Univox dread... double courses on D and G. any thoughts?

[Randy King]

I've got a customer with an old univox dread. He wants to put octave strings on for the d and g. There seems to be enough room for a couple more tuners on the paddle headstock and maybe enough room to put the partial row of bridge pins in.. 

Just curious as to how ya'll might go about doing something like this.

I'm not sure why the saddle is the way it is... all of the crown points are on the front half. I've never seen an abomination like this... whoever did this probably should have plugged the slot and put it in the right place... but they didn't.

anyway.. I'll put a couple pics up  shortly.

[Randy King]

/Users/randyking/Desktop/guitar repair/vox headstock.JPG/Users/randyking/Desktop/guitar repair/vox.JPG/Users/randyking/Desktop/guitar repair/voxbridge.JPG/Users/randyking/Desktop/guitar repair/vox.JPG

[Greg Mirken]

Randy, here's how I added an octave G to a customer's Lo Prinzi. http://shadetreeguitars.com/ARTICLES/hi_lo_prinzi.html

[Randy King]

very helpful mike... The bridge looks like exactly what I had in mind.. although I must admit I never thought of using a banjo tuner. I was thinking maybe those steinberger tuners?
Also.. the octave string seems a little easier to add to the G than the D. I was thinking the octave string might have to go to the current G tuner.. and the wound d string will have to go to a new tuner.
I just realized the pictures didn't show up.. I'll try and fix it.

[FRANK]

the guy who played last years supper bowl and i hung for 2 days at the NAMM he plays one that has 3 courses for 9 strings they sound great ,Martin has one with 2 g strings sounds great got those 12 string accents

[Randy King]

Well.. I've gathered the parts for this. I'll be making a new bone nut, installing an LR Baggs RTS2, installing two steinberger tuners, and two new bridge pins. The customer wants the two octave strings in the middle. So it'll be EADdgGBe. I'll try again with some pictures... I hadn't realized they didn't show up.

[Randy King]

[IMG]http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss21/coltrane2009/100_0452.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss21/coltrane2009/100_0454.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss21/coltrane2009/100_0455.jpg[/IMG]

[FRANK]

YO Randy what gives with the 2 piece saddle ?did i miss something?

[Randy King]

I'm not sure why its like that... previous work done by someone else. All of the crown points are on the front half so it serves no purpose. The customer said it was done to correct intonation, and it was done by his regular repairman (I'm pretty sure that I'll be his new "regular repairman" from now on) so I didn't want to talk $hi* about the work..... I told him that I could plug that with rosewood and recut the slot correctly, maybe he will down the line.

[Randy King]

Ya'll should be able to click those and check it out.. I had to center the bridge pins... because he wanted both strings in the middle I couldn't offset both pins toward the middle. To further complicate things he wants an additional nut with the g string on the other side... So...... I figured the only way to use it both ways is to use the front bridge pin to achieve the string spacing.. make sense guys?

[Randy King]

Hey guys.. what do you think is a fair price for this job? I did the 8 string conversion, installed an undersaddle P/U, and made two bone nuts... one nut is to be used EADdgGBE.. the other EADdGgBE

[Tim Mace]

1000 smackers?

[Grahame Myers]

smackers? What would that be in $ or € ? :-)

Grahame