has anyone played a kiesel Osiris or Zeus?

[jzucker]

That's a great arrangement.

i wonder if the zeus 5 way gives you a similar combination. I may have missed it on their site...

[Jim Soloway]

because the bridge can only take up to about a .050 string

Given that Hipshot is making 7 and 8 strings versions of the bridge, I wonder if they could swap in one of the tuners for the lower strings for them. Those must handle heavier strings and Hipshot is really good about special services for builders.

[jzucker]

Excellent point Jim. OTOH, for me, a .50 is fine. The heaviest I'd ever use on something like this would be .048 to .011. Most likely I'll be using a set of .010 strings. I recently switched over to .010s on my Ibanez and it took me a couple days but now it feels fine. The problem with .009 and .010 is that you can't dig in so it's a different approach to playing but in my case, I find it refreshing to change things up. I just have to make sure I log time in every day on both my archtop and the solid body...

[mr. beaumont]

The idea of oNE of these that was both "acoustic" and had a neck humbucker would be a proposition my wallet would not be able to say no to...

[jzucker]

You could probably fit a thin floating pickup at the end of the neck and wire it up the way you want.

I was looking at the clearance and it would have to be a super thin pickup to fit under there.. Maybe the top could just be cut out to accommodate a standard mini humbucker? I was an endorser for hofner for a while and they use a super thin mini humbucker that would fit but I always felt the pickup was too bright. I sent it to kent armstrong to hand wire it and he did but informed me that it just wasn't possible to get the warmth of even a standard mini humbucker in that space.

[rob taft]

This is the thinnest floating humbucker I have seen.

Micro-Stealth PAF-Style Pickup for Archtop Jazz Guitar

[jzucker]

those neodymium magnet pickups are usually super bright. Looks like this company attempts to circumvent that by making the pickup wider which allows more windings but the side effect is that it samples a wider area of the neck. Those clips have the slight ring of a strat in position 2 to my ears which may or may not be caused by the width or the ND magnets. It's so hard to tell a pickup's sound in a clip...

In any event, it would be an expensive experiment and the guitar is likely severely neck heavy . I'm still planning on getting a zeus. Interestingly enough, it seems that Tim Miller is using his SH550 more than the zeus!

[Woody Sound]

This is the thinnest floating humbucker I have seen.

Micro-Stealth PAF-Style Pickup for Archtop Jazz Guitar

Here's another one that's extremely thin. They marketed it as a Dobro pickup because of the low clearance, but I had one on my Johnny Smith and it sounded gorgeous.

Very Rare Discontinued Barcus Berry Dobro Pickup | Reverb

[Woody Sound]

Here's another one that's extremely thin. They marketed it as a Dobro pickup because of the low clearance, but I had one on my Johnny Smith and it sounded gorgeous.

Very Rare Discontinued Barcus Berry Dobro Pickup | Reverb

And KA makes an ultra-thin.

Kent Armstrong 2-D Micro Humbucker (Handmade) - DjangoBooks.com

[Woody Sound]

There's a like-new used Zeus on ebay right now with the "Make an Offer" option. If you can get a good buy, it might be an easy way to try one and flip if you don't like it.

Custom built Kiesel Zeus Z6 - 2018 | eBay

[jzucker]

There's a like-new used Zeus on ebay right now with the "Make an Offer" option. If you can get a good buy, it might be an easy way to try one and flip if you don't like it.

Custom built Kiesel Zeus Z6 - 2018 | eBay

i've communicated with him on reverb. That particular one is so ugly. I just couldn't...

There was one that looked amazing on reverb a couple weeks ago for $1200(ish) that I considered and it had the optional thinner neck which I like but it had the trem and the current trem they use doesn't have a lock.