Bigsby, Rick-O-Sound, copper wire and my new guitars

[michael_m]

I picked these up the other day:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =301419630

Can anyone identify what they might be? People have suggested Guyatone but I'm not so sure.

Sounding AMAZING - but just a few nuts and bolts that need to be sorted out. Namely, neither of the two of these came with tremolo arms. Being someone who uses a whammy quite a bit in his playing, I'm trying to think of a way around this. If you take a look at the photos, you'll notice a bent corner piece of metal with a decent sized hole. I'm thinking of bolting on a long Bigsby-type thing. So I came here just to ask if anyone has a Bigsby arm by itself, or can suggest an alternative? I wouldn't need to hook up a spring or anything, would I? It works pretty well right now just by pressing on the corner piece itself with my thumb, so all I'd need is something more practical, like a lever. I don't really divebomb or anything like that (unless I get carried away - just ask my last guitar!).

I'm thinking of hooking up a rick-o-sound type system to the electronics in this thing, so that whenever I want to, I can plug two mono jacks* in so that each output corresponds to one pickup. And when only one is plugged in, both pickups (or either, depending how the switches have it toggled) are sending through. So basically the rick-o-sound jack acts as its own switch when a lead's been plugged in. Which is to my understanding how the system usually works, but maybe someone could clarify this issue for me if I'm wrong.

Finally, I have an old broken pickup lying around that I'm going to turn into something cool for the second, bare guitar. The bobbin is fully intact, just the skeleton of an old Cort pickup. Not the highest caliber of origin I admit (in fact I confess that I hate the 'plastic' sound its working twin gives me) - but I play loud punk, shoegazey music so I'm open to experimentation. Whatever Sonic Youth did with fucking up their electronics, and all that.

Accordingly, does anyone have any recommendations of what I can do with my coil winding to get an interesting sound? Maybe something you've always wanted to try but ended up playing it safe? From what I can tell (no expert on this kind of thing here), there's not a lot I can do about the physical dimensions of the bobbin, which I've heard can alter the sound, but if there's maybe a material that is an alternative to copper that could still possibly work? Frankly, I'd rather spend no money than some of the obscene prices I've seen around for copper wire. Probably fair prices too, but I'm a student.

*(forget the new stereo jack thing rickenbackers apparently do these days - unless someone can justify why this might be better?)

[Basket Case]

They're not my bag at all, but it sounds like you got a sweet deal if they sound good.

Sorry, I can't offer anything useful, other than well done on a good score!