mosriteforum.com

After many years of being a Ventures fan, playing guitar badly as a kid, I have finally bought my first Mosrite! Spent a little over the odds I believe but the model is in great condition. I need to replace the rear tremelo piece as it is clearly not the original. It was obviously fabricated as a stop gap for the guy that was playing it a while back but now it's in my hands I want to restore it back to the original condition, this will mean making a totally new part from CNC and chroming. Problem I have is that I cant really find any pictures that truly give the information I need as most angles of this part are from the top down on the guitar, what I need to know is the thickness of the top part, the rest I can pretty much get from the piece I have.

I am from the UK, now living in Tulsa, OK (temp, maybe!) and a design engineer in the aviation industry. Fortunatly engineering issues like this enable me to use the knowledge I have to get around problems, plus the CAD software I use makes it real easy!

Take a look at the pics below, this shows what was on the guitar and why I want to replace it!!







The second picture would gauge me the right information, as views from the underside are never shown (for obvious reasons!) If anyone could take a snap to help me out it would be greatly appreciated, or give me a thickness dimension for the upper piece that the tremelo bolts through!!!

Lastly, a pic of my new purchase, its partly stripped and has since had a good clean that restored the true shine of the paint. Previously thought that this was just a badly faded white model but have since discovered that cream versions were also made...

Hello Bushers,

Regarding the part you need. Do you have the rest of the assembly, meaning the base plate and the bridge?
If the answer is yes, then the simplest solution would be to call Bob Shade at Hallmark guitar and purchase the tail piece, vibrato arm and spring from him. I have a couple of his Hallmark vibrato's on my clone guitars as well as a couple of original 60's Mosrite Ventures model for comparison and the parts appear to be interchangeable and are brand new. Bob Shade is also a Mosrite collector and can advised you if they are interchangeable.

The parts are not listed separately on his website so you would either have to email or call him on the phone. Here is a direct link to his website.
Hallmark Guitars

If you decide you had rather fabricate parts yourself, I can get some measurements for you from an assembled unit mounted on the guitar. Also they were made from cast brass then chrome plated. The earlier ones prior to 1965 were made of aluminum. I seem to recall seeing some good photo's of the arm rest area of a Mosrite on another web site. I'll try to find those photo's if you decide to make it yourself.

If you click on the 60s Custom in this gallery of photo's and keep advancing through them you can see a pretty good rear view of the vibrato assembly. It's about the seventh photo in the gallery.
Gallery

Wow, I had looked through his site with a link from here to his parts pages but couldnt find anything there, I think i'll give him a call as it'll be alot easier to just buy a unit and they look great!

I have all the other pieces, the tremelo is a little worn and I'm most probably going to get it re-chromed locally, this should bring it back to life! The pins that go through the roller bearings are also bent slightly, looks like these might have been pre-fab'ed to but thats no big deal. The assembly doesnt seem to robust without the strings on, its pretty easy for the roller bearings and pins to fall out, I was looking at the patents from earlier design and it looked like there was a screw to hold the bearings in place, I had thought about making something like this, integrating the pins (screwed into the tail piece) so the head covers the bearings but doesnt clamp down on them. But if i can get the pins that match the tailpiece from Bob i'll take the easy route!

The only piece that had perished was the fibre/leather? washer under the tremelo, but I'll ask Bob Shade about that too.

The picture below is the guitar, now clean, and starting to look more like it should be! (Also a link to a Joe Maphis double neck in the same colour scheme)

It's great that you are restoring the guitar back to it's original condition. It looks like a beauty.

Regarding the pins for the bearings, once you have it all assembled and the strings installed, the bearings and pins should stay in place. I know on my two originals, when I remove the strings the pins and bearing fall out. When it is strung up there is no problem. One is a '66 and the other '64, so they've stayed in one place for many years.

I've looked at the patent drawings and see that the design originally used a separate pin on each side, the Mark 1s have a solid pin all the way through the base. I'm not sure what the Hallmark has as apparently they are pressed in tightly.

Good luck and keep us informed of the progress.

Ive bought a Vibrato tailpiece from Bob Shade at Hallmark, he was extremely helpful, this should look great once I have it on the guitar!

You live in Tulsa! That's my old stomping grounds. What part of Tulsa tou live in? And welcome to the forum, Kevin

I'm down on 91st/Yale. Lived here for 3 years now, was in Seattle at Boeing for a few months before the project (787) I was working on moved back to the then Boeing, in Tulsa (now Spirit).

I like Tulsa, very easy going city but fast becoming popular, in the last 3 years since I've been here traffic has got alot worse, there's alot of people that sell up in California and move here, same weather, no beaches (lots of lakes!) and the odd tornado thrown in for good measures!!!

Yeah that main road going from tulsa to Broken Arrow down the road from woodland hills mall all that use to be cow pastures when I was growing up and when I went there 2 months ago for my uncles funeral I was in shock by the amount of fast food and retail shops that have developed there.