Reviews and Testimonials
Rave Reviews from just a few customers......
“Just want you to know I could not be happier with the bender I received. I have been playing bender guitar for about 40 years and I am very happy with your creation. I am sure I will be contacting you again in the future to purchase additional benders for other guitars. It is a pleasure dealing with such a fine gentleman.” Regards, Sal Califano - Cold Spring - New York
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Just received the bender today, threw it on without issue, and it's been an absolute blast already!
Thank you so much - your customer service appears above and beyond and I’m confident I’ll have no issues and will enjoy this for quite some time. Already considering an acoustic bender or at least purchasing a few more as Christmas gifts.” Kevin O'Connell - Nevada
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I returned from my California trip on Friday and found a box with my Bowden B-Bender when I picked up my mail at the post office. I had initially opted for a Bowden B-Bender for my main dreadnought with the peg type bridge but decided against that as I do some bluegrass gigs and those guys are kinda antiquated and not really into anything "different", eh?.... Anyway, I installed the bender today and I'll have to say that Richard Bowden's a freakin' genius. This bender needs absolutely no modifications to the guitar at all or any holes drilled or anything. You just hold it behind your bridge and thread in the high and low E strings to hold it into place. I did the B string next and settled it in before I added the other strings. The tension of the high and low E strings along with the G, D and A strings hold the bender firmly in place. I've played it at least an hour today and it holds perfect tune and works very easily.... Here's some shots of the device on my Ovation..... I love it.” JH in Va.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hey Richard, I just installed my bender I got from you on Ebay, and I just had to tell you what a perfect design it is. A true thing of beauty, and the best part is that in my opinion it works even better than the more traditional benders I have. A much faster response not having to shove the neck around to engage the mechanism. It is also great for us players that happen to like Gibsons to be able to play bender licks on our beloved Firebirds, 335's and Lesters! Many thanks, Richard. I am sure I will be buying a couple more of these. Great bender. If you play a Gibson but like Bakersfield twang, you need one.” J. Smith
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"great seller! fast shipped, detailed product instruction & quality, recomend hyly."- moinsular
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Great seller and great product! Works perfect on my peavey impact!"
P. Green
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Wow!! The quality and workmanship you put into your product are superb! It was easy to install, easy to adjust and most of all easy to use! I didn't sound very good at first, but within minutes of getting it adjusted, I was doing cool pedal steel licks that will fit in with most of the songs I play, which are classic and contemporary country. Richard, your bender is worth every penny I paid for it. Thank you so much for taking the time to invent it and make it available to your fellow guitar players, and also, I want to say thank you for the personal touch you used when you responded to my emails it shows what a quality person you are. I will treasure my Bowden b bender, and It's been my pleasure to have done business with you. Thank you so much.” Jon Elam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“So, I recently bought a Bowden B Bender. I've been playing steel guitar and bender guitars for many years, at least 20, been using a hip shot for as long as I can remember on my Tele. I don't like the Parsons-type bender because it kills my shoulder. The Bowden Bender has been awesome; very organic, easy to use, and built impeccably. I have finally been able to get a bender that works on my Gibson SG so now I got the best of both worlds. I highly recommend Richard’s bender! It’s a small price to pay for such a great tool in my box. You won't regret it!”
Howard Schwartz - Encino, CA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Thanks Richard. I must say this is the best customer service I have ever had! Thanks again for your help and I will let you know how things are going once I get it installed.” Ralph Fritz - Colorado Springs, CO
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Hi Richard, I have been getting so much mileage from your b bender. I recently did a cover of Nick Drake's "From The Morning" and used the bender on it to get some great pedal steel sounds! I figured out the problem with why the strings kept breaking. I wasn't properly lubricating the string slot on the bridge and so the string slowly began to catch and thin out. I solved the problem by using graphite shavings from a number 2 pencil, and it works flawlessly now. I am really craving a pedal steel now that I know the sonic possibilities of string bending. It is truly a gift, your bender. Thank you again! Take care, and I'll be sure to let you know if I want to order a G bender,” Max
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Richard: YOU ARE THA MAN !!! I remember you from the days when you and Sandy Pinkard were playing on Ralph Emery’s show. Greenbrier, Arkansas is just about 40 miles North of Little Rock and is generally known as the first speed trap North of Little Rock on your way to Branson. So, if you come thru here, look me up, but please slow down. But if you do get your picture taken, I retired after 30 years on the police force in Conway, (10 miles South) and the Greenbrier Chief is a really good friend of mine…and he still owes me a couple of favors. OMG, I just got my bender today and already have it installed and there ain’t no polaroid gonna capture how big this smile is on my face. Thank you so much for making such a fantastic product. I’ve been playing guitar for over 50 years and I have never seen such a simple, yet effective product. I’ve been playing a Tele with a bender for about the last 10-15 years and have several different types, but I find more and more that I want