Epiphone EZ Bender

NOTE TO EZ BENDER OWNERS FROM THE INVENTOR:

I'm sorry that you've been plagued with EZ- Bender malfunction. I hope I can get you back up and running. Because Gibson/Epiphone was "insulted" that I wanted to retain ultimate "quality control" on the bender and would not contractually agree to give me that right, the outcome was, "yes, there are some potential problems with some of the benders," but luckily, none of them are insurmountable.

I've found that you can slap one on some guitars and it works perfectly, and others, you have to troubleshoot a variety of problems. Here's what I've found.

Epiphone manufacturing issues:

1. Some of the benders came out with the front roller not turning freely on its axle. The axle was actually turning in the bender tip. Any friction on the roller will cause "returning to pitch problems." Make sure the roller spins freely. You may have to punch the roller pin out, drill out the roller a few thousands, and reinstall it. In other words, do what it takes to make it spin freely.

2. Some of the benders have slack in the handle pin, i.e., where the handle slides up on the tailpiece adapter into the v-groove joint. NOTE: ANY SLACK IN THE BENDER OR THE TAILPIECE WILL CAUSE TUNING PROBLEMS. I have done several things to correct this problem.

1. Lay the adapter on its side, putting the pin on an anvil or a solid hard surface, and gently flatten the pin with a hammer to the point that it fits snugly into the handle. It should take some pressure and twisting to get the handle back on the pin, to insure that it is a tight fit. If you flatten it too much, you can always file it back down until it goes in tightly. To double-check your attempt, with the bender put together, hold the adapter end in one hand and the back of the handle assembly in the other and try to "feel" for slack in the v-joint where the two pieces come together. Even the slightest amount of movement in that joint will cause tuning problems.

2. I've also coated the pin with fingernail polish, tin foil, or anything else to eliminate that slack on some of the benders. However, expanding the pin by flattening it is the most permanent solution.

3. The ultimate solution would be to have a machinist make you a pin that the handle "presses" on to, and replace the original pin. You can drive the new pin into place by putting a piece of wood between it and your hammer to avoid flattening the end of the pin. The old pin should twist out of the adapter body fairly easily with some pliers.

Guitar problems:

1. Make sure the string is not tight in the nut of the guitar neck or the notch in the bridge saddle. Lubricate and file groove if necessary to make sure the string does not bind in the nut or the bridge saddle.

2. Make sure the string does not touch the "body of the bridge" behind the saddle. Once the bender is installed with the string in place, correct this by raising the tailpiece until you can slide a piece of paper under the string behind the bridge saddle. On some guitars this can take a lot of "tailpiece raising," But, it is imperative that the string not touch the bridge body.

3. Some guitars have slack in the tailpiece, especially when it has been raised to eliminate the string/bridge touching. Slack can sometimes occur in both the studs and the fit of the stop-bar onto the studs. What I usually do is shim the tailpiece studs with thin plastic ... I usually wrap the threads with a piece of "guitar string package" and screw them in. You could probably use tin foil or Teflon pipe thread tape dope as well. Bottom line is, when the studs are at the correct height for proper bender installation they must be ?rigid.? They cannot wobble. The higher they have to be raised, the more they will potentially wobble.

4. Once the tailpiece studs are solid in position, you may have to make shims for each side of the stop-bar where it slides on to the studs. Again, there can be no play in the tailpiece or you will have tuning issues. Again, I have used a "guitar string package" to make the shims, but, preferably, you should find some thin, clear plastic that is exactly the right thickness to make an open-sided washer to fit on to the studs under the stop bar ends. Hint: put the stop-bar on the studs and try various thickness of material until you find one that will just barely squeeze into the space under the stop-bar, between it and the stud flange. You can use the end of the stop-bar as a template to trace out the size of the washer. An Exacto knife and a hole punch are helpful in making these washers.

