamp ash tele body in Dakota Red, a set of planet waves locking tuners, the Barden bridge, the Lollar pickups, and of course the bender.

Time to start chopin'!

 

[mayfly]

OK! 

The most critical thing about installing a bender is the location of the pull tower.  This has to be exactly right, otherwise the b string will be in a weird place, directly affecting playability of the guitar.  Needless to say, I double, triple, quadruple checked my work when I was doing this. 

I lined up the location of the tower by first determining the center line of the guitar, then drawing out the "b-string line", which is the path the b-string would make over the bridge and to the tower.  This gives the location of the tower in the vertical direction.

According to the instructions with the bender, the next step is to line up the bender on top of the guitar, and, well, eye ball it so it looks like it's in a good spot.  Yep, that's right - it's time to eyeball it:

After this, you measure from the b-string hole to the base of the tower, add half the diameter of the tower, and you have the location of the center of the tower in the horizontal direction:

Once I did that, I double and triple checked the location, then put a starter mark in the top of the guitar with an awl.  In this shot the pencil is pointing to wards the center of the soon to be drilled pull tower hole.

 

[mayfly]

Well, now on to drilling the sucker!

I took my time lining it up on the drill press, and used a 15/16 forstner bit as recommended by the instructions.  if I were to do it again, I'd use a pilot hole and a hole saw for this step - I had some trouble with the forstner and my hole ended up a little oversize for the ferrule.

In this shot you can see my offering to the warmoth warranty gods before I started cutting

WAIT!  DON'T DO IT!  DON"T!!!

.... too late

More to come...

 

[mayfly]

With the tower hole cut, the next step is to make the rout in the back.  In this shot I'm lining up the template over the tower hole and getting it positioned just right.  Fortunately in the full size drawings there are marks for the string holes in the back of the guitar, which I transfered to the template.  I used these to line it up. 

I thought about using double sided tape to stick the template to the guitar, but in the end I decided to screw the template right onto the body.  I picked places that would be covered by the bender when it was finally installed, so I was not worried about the holes in the back.

Here's the body with template, ready to start cutting!

 

[mayfly]

Once the template was on there, routing it was pretty easy.  Man that swamp ash is soft stuff!  It went very quickly

Here's the start.  The calipers are to check the depth of the route as I go.

Here's the end.  I had to do a couple of passes since the Parsons-Green bender requires you to cut at different depths in different parts of the rout.  Again, the calipers were very handy to make sure I had the depth right in the appropriate locations:

Here's the finished product with the template removed.  The moment of truth:  Will it Fit???

Hey!  it Fits!!  Looks pretty good with the red as well...

 

[Mor Paul]

Looks good! Any chance of getting the bender flush with the body?

 

[NeilStryker]

Seriously, dude, you rock!!  B-benders are so much fun to play, can't believe you did that yourself.  Thanks for documenting it too.

 

[mayfly]

Looks good! Any chance of getting the bender flush with the body?

Well, I guess it's possible, but then the pull tower would have to be cut down by the 1/16" (or what ever it is) thickness of the bender plate.  Then the pull pendulum would have to be cut as well...

I'm not a machinist, so I ain't doing it

Trevor

 

[guitlouie]

You are a brave, brave man.  Looks like everything turned out OK though!  Nice!

 

[DangerousR6]

Looks good! Any chance of getting the bender flush with the body?

Well, I guess it's possible, but then the pull tower would have to be cut down by the 1/16" (or what ever it is) thickness of the bender plate.  Then the pull pendulum would have to be cut as well...

I'm not a machinist, so I ain't doing it

Trevor

very nice job...

 

[DangerousR6]

Looks good! Any chance of getting the bender flush with the body?

Well, I guess it's possible, but then the pull tower would have to be cut down by the 1/16" (or what ever it is) thickness of the bender plate.  Then the pull pendulum would have to be cut as well...

I'm not a machinist, so I ain't doing it

Trevor

I'm a machinist and I ain't doin' it either.... :laughing11:

 

[Nando Vallart]

Looks like a very good and clean work, congrats!

But I think B-Benders are hideous :sad:

 

[dbw]

Nice work!

 

[Jommit]

I like it a lot :headbang:
I started to wonder what a B-Bender was when I saw this clip :icon_scratch:
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQQIT4SJHpY[/youtube]
Now I know :icon_smile:
Cool cover of Stairway to heaven on that clip to by the way..

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

I like it a lot :headbang:
I started to wonder what a B-Bender was when I saw this clip :icon_scratch:

Now I know :icon_smile:
Cool cover of Stairway to heaven on that clip to by the way..

Man, i'm into metal and stuff, but that is freaking awesome.

That guy should get payed more.

So what i  gather is the the B bender is a trem system thats needs no trem arm, just the movement of the guitar to the vertical or horizontal position.  Then again i could just be hearing things and it could be something completely different that have no idea what is.