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I am love with some of those elegantly designed tailpieces found on archtops, but I know nothing about working with metal. I'm sure I could design something on paper, but how do you go about getting them made. What is the process?

Hi, Darren, Mine is a metal tailpiece disguised to look like a wooden tailpiece, so it might not be what you had in mind, but it'll get the ball rolling. I made the basic metal structure out of a hardware store brass strap. This metal core serves to ground my strings to the base of the output jack. I cut one piece off the end to fashion into the "T" shaped string retainer. I sawed and filed the dovetail joint. It was later fluxed, slipped together, lightly peened, and then soldered with plumber's solder and a torch. But first, after cutting the dovetail and drilling the holes for the output jack and screw, I annealed both parts and bent them as needed. You can google "anneal brass" and find instructions. It's pretty easy. Hammering re-hardens the brass. Because of that, if you hammer without annealing, you are apt to make it very brittle at the bending points. If too brittle, it could crack and fail in time, due to string tension. I made the wood cover as the diagram will indicate. I routed for the brass inlay on the underside, then glued the wooden pieces together and shaped them. I sent the brass piece out to have the one part that shows plated--copper, then silver, then gold. This is because gold plate doesn't stick directly to brass, but it sticks to silver plate. The wood is simply epoxied to the brass. I drilled the string holes in the small wooden front piece before assembling the wood cover. I temporarily mounted the wood cover, and used those holes as guides to drill through the brass ball-end retainer. THEN is sent it for plating.

Hopefully, the pictures will explain everything better than the words.
Patrick

One poster in a recent ANZLF thread had his cast, polished & plated .
http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?f=1& ... 78fb7ee702
May be able to contact him for details.
I think a custom jeweller could do this work.

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Dave
Milton, ON

Thanks for the replies, guys. Yes, I am referring to those all-metal beauties. Looks like I need to read up on casting!

Stefan Sobell makes this design. All metal, but it still "floats" like a violin tailpiece. The design is rather simple and might be something you want to try first.

Patrick...very nice A1 first class work there




blessings
Padma

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Darren, I think you could fabricate a nice design out of sheet brass, steel, aluminum, etc. You'd probably want fairly thick material (maybe 1/8"). Heavier pieces could be brazed to brass sheet, as needed. Brass cuts, files and polishes pretty easily and will accept a clear lacquer finish (think saxophone). Or, as has been suggested, you could fabricate a pattern and have it cast.

Patrick

PS...thanks, Padma.

Michael Lewis at Michael Lewis Mandolins and Archtops, makes his own or at least he did. He describes it quite well in a thread in the MIMF library. Lots of sawing, filing, annealing, hammering and then plating.

Patrick,

That is an excellent tutorial/example of a metal/wood composite tailpiece. I had drawn up something kinda sorta similar, but had not thought of the final 90° bend at the ball-end string holes (I had thought of inlaying a separate piece of brass in a slot in the wood. This solves all the engineering problems.

As for the piece down at the butt end, I had planned to create a hammered finish with a ball peen hammer, (work hardening the metal in the process), and then polish. I'll probably still do that, but your solution at the other end is superior to what I was thinking, and I'll "borrow" the concept from you (muchas gracias.)

An elegant solution!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

I had to make a tailpiece for this 1906 Gibson Harp Guitar. I used a 20 guage steel plate and pounded it out on an anvil (cold), smoothed and buffed out the hammer dings and had it plated.



Michael

Darren: Contact machine shops in your area.They may know of a small foundry that does some brass casting. If you had a pattern you may be able to get them to do the casting and you do the clean up work on the castings. Worth a try.
Tom

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