5. Another way to take any movement out of the stop-bar tailpiece is, once you have adjusted it to the optimum height to accomodate the installation of the bender so that the string path is clearing the back of the bridge body, measure the distance between the bottom of the stop-bar and the face of the guitar body. Then, cut two small (?" ) blocks of wood slightly taller than your measurement. Raise the tailpiece a couple of more turns and place the blocks under the tailpiece next to the tailpiece studs, just inside them. Then tighten the tailpiece studs back down so that the ?tension? on the wood blocks eliminates any movement of the stop-bar tailpiece assembly.

Installation tips:

Some of the benders came with the two hollow set screws in the adapter installed backwards. Check to make sure the "beveled" end of each set screw will be the end that inserts into the stop-bar tailpiece string holes. I also have found one that had two short set screws instead of the required long and short one. The back set screw should be the long one, approx. ?" long. You can make one of these if necessary by getting a normal set screw that?s the correct size and drilling through the center of it. If you don?t have a drill press, you can take the set screw to a machinist or someone with the tools and skills to do this.

The front hollow set screw (just behind the roller) needs only to protrude enough to catch in the front string hole of the stop-bar. Then, with the rubber pad in place (you may have to trim or add) between the bender adapter and tailpiece, and the top allen screw tightened fully, screw the rear hollow set screw into the back hole of the tailpiece until the bender adapter fits tightly on the stop-bar. It's sometimes OK if the adapter can move slightly from side to side, but not from front to back. Preferably, it should be tight enough not to move at all. The tightness of the adapter to the stop-bar should be periodically checked when using the bender regularly, but no more frequently than you'd change strings.

Another thing to check is the pivoting of the handle itself. When the bender is fully installed, the handle, without the string on, should be loose as a goose and possibly even wobbly from side to side. This is the only area where "slack" is helpful. You might have to take a small screw driver or ice pick and gently spread the rear flanges of the handle bracket so the handle has no friction on the sides or the pin. Make sure, too, that the handle is swiveling on its pin and not the pin turning itself -- another "quality control" issue.

And finally, an occasional drop of lubrication on the nut, the bridge saddle, the roller and the handle pivot pin keeps things going smoothly. Radio Shack carries a Teflon lubricant in a tube that works good. It would be in the graphite section of the store.

It's amazing that a device as simple as the EZ - Bender could have so many potential problems, but, without any assistance from "springs," relying strictly on string tension to do its work, any potential friction point on the string can cause problems. Couple that with the fact that it is designed to fit existing structures on the guitar without defacing the body, then different guitars require different installation techniques.


I've found that THE FOLLOWING TWO RULES PRETTY MUCH COVER IT:

1. THE STRING CANNOT TOUCH ANYTHING BETWEEN THE NUT AND THE ROLLER BUT THE BRIDGE SADDLE, AND THERE CAN BE NO FRICTION OR BINDING IN THE NUT, THE ROLLER OR EVEN THE BRIDGE SADDLE (IN THE NOTCH -- the latter has been rare).

2. THERE CAN BE NO SLACK, FRICTION OR PLAY IN THE "DRIVE TRAIN," i.e., THE TAILPIECE ADAPTER SETUP/ATTACHMENT TO THE STOP-BAR, THE ROLLER, THE BENDER HANDLE PIN, THE GUITAR TAILPIECE ITSELF OR THE TAILPIECE STUDS.

SPECIAL NOTE: Strangely, you can have a Bender with one or more of the above problems and it will appear to tune up and work perfectly until you bend the string with your finger. That action pulls the string to its original tuning by pulling the ?slack? out, or overcoming string friction that may be happening somewhere in the string path. If ?finger bends? cause a tuning problem, then you have one of the above mentioned problems which are, unfortunately hard to detect. Go over all the trouble spots I?ve mentioned until you find ?slack? or ?friction.? I guarantee it?ll be there some where. I?ve used my benders since ?74 and can say with absolute certainty, they are capable of working perfectly. I?ve never, in thousands of road gigs, broken one by hooking it on something or knocking it against something. And I?ve never had one damage my guitars. Neither have I had problems with breaking the string. If you have string breaking problems, check for burrs on the bridge or something else ... too much bend over the bridge ... I don?t know ... I just know that the bender itself does not cause string breakage. It is not too good to be true. It will work if you solve all the potential problems I?ve mentioned here.

