Strap lock discussion on TGP

Gassage

Sorry, I couldn't resist. They are discussing straploks. This is my contribution:

Be careful. Common wisdom on TGP suggests that the Jim Dunlop ones are much better for LP's- firstly as they screw in deeper, but because of that, when on a thick leather strap, you get more bottom end and tonal sustain that you do with the lighter weight Schallers.

mart

I also think that Dunlops work better when you need to brake and the roads are wet.

VimFuego

what sort of leather for the strap?

johnnyurq

Grolsch rubber wotsits make for a more organic blues beerhall tone.


As for leather either the "hell for" type or made from one of your enemies hide, in Texas naturally.

Gassage

Whilst there is a degree of wisdom below, it appears I have been outdone on the straplock debate. However, as posts go, this one could bore a glass eye to sleep.

Okay...well let's have a good discussion about this! First I'll mention that there's a paper kicking around at NIST that does a good job of examining screw holding power. You can look that up if you want to. End grain holding power is extremely erratic. I think you'd expect that because once you shear the fibers, you're begging for cracks to form, just as you expect wood to split when you whack it with a maul.

Anyhow, tensile failure, where the thing is just pulled clean out, are very rare. Sometimes it's so bad that you CAN pull it out, but the real failure mode takes time and is due to two things:

1) the button is loaded cyclically in shear...this compresses the fibers and loosens everything up over time. Ideally, a properly torqued screw isn't ever loaded in shear, but that just doesn't happen with strap buttons, especially when they loosen up

2) and they loosen up because the end grain fibers with the dinky little screws shear, compress, and start to split, and the more you tighten the screw, the worse it gets. Not only do the screws normally come out with lots of mangled wood stuck to the threads, I've seen them actually pull a neat plug out of the wood, sheared cleanly along the edge of the fibers.

Once either one of those things that to happen, any attempt to tighten the button just puts more stress on the wood and eventually makes it worse.

The path to longevity is to completely harden the area so that the screw can't wiggle around and move because as you know, if it can't move, it generally can't break. One way is when the guitar is new, you can remove the screw and harden the threads with thin CA. The toothpicks is even better, IMHO, because you're really compressing the fibers and then hardening them in place with the wood glue, and they get rock hard. __________________

Richardj

I lost interest after 'Okay....'

Roland

Frank Zappa said:

Shut up and play yer guitar

Lixarto

I fucking hate rock and roll.

Drew_TNBD

Lixarto said:

I fucking hate rock and roll.

Does everything you contribute to this forum have to be a pithy one-liner that just adds negativity?

littlegreenman

Lixarto said:

Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll.

Corrected for Chuck Berry, an' ting

Hootsmon

Drew cat....wots that on yer head?

Drew_TNBD

hootsmon said:

Drew cat....wots that on yer head?

It's onigiri.
http://itadakimasuanime.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/onigiri-01.jpg

Hootsmon

^ I had tae google that Bro.......it does not look like food tae me man,it looks like ( your sig pic ) a toilet seat covering number that one would take tae a public toilet so one would not catch VD

the other pic with rice looks scrumptious....Mmmmmm Oniongirls