No Drill Install of a Bigsby on a Telecaster

I have never had a Telecaster with a Bigsby. I recently installed one on an Epiphone SG and wanted to try one on one of my telecasters.

I did not however want to modify my telecaster in a permanent way because to be honest I was not convinced that I wanted to leave the guitar setup with a Bigsby.

On the Epiphone I had installed the Bigsby using a Vibramate. A Vibramate is described as

A Vibramate is a heavy gauge aluminum plate that mates with a Bigsby vibrato. It's designed to allow you to install a Bigsby on your guitar without drilling any holes.

I did not know they made a Vibramate for the Telecaster, and they do. You can pick one up from StewMac, Reverb, eBay, and Amazon. They go for about $90 plus the cost of the Bigsby vibrato. This is a pretty good price as I think that if you cannot install a Bigsby on your guitar (permanently) and take it to a luthier you are going to be paying more than $90 to have the installation completed. Once the Bigsby is permanently installed and you remove it, you are going to have some holes in the body of your guitar.

This is video is me installing the Vibramate and Bigsby on a Squier Classic Vibe '70s Telecaster Custom. The installation is easy and takes only about 30 minutes or less to complete. The cool thing is it takes about the same amount of time to remove the setup and return your guitar to it’s original configuration.