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| Palm Pedal Description & Design Development History | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The original Bigsby-manufactured BP-15 & BP-12 units - variations & faults. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The BP-15 base assemblies are made from a cut down STD B-12 vibrato base aluminium casting. The BP-12 units kept the full STD B-12 casting and were made for use on Semi-Acoustic guitars. They only really worked well on Gibson "ES" style guitars, as their overall length was 9.5". | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The 6.5" pedal arms are made of extruded aluminium. The extrusion process produces aluminium with a much greater tensile strength, yet, it still can be bent (right and left arms) and easily polished. The pedal arms are mounted onto the 3/8" nickel-plated stainless steel string bar that has 6 holes for the termination of the other non-actuated strings with 7 grooves for the "C" retaining clips for holding the arms in place. Three pedal units were made, but are extremely rare. The fact that one of the mounting screws on the BP-15 was under the first string position made for a "non-user friendly" installation, requiring a special "external retaining ring" tool for moving and locking the arms in place after mounting. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Standard #6-32 Allen head screws were used for the "open" and "raise" stop tuning and have a very small outer diameter head. A spring underneath provided friction for holding their tuning position. The "open-stop" screws hit the stop plate at an angle, so when you turned the screw "sharp" or "flat", the end of the pedal arm would "walk" side-to-side, giving slight variations in pitch return / stability. The "raise-stop" screws come down to hit the front pressure bar made of �" stainless steel "rod stock" with rough cut ends. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The earlier units had a "free turning" pressure bar, the same as used with the standard vibrato assemblies. The pressure bar was seated in nylon shoulder washers and held in place with "C" retaining clips. The latter units manufactured by Bigsby had a "locked" pressure bar The "raise stop" screws would come down and hit a nylon roller one for each ativated string. Believe it or not, the nylon rollers would actually compress, for subtle pitch differences if too much pressure was used. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The new "reissue" BP-15 units have incorporated a few improvements. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The screws have caps that increase the head OD for easier tuning. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The "open-stop" screws are "cone-tipped" to prevent "walking". | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The rollers are made of aluminium to eliminate compression pitch variations. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Both the pressure bar and string bar ends are additionally polished to a mirror finish. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| They come with replacement "fixed" raise-stop screws, for minimizing tuning set-up. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| (The BP-12 assemblies were dropped, as there are so few guitars that they work well on.) | ||||||||||||||||||||