Parsons-Green B-Bender tweaks

[mayfly]

I've installed the Parsons-Green Bender (as sold by hipshot) on a couple of W teles, and both of them had the same problem.

There is a little bumper that the strap-arm rests on when the bender is not activated.  In each of my hipshot benders, this bumper was one of those clear silicon self-adhesive bumpers that you'll find attached to the back of your kitchen cabinet doors.  The bumper was cut in half and then stuck on.

The problem is that they don't stay in place.  After a few bends they pop out and suddenly when you release the bend the B string is a quarter tone flat from where you left it.  This is not good.  This happened just the other day with Kashmir, my latest bender telecaster.

Here's a couple of pictures of what I'm talking about:

You can see that the bumper moved out of the way resulting in the stopper hitting the brass stop piece directly.  You don't want it to directly hit the brass stopper because in addition to making a metallic 'clack' sound whenever you release the bender, the mechanism ends up going back to far and the pull tower pinches the B string eventually causing it to break.

My solution is to epoxy a tough insulated wire on there.  Here I used a piece of snake cable pair, but apparently the original version of the bender used leather.

First, I cleaned off the adhesive residue:

Then I got out the 5 minute epoxy:

Cut the snake pair to fit:

Mixed up the epoxy:

Stuck it on and clamped it being careful not to get epoxy on me or the bender mechanism:

Works like a charm!

 

[blue313]

You'd think they'd fix that problem.  Once you pointed it out, it looks like a straight up design flaw.  One with a simple enough fix to boot.

How much does one of those weigh?

 

[mayfly]

They're mostly aluminum so they are quite light actually.  I'm guessing that the weight is about the same as the wood you have to route away.

The days of heavy benders is gone!

BTW - in all other respects I really like this bender.

 

[Nando Vallart]

Awesome! There is other builder of the B Bender?

 

[blue313]

They're mostly aluminum so they are quite light actually.  I'm guessing that the weight is about the same as the wood you have to route away.

The days of heavy benders is gone!

BTW - in all other respects I really like this bender.

I'd heard bad things previously about boat-anchor weight b-benders.  Nice to see they've modernized a good idea.

TBH the routing is what scares the bejeezus out of me.

 

[mayfly]

They're mostly aluminum so they are quite light actually.  I'm guessing that the weight is about the same as the wood you have to route away.

The days of heavy benders is gone!

BTW - in all other respects I really like this bender.

I'd heard bad things previously about boat-anchor weight b-benders.  Nice to see they've modernized a good idea.

TBH the routing is what scares the bejeezus out of me.

Nah!  The routing is the easy part!  Don't be afraid... Crank up that router...

 

[mayfly]

Awesome! There is other builder of the B Bender?

Yep, but not many that offer it as a kit.  Most of the guys out there, including Gene Parsons, will just do installs.

The only other kind of kit that I've seen out there is this:

http://www.wdmusic.com/tele_b_bender_bodies.html

I was not sure about the quality of the body - or the quality of the bender for that matter - in this kit, so I went with warmoth and the Parsons-Green bender.

I like the results. Bwwwwiiiiingggggg  :headbang: