New Member,-Brass Rail with odd tailpiece

[Brufer]

Hello all,

Greetings from California. Glad to be a newbie! Hey, I bought a brass rail from the Fountain Valley Guitar Center back in 2002. It came in a coffinstyle hard case with red crushed velvet velvet interior. it's a sunburst with an odd bigby style tremolo that has six individual "fingers". I a guy I used to jam with, from Bakersfield, said that Grugett modified this guitar to include the tremelo, Does anyone have a comments or insights about this? Look forward to hearing from y'all.

Let me know how and I'll post pics.

[101Volts]

Hello all,

Greetings from California. Glad to be a newbie! Hey, I bought a brass rail from the Fountain Valley Guitar Center back in 2002. It came in a coffinstyle hard case with red crushed velvet velvet interior. it's a sunburst with an odd bigby style tremolo that has six individual "fingers". I a guy I used to jam with, from Bakersfield, said that Grugett modified this guitar to include the tremelo, Does anyone have a comments or insights about this? Look forward to hearing from y'all.

Let me know how and I'll post pics.

Welcome to the forum. A Brass Rail model of any kind is a rarity, but we only have one other Sunburst Brass Rail in the Serial Number List. There's also a Red Burst one.

Serial Number List:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6254&p=72415#p72415

For completion's sake of Mosrite Serial Numbers, I'm curious what the number is on your Brass Rail. The number (if present) should be in the fretboard (or the brass rod) near one of the highest frets, right by the neck pickup.

Bill Gruggett may have modified the guitar, yes. But from your description, I'm not sure if I've ever seen this kind of a Vibrato Tailpiece before. (I'm in the habit of calling it that word instead of Fender's term. Fender mixed up the words "Tremolo" and "Vibrato" decades ago.)

dorkrockrecords (Adam Tober) might know more about this guitar (he paid special attention to Brass Rail models,) but I haven't seen him online either here or on Facebook for a while. Maybe it's just because I haven't directly messaged him.

As for images:

1: You first need a direct link to your photo. If you've posted the image to Facebook (or other sites, though I believe there are exceptions,) then make a Right Click on the image. You will then see a drop-down menu, and an option will be "Copy Image Link," which is what you need to left click on to copy the link.
2: Click on the "img" button above the text box that's typed in to post or reply to topics.
3: Put the direct link to your image between the two rectangular brackets at the center, so it looks similar to ]www.example.com/image[ - make sure that there are no spaces between the brackets.
4: You may press the "Preview" button to make sure that the image will work. If it does not, perhaps link from a different website.

- Austin

[dorkrockrecords]

I am familiar with that guitar, and it is indeed a Gruggett-modified Mosrite Brass Rail. The "fingers" are Bigsby Palm Pedals.
Cheers,
Adam

[Sarah93003]

Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to seeing pics.

[Brufer]

[img]https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10231439085029783&set=a.1203606419787&__cft__[0]=AZVPU5Xj4MRUrcZFES9vCivHtVyXanjPbmOs_N7UGeu69P0xg1ek-r5aH7BaeU6PBv-mIQ-9UUmkBN3nOAFPgdSyQQ5apbF_BTnZboGkS7uJT_G4OtIrwb7a1t2vah8M5qaSfQyHy0rd5B8XcPCph1IZ8TEb9OuJI4oDjvIDbnghGQ&__tn__=EH-R/[img]

[Brufer]

Not sure if this link posted , but the serial # is 71 . P{lease let me know, Thanks, Brufer

[Brufer]

[101Volts]

Brufer, thanks for the replies.

The first one, you accidentally left one bracket out at the end, and so I edited it back in. However, the link didn't work for some reason, after the fact. I then went to the link provided, and Facebook said that the photo wasn't available.

The second attempt of a photo didn't work for some reason either, but I checked for the link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxywuEAPv2a ... FlZA%3D%3D

Although I for some reason can't link the photo, the link is here, at least. I can safely say that I've never seen this unusual tailpiece on any instrument, regardless of being a Mosrite or a Gruggett.

The pickups look like they may be a bit unusual. They seem to be Mosrite Humbuckers, but only with one set of pole pieces. I wasn't aware that Semie did that.

Why does the guitar have 6 knobs? My Brass Rail (Deluxe 10) also has 6 knobs, and 4 of them are push-pull pots. Does yours have 2 pickup outputs, and have both a passive circuit and also an active circuit that runs on a 9v battery, like mine? And if so, do you know if that was stock or if it was added later?

- Austin

[Brufer]

Hello Austin

So I dug through my archives and couldn't find a receipt but found some pics from 20 +/- years ago that I labeled 1977 Brass Rail Deluxe. There are six knobs, but not push pull. There are 2 Iinput jacks with the # 11147 on the silver jack plate. There is no.stereo designation however. Next to the 2 black buttons on the brass faceplate there is a mini toggle. The pickups look original to me .as they match and fit the surrounds well. As I mentioned earlier I was told by a friend that Bill Gruggett added the weird vibrato , so possibly he added the mini toggle etc? Any thoughts? Thanks Brufer

[Richard A]

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