British made hardware?

[Simon Bailey]

Hi.
I've started on a project that many other fine builders have done with great success, and that is, using only materials from your homeland.
I'm from the UK and have the following tonewoods

Cherry Body
Walnut Cap
Sycamore neck
and I'm flirting with the idea of bog oak fingerboards

Both the Cherry and Walnut came down in the '87 storm, so are nicely seasoned over 26 years!

I know others have just kept with using native tonewoods, but as I will be using Bareknuckle pickups, (handwound in Cornwall), it got me thinking that I'd like to have EVERYTHING British made.

I've spent hours on Google looking for hardware and machine heads made in the UK, but to no avail.

Anyone here have any ideas?
Thanks.

[Simon Magennis]

Rodgers tuners are hand made in the UK but will probably blow your budget. I don't know if they made anything suitable for an electric however they would certainly be aware of any other makers. I know I have seen at least one other UK maker but I don't recall the name or what kind they did.

[Simon Bailey]

Thanks.
I do know of Rodgers Tuners. Truly amazing tuners. But as you say, not really suitable for electric guitars and way over budget at about £350 a set. I'm looking for under the £100 mark. Not dissing the price tag, as they are superb quality, and if I had that kind of budget, then I'd be all over it.

I'm kind of reluctant to contact them and ask if they know of any other British companies that are cheaper than him; probably won't go down too well.
Thanks for the thought though.

[Lee Passmoor]

You could try Robsontuners.com. They are based in the North East.

[Simon Bailey]

Nice stuff.
The Gotoh/PRS range would probably be in price range at £110 a set, but not totally within keeping of all British.

Shame the others are in the £300+ bracket, plus they are all a bit to "classic" for what I'm after.

I do appreciate your inputs and suggestions though.

Surely there must have been a UK builder who has tried this type of project before?

[Chris Richards]

I'm sorry but I don't think your search will be successful, unless you want to pay the high price tag. I've been building guitars here for years and can't recall a large scale guitar hardware manufacturer, such that the components would be a comparative price to what you can pick up in the USA or China. Probably the last manufacturer of guitars in the UK, at a time when there were import bans on American guitars and parts was Watkins who produced the Rapier range, those guitars were wholly built using British parts, the pickups were even manufactured by Watkins and if I remember rightly the pickup selector switch was from a hairdryer (the black and red over centre switches!).

Once the import ban was lifted guitarists in the UK had access to Fender/Gibson products (if we could afford them) which were, let's face it, far better. I think Watkins/Wilson soldiered on until the early '70s as a kind of entry level guitar.

I know that there were/are other UK manufacturers like Shergold and Gordon Smith but these I suspect would use US parts as they were available by then, there are also the guitars that were marketed by Woolworths (top 20 range) but these were manufactured in Japan

The only thing I can think is that you may be able to buy something old off ebay......

Good luck and I hope it works out well...

[Simon Bailey]

Ah well, thanks for the advice. I was hoping for a small time builder who makes good stuff for a reasonable price. I guess you're right though, that I'll be hard pushed to find a British made Hannes style bridge from under £100. Still, I live in hope, I think there are some small makers out there somewhere...

[Chris Richards]

I have a work colleague who has a very well equipped machine shop who builds custom parts for me at very reasonable prices. If you're stuck for something I'm sure he'll be able to manufacture something. If you do find parts manufacturers over here please let me know.

Thanks

[Simon Bailey]

Cool!
What sort of hardware has he made?
Have you got any pics up anywhere?

[Chris Richards]

Generally I get him to make lots of odd parts for me. I have a post on here "Firebird style guitar....Finished" it's a few posts below this one, he turned up some custom string-through-body guides also the control plates on the other guitars in the post, also a custom spaced steel trem block for a Strat. I'm not sure if I can post it here, but my website is www.3rguitars.co.uk (I guess it's ok as it's in my profile) there are other examples on there. Also on the tools and jigs board there's a neck jig I made with his help.