Tailpiece and string popping concern

[Marty Grass]

I acquired a Heritage H-575 with a trapeze tailpiece. I have long experience with this tailpiece and am not a fan of its string ball retention. It usually works but is a bit of a hassle putting new strings on because the groove that the ball fits in has little depth.

On a different H-575 my luthier, Pete Moreno, drilled a bit more depth to retain the ball better. But he's dead now.

Here's my question. Is there a better tailpiece that will line up with the holes in place on the guitar? If not, I have steel bits for drilling and can give it a whirl. The guitar is strung up now and is fine for the moment, so there's no hurry. But the tailpiece design could be improved IMO.




Here's the guitar pics.

Flickr

If you look at the images, you may have questions. A friend bought this guitar by mail from a Guitar Center. The next was twisted a bit. He drove the guitar to Kalamazoo to have Aaron Cowles fix it. Aaron tried but said it needs a new neck. The mohagony neck was removed and replaced by one Aaron made. So now it has a three piece maple neck instead of a mahogany. I picked it up from Aaron and held it for my friend to pick up when he went on a road trip, Well, it's been about 14 years, and Aaron died 13 years ago. So my friend sold it to me. I had not used it all that time.

Here's Aaron in action.

I kept the guitar hanging in a humidified room with little string tension all those years. Yesterday I decided to do something with it. The neck was slightly back bowed with light strings on it with the truss nut loose. I put GB 14-55s. That put a curve in the board. I'll let it get used to that.

There are a couple of minor fret sprouts I'll address, Once resolved, the action is very low.

The guitar is built like a tank.

But I could use suggestions on the tailpiece. The status quo is a little bothersome with string changes. Should I drill out the ball retention slots more or replace the TP?

Thanks.

[AllanAllen]

Do the strings fall out, or do you just wish it was easy like a telecaster? I've never had a tailpiece that was as simple to thread a string through as a tele.