The Bowen Handle - Vibrato tailpiece

The tremolo arm, vibrato tailpiece, whammy, call it what you will was originally conceived of as a method for guitarists to emulate the pedal steel. And it has hardly been used for this purpose since!

If you love your Gibson but rue the fact that you can't do whammy bends when you are playing your favourite Shadows, Duane Eddy, or Chet pieces, the answer may well be the Bowen Handle.
If you like to occasionally embellish chords or notes like my heroes, mentioned above, this is a very economical way of adding the capability to your favourite stop-tailpiece fitted baby. If you are a whammy freak who wishes to do dive bombs and all that extreme stuff, this one is not for you.

The beauty of fitting one of these is no drilling or mangling of your guitar. (Although, as per the photo of my Signature model, I use a strip of masking tape to stop marking the guitar with the string ball ends when raising the pitch and the tail piece dips back.) It fits on your existing string posts and your stop tailpiece can be kept either in your guitar case or preferably a safe place in case you decide to sell the guitar. It is also easily transferable to another guitar. The one in the photo has been moved to my double-cut while I'm waiting for another to arrive.




















The one I already have came packaged as "Argus Musical Instrument Parts" in packaging that included Japanese fitting instructions. At $35 it was a very good buy, but that was probably close to 30 years ago!


The Bowen Handle I have on order at the moment is chrome right-handed at $59 USD, but they are also available in gold or black, and as lefties, a gold or black lefty costing $129 USD.
The order is with Freedom Guitars of San Diego California. Shipping is free to U.S.residents.
As an overseas buyer my cost is $79 USD with shipping, and as the exchange rate is quite good at the moment, will still cost me less than $90 AUD.
Here is the link if you are interested.
http://www.freedomguitar.com/products_bowen_handle.php?UID=20100405095749114.77.4.18