Official Luthiers Forum!

Mattia's Torture Chamber! That is major cool! I thought mine was tough navigating the two uprights on the outside edge, but I think you got me beat Mattia!

As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke.... don't fix it. I think this picture deserves an OLF Yahoo!, from every member.... that would be two hundred posts, providing Edith chimes in....Dickey38440.3696180556

Stan, you can find the little end caps at Ace hardware in Oklahoma. At least, that's where I got mine. Tyeh're not as cheap as the price quoted above from McMaster Carr though.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Wow Mattia, that is cool-looking! But as you say, way too much bow <g>

I like to see less than 1-2 inches of bow. More doesn't really help produce more claming pressure, and the more you have, the more your chances of them blowing out all over the place.

But, dang that looks cool <g>

Thanks Dave. The caps are not a big deal to me I made some thing to replace them. I just hate the stupid round bars. Just seem to want to fly easier than rectangle shape.

Wow!

I hate to think what would happen if I asked a controversial question!

Thanks all! very much. For the record, I am debating whether to go the wood route or the spring-loaded route. I may start with the wood and slowly accumulate the spring-loaded ones. What I really like about the sring-loaded version is there appears to be little chance of "blow-out" with them if they are initially put in straight. Also, it seems that for different lengths, all that is really needed are more dowels of different lengths to insert in the metal part.

Once again, you folks came through, Thanks!

Regards, Steve Brown

Heh. Yeah, it's pretty funky lookin', isn't it? Almost like something out of a SciFi flick. The 'normal' spring on these, in use, looks a bit more like this:



Still looks fairly dramatic, bit more than the drama actually is because of the angle the photo was taken at, but they feel stable and safe if you place them with care. Quickly, but carefully, so the off-axis forces balance out. Particularly a bit fiddly for the taller, narrow tone bars/lower face braces if you glue 'em on oversized, but it's not really all that difficult. I don't feel blow-out is a real issue if you work precisely and carefully, but I may just have been lucky so far *knock zoot*

The bars as long as the deck is tall, pretty much exactly, the dish is about 1.5" thick (2 circles of .75" MDF), add maybe 1/4" for the sandpaper, newspaper (thanks for that tip, Mario!), and the top, and another 1/2"-5/8" for the oversized braces, and it's maybe a bit over optimum at a hair over 2.25" flex when gluing the taller braces. I'll probably make the next rods shorter by about .75" or so.