Adjustable-Height Tailpiece?

pdg

There's been a lot of discussion about the need to optimize the "load" of the strings on the top of the guitar -- not too great, not too little -- and the fact that, for a given guitar, the (1) action, (2) choice of strings, and (3) humidity, all affect the load on the top (humidity probably affects the action).

Has anyone considered building and using a height-adjustable tailpiece, in order to allow for fine-tuning of the load on the top?

Anyone who's ever seriously played banjos knows that there is a whole array of height-adjustable banjo tailpieces available -- you just turn a thumbwheel on the tailpiece, even while the strings are at tension, and the load on the top (and the sound) changes. (You do have to re-tune slightly, of course.)

There are a couple of guitar height-adjustable tailpieces in existence:
- the "finger" tailpiece used on some high-end Gibson archtops (looks like 6 fingers, each one is height-adjustable with a separate knob)
- old Gibson Super 400s had a height-adjustable tailpiece, maybe you use an allen wrench or something.
- Jimmy D'Aquisto used a more-or-less height-adjustable tailpiece -- it was a trapeze-type affair, and you raise or lower the half of the tailpiece that sits on the side of the guitar (you have to loosen the strings first, though).

For GJ guitars, the height-adjustable tailpiece could look just like a regular GJ tailpiece, but the top portion and the side portion would be hinged in some way where a thumbwheel would crank down the top portion (i.e., change the angle between the two parts).

Bones

I tried one on an archtop but it didn't help to have the angle over the bridge decreased but archtops might need more down force since the tops are stiffer than a selmac.

bluetrain

I've been thinking about the same thing. I think in my guitar the original design has been a bit wrong because the neck angle is really deep and this forces me to put a really high bridge and the string tension is just too much compared to other guitars.

Bones

I don't think that neck angle affects string tension so much as down force on the top of the guitar.

String tension is just gage and scale length???