to play my acoustic. Not to mention that there are some places that (even today) just don’t accept electric guitars (bluegrass, and folk festivals, etc.) and I don’t like limiting myself. And I love to turn heads with the bender. I’ll never forget the first time I used one on stage. We were playing some classic country songs and I was “slingin’ some twang”. I had a guy come up during intermission and ask me how I was getting those pedal-steel sounds. I had a B&W (out of Springfield, Missouri) installed, and what I like about their benders are that there is virtually NOTHING showing on the guitar to indicate it has a bender. I was really being discreet with the bends, using my shoulder to absorb most of the bends, so the pushing down on the neck wasn’t so noticeable. He asked to see my guitar and when he didn’t see any “gadgets” installed on it, he accused me of having a steel player hidden off-stage behind a curtain. So I did a few licks just to convince him that it, indeed was me. Now I get to try a few of them out at the next bluegrass-folk thing I play. Who knows, your business may be picking up real soon…. I’ll sure tell them about your product when asked. Be talkin’ to ya soon.” Benny Battles
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I will add my AMEN to what brother Jerry said. Richard's benders are easy to install, inexpensive, and very well made. I have one on my go-to acoustic. And it turns a lot of heads because folks aren't expecting that sound from an acoustic.” Ben Jammin’ Tele Meister
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Richard's product(s) are the greatest and extremely well made... I have a couple of his EZ benders on a Les Paul and an SG but my acoustic bender is one he made me for an Ovation acoustic. I love the thing, all you have to do to install it is take off the strings, set the unit behind the bridge and then put on the strings threading them through the bender and then through the bridge. It stays in tune great and is noiseless when the guitar is amplified. I had a Bigsby Palm Pedal on an Epiphone acoustic/electric at one point which worked great unplugged but when I plugged it in, all the bender movements were picked up by the onboard piezo unit... The Bowden doesn't pick up any extra noise from the bender... Here's some shots of Richard's Ovation bender.” JH in Va.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Nice video.... I saw it once before and it caused me to contact Richard about an acoustic bender. I wanted to see if he could handle one for an old Ovation I had and he came up with a very nice Ovation bender. All I had to do was to just hold the unit behind the bridge and thread the strings through the bender and they hold it in place. This bender works very well and I play it a lot... Richard has some nice ideas and products going. I'm thinking of getting a unit which he bends the "arms" away from each other, so you can use a B and G bender together on a Les Paul.... Here's a shot of my Ovation with the Bowden B-Bender. This bender, like all of his others, requires no holes to be drilled or routing and can be removed with no damage to the guitar and it'll be just like it was "pre bender". The old Epi EZ (Bowden) bender on this Les Paul is now on about the 7th or 8th guitar in its term of service.” JH in va.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I too have added a Bowden to my stable. I had been wanting to add a bender to my acoustic realm, but couldn't bring myself to have my Breedlove put under the knife. So, after viewing Kevin Lamb's video, I bit.
It showed up in this afternoon's mail and was installed in minutes with no tools and absolutely no alteration of my axe, other than to add a new B-string. It was tuned up and on pitch in less than 5 minutes and I haven't put it down yet.....well, until now to write to my brethren about the experience. Richard Bowden is a GENIOUS!
The simplicity of this bender is absolutely astounding, yet it works flawlessly. Pitch and intonation is dead on.
I can't wait to try it out on stage. I've got a gig in a couple of weeks where I plan to debut it. I can't wait to see the looks that an acoustic bender is gonna, no doubt, get.
Here lately, I find myself drawn more to my acoustic (you know there are places where electrics are still unwelcome), such as folk festivals, bluegrass events, etc. and I don't like to limit myself.
Delivery wait was just a few days and that includes the holiday. Instructions were so basic, I believe a drummer could install one of these.
Later, ya'll I got some woodshedding to do. ”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Meet my new Acoustic B&G Bender guitar! How insanely rare is this! Thanks to the brilliant Richard Moore Bowden at Bowden B Benders for this great invention- (it's the device below the bridge on the guitar). I have installed it on my Washburn Forrest Lee Jr. Acoustic B Bender (the first acoustic production B Bender guitar in the world) and now I am ready to re-do my Telecaster-ed "Bender Boogie" on an Acoustic guitar. It'll make for my best Video ever which I'll publish in August (gotta wait for some of the surprise video elements to come together). It's Christmas in April in LambLand!” Kevin Lamb
“Absolutely no stress to the top or wood at all. It is ingeniously engineered to live quietly on the guitar. I don't think my Washburn even knows it is there. I did not quite "get" it until I actually did the install myself (took 15 minutes). Works like a charm. So safe I am going to install one on my 44 year-old D-28.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“You could contact Richard at his website. I'm sure he'd be happy to make a model for a G bender. He made mine to custom fit my guitar. He just needs the distance between the holes and the distance from the hole(s) to the face of the guitar. These units are very well made and finished and dollar friendly.” Ormand Tele Afflicted in California
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Someone just emailed me about how this unit would affect closing the guitar case. No problem there, the unit has a V shaped slot partway down and you just loosen the B string and pull the rear of the unit back a little bit and you can turn it to the right or left so it's laying down on the face of the guitar and the case closes easily then.” JH in Va.