I have not confirmed this with Epiphone, but I?ve heard through the grapevine that they have discontinued production. I soon plan to confirm this and dissolve my contract with them, at which time I will look for another company to produce and market the bender. I believe that someone like Ernie Ball or Dunlop would be ideal, as they are in the business of selling accessories.

Richard Bowden, Inventor and designer of the Epiphone EZ Bender

I found it slightly tricky to install, but its definately easier than installing a traditional B bender to a Tele. It took a while to adjust so its not just "plug and play", as such.

At first I thought that this was amazing. However, I also encountered the same problem as the previous reviewer - it keeps going out of tune if you combine finger bends and b bender bends. This was 50% of the reason I got rid of it (for other 50% see below).

First, it seems to me that a knock could not only end up making the device come loose, but could end up ruining the guitar bridge. Therefore, I would not like to take it gigging.

What was more important, though, is the fact that I seemed to get through 1 string every other day. No doubt I would end up constantly replacing strings at gigs, making it unusable (this is other 50% of reason for getting rid of it.)

I eventually (and reluctantly) removed the device from my guitar. It was too good to be true.

I have kept the device in case anyone can come up with a way of mitigating the problems I encountered.

It isn't really support in the UK so I can't really comment. I don't think Epiphone Europe like it for the same reasons as I stated above.

If they could iron oput the problems, this would be perfect - the holy grail - something for nothing.

However, the problems with the unit make it unuseable for gigging situations, although I might re-install it if I wanted to record some one-off solos or something.

Please, if anyone has any tips for getting around these problems then post them here!

Very easy to use and a lot of fun. In fact, I have to answer this question in two parts: installation and use.
Installation: the EZ Bender is a string bending mechanism that can be installed on any guitar that has a Les Paul type stop-piece. I installed it on my Epiphone ES-335. The installation is a bit tricky at first for fear of damaging either the mechanism itself or the guitar. One thing that must be said though about this mechanism is that, unlike other bending mechanism, absolutely no modification has to be made to the guitar. It's very well designed. You can fine tune the bender to have it make one half-step or one whole step bends. I'm pretty sure you could stretch to three half-steps but that would put a strain on the string. Rating here: 6
Use: very natural for me. It came with a VHS cassette which features Nashville session guitarist Dan Schafer explaining country-style guitar licks. Personally, I'm not a fan of country music. I was attracted to the bender's potential for melodic expression and bending notes within chords. Rating here: 8

It bends great! The bender has a screw that allows for fine tuning so you don't have to fear going out of tune on a bent note. The main problem that I have encountered is that the string on which the mechanism is installed will quickly go out of tune if you mix finger bends AND EZ Bender bends alternatively. This is a mechanical problem which I have not solved yet. If you stay solely with EZ Bender bends when you play, the string stays in tune. If you stay solely with finger bends when you play, the string stays also in tune.

I'm not hard on my instrument. You have to understand that the EZ Bender is not screwed to the guitar. It's just attached. If you bang, kick or otherwise abuse the guitar, you're bound to damage the bender and the guitar.
That being said, I've had no problems so far. I bought it nearly six months ago and I've played with it daily.

I don't know. I found out about it on the internet by accident, looking up information on string benders. I ended up on Dan Schafer's web page which describes the thing. I saw that Dan sold the thing so I went ahead and bought it from him directly. The package was unopened and sealed when I received it. Since I didn't buy it from a store or Epiphone, I don't know where that leaves me support-wise...
At any rate, Dan was very helpful and handled the transaction very well. A nice guy!
Here's Dan's webpage: http://members.tripod.com/~TimAshley/dan_review.html

A lot of fun! I can't see how someone would not find something fun to do with this, in any style of music. And remember, for 55$, you can have a string-bender on your guitar WITHOUT any modifications to it. Other string-bender mechanisms involve major modifications to the guitar and cost hundreds of dollars.
A great buy!