pics, of sho-bud, fingertips,

[Jussi Huhtakangas]

howdy, i forgot to add, the inlay is sorta zig-zag, the body is rose wood,and birds eye, and its 1963,apparently it belonged to shot jackson, then again hundreds more would have been until he sold them, lew.

I think it's probably a slightly later than a -63, maybe around -65, from the fingertip era. The earlier perms had different style endplates, fastened on the front with one screw instead of two ( like John's ) and didn't extend as far on the front and back. Couldn't tell from the pics but does the decal read "Madison" or "Nashville"? Madison decals were used up until -63 or 64 I guess. Also the 3-way neck selector switch was usually between the necks on the earlier permanents. And the top ends were shaped more round while the fingertip era perms had more square corners. Very cool guitar and in a pretty decent shape too!!

[Steve Waltz]

Opps.....I just realized that the guitar in SF is not the one you are talking about, but similar.

Ignore the rambling, at least there's a picture........

I think it's older than one might think. Notice a few of the cross shafts are the older style black welded bell cranks. Those are the type that the rod goes in at an agle.

There's a lot of newer parts on there including hardware for P7 and P8. All of the knees are new too. It's pretty tight under those guitars and sometimes there isn't much room for new stuff when the old is in the way. I think they changed P8 and P7 to be away from the body of the guitar in order to allow room for the rods for the knees to travel in a straight line to the finger. They also cut down the center support that the old cross shafts go through, again to make room height wise for the new stuff. A number of those brackets are there to raise up the hardware.

There are also screws added to the tops of some of the fingers. On mine those were added to the C6th neck on the 9th and 10th fingers to help with P8 when. They attached springs to those. The fingers also have collars instead of nuts behind the fingers.

coop thought mine was a Maddison based on the welded rods but my sticker had long since dissapeared. Notice some of the similarities. Those black cross shafts on the C6th neck are only about 1/8th inch from the guitar body.

[Lewis John Foote]

howdy, steve, is that what the under side of mine should look like , when it arrives,? the changer on mine has the adjustable bridge,what does that tell you, and the transfer is just the SHO-BUD, NASHVILLE, type, thanks, lew. lew.

[Steve Waltz]

I've seen permanents with an adjustable bridge that had the fingertip style undercarridge minus the fingertip changer and perms like mine since mine has it, so I don't think the adjustable bridge is an indicator of the underside.

The fingertip style undercarridge on a permanent is easier to add and move things, since the parts aren't welded and you can add tuners behind the bell cranks since they are attached differently. I had to learn some metal skills. You will not find parts. I think you could get Coop parts to work.

I've found it helps to play without all of the changes and find new places, or should I say the old places to get the sounds that you want without the knees. Just something to think about if it gets too difficult to add what you want.

[Lewis John Foote]

howdy, steve, im assuming you can lower strings on these or is it only able to raise strings,? lew.

[Steve Waltz]

You can lower stings and you can lower and raise the same string.

To lower you have to have a way to pull the finger forward to hold it in position. Usually with a spring attached to the rod or to the bell crank that will be used for the lower. When you use the lever it allows the finger to travel backwards until it bumps into the screw in the changer. There isn't an easy way to tell you since there are different ways of doing it. It's a pull release system so you might want to do some studying on that in order to get an idea of how the system works.

No matter what it will take some work, maybe more than it's worth. It's all custom work and without prior knowledge of those systems it would be hard to do it well. If knees are very important to you and you don't have mechanical skills and a pull release guitar near you I would consider sending it elsewhere for the mods. I put the knees on mine so I know how much work it is and I had a working pull release to go off.

[Jussi Huhtakangas]

No, like Steve said, the adjustable bridge is not an indicator of the undercarriage. It was introduced years before fingertip changer. I've seen a very cool Sho Bud catalog from around -62 or -63 where it was announced with close up photos. One of these days I hope to get a copy of that catalog, it was one of the coolest Bud brochyres I've ever seen!

[Lewis John Foote]

howdy, ive wondered what a pull -release, system was now its a lot clearer, emmons, made there steels work, with there push-pulls, and ive got a pretty good head for over commin prob,s like this, and, john coop has a lot of knowledge on these matters,my brains already workin on it, thanks, lew.

[John Billings]

Adjustable changer:
http://tinyurl.com/5bcm36

http://tinyurl.com/5wajpw

http://tinyurl.com/5s25ul

http://tinyurl.com/5qv89c

http://tinyurl.com/5ows5t

[Danny Bates]

Great post John! I love these guitars.

Can somebody explain the Roller Bridge Lever?

[John Billings]

I guess we just call 'em "Fingers" today.