Upgrade your Cast tailpiece to the new Northfield/Gilchrist Tailpiece. 

When we tooled up to make this product we made sure to consider making upgrades possible. We lined up the screw holes and the endpin to make switching the cast tailpiece on our early master models, all S series and Calhouns very easy. In most cases all you need is a screw driver. 

To show you how straight-forward it is to make the switch, our resident repair expert Kjell Croce (who worked at Elderly Instruments for over 20 years) walks you through each step in a comprehensive installation video tutorial. 

If you’re ready to go for it, pop over to our store and pick one up. If you’re still hesitant or uncomfortable with doing the work yourself, share the video with your favorite repair shop and they can walk you through the process in more detail and get you booked for an appointment. 

You may be asking yourself “What makes this tailpiece better?” or “Is the upgrade worth the price?” Here are a couple points to consider: 

“String Ring” Noise cancellation 

There is a significant advantage when it comes to the dampening on this tailpiece. The cast tailpieces tend to ring out - which can definitely affect tone. The muted strings help with clarity by getting rid of some of the overtones. You can use rubber O-rings in combination with the cast tailpiece but we find that the clamshell closing style of the Gil, lined with felt, is far superior and much more evenly dampens the string ends. 

String changes 

If you know - you know. 

String changing is significantly easier with this design. There’s no need to pull the strings through the tailpiece. There’s also no chance of accidentally pulling them through while changing strings. Whether it’s at home or on-the-fly on stage during a gig, this is just way easier.

Our $.02 wrap

The upgrade is about several functional factors. It’s also about some intangibles worth communicating again: making the coolest tailpiece we could with the original developer of the modern-day hinged tailpiece, who happens to also be one of the greatest mandolin builders of all time, just caps it all off for us. They’re beautiful and very meticulously made by our shop. They’re like an honor badge for our aprons. You have to imagine that Steve Gilchrist wouldn’t be putting them on his beautiful mandolins if they weren’t just better than anything else out there.

Looking for something specific?

Check out the Dealers’ current inventory stash