Official Luthiers Forum!

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

Wow. What a bargain.

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"I've been had again"
Tim Benware
Creedmoor, NC

I'm wondering how adding carbon to the saddle would make a carbon composite guitar sound more "woody".

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Pardon my French, but those prices are frickin stupid.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Sorry....I hate to be the eternal sceptic, but.......seriously??????

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Blue Ring Acoustics
blueringacoustics.ca

The price isn't amazing. It's the 21, yes 21! pages of discussion about them on a classical guitar forum.

Wonder if they'll give me a discount if I buy a dozen?

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Everyone has an angle or a scam. This is just one more.

caveat emptor...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Eh, I've seen plenty of products which do less sell for more.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

HOW long to incubate?!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

How about $30 for a pick? Even the Ukulele saddles are $99.99. No price cut for only four of those black carbon thingy's??

I looked at a couple forum discussion and people seemed to like them....whatever that's worth. I guess $100 for a quick, one-time change isn't crazy if it makes you like the guitar more

The psychology behind things like this is interesting. People often hear what they want to hear especially if they've made a significant investment in dollars, time, effort, or belief. I wonder how many would think their guitar sounded better if the saddles were sold for $5.99.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

A lot of people will pay a hundred dollars or more for a saddle....but usually they have a horse to go with it.

Always someone finding a new way to get oil from a snake.

Someone is selling pairs of capacitors for $116, and even though tons of electronics and guitar experts are screaming foul, and pointing out that they will perform no different than 5 cent capacitors, people are still buying them and swearing that their guitar sounds so much better. Well I put armorall on my car the other day and it runs much smoother now!!!!

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If what you see is what you get, then Stevie Wonder ain't got nothin'!

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm I think I could build it for less me self.........

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I'm no materials expert, but I work with Carbon Fiber building guitars. I've noticed two things:

CF is super strong in tension, but relatively weak in compression.

I was told it "sands well". What that turned out to mean is that it disintegrates just by looking at sand paper.

I don't know, but that doesn't sound like good qualities for a bridge.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Carbon fiber is wicked tough, but the manufacturing processes vary widely, as do the materials that come from it. CF composites can be made with differing resins, and in most cases are toughest when cured under great pressure, or heat, and sometimes both. One can aim for specific results with the stuff. Often carbon containing materials are referred to as carbon fiber, but ground up carbon powder is not fibrous in any way, and is actually called graphite, and I can imagine that is what those saddles are made out of. They are not making airplane wings and helicopter blades out of CF for no reason. Some CF has 100x the tensile strength of steel, at 100th of the weight! It's biggest drawback is cost, but the more use it gets, the lower the prices will go (In a fair world at least).

Good carbon fiber will wreck your tools in a jiffy! Graphite does sand well, but you are not hurting the carbon, as it is the hardest known substance (Diamonds are near pure carbon), you are sanding the resin and the carbon just breaks away...

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If what you see is what you get, then Stevie Wonder ain't got nothin'!

Yes, OK. I was being somewhat facetious. However, to be more serious. Yes, CF is very strong in tension. It is used all over where the fibers take load. Everything from helicopter blades to F1 chasis.

The point is the use. Under a saddle, we are not getting the benefit of the tensile strength. Rather, it is being ever so slightly crushed. Probably doesn't matter, as whatever matrix holding the graphite powder together is hard enough to resist the downforce of a guitar string. But then why add it in? Bone is already a matrix holding calcium and other minerals together that is proven to be resistant to the crush of strings. As to abrasion, I am not suggesting that you can break apart a graphite molecule by abrasion. I'm not afraid they are hurting anything. However, graphite powder is NOT the same thing as a diamond.

Graphite has essentially a two dimensional structure forming a honeycomb sheet of carbon atoms. Diamond is a three dimensional molecule. There is nothing in a graphite molecule holding the layers together. All that holds it together is some non-graphite matrix. That is why it isn't abrasion resistant. While the bonds within the layer are very strong, it takes very little energy to separate the one atom thin layers.

So back to use. We have a saddle that will be under constant abrasion from the strings. There are many highly abrasion resistant material you might want to insert (although bone is a pretty good one already). Graphite is one of the least effective I can think of.

I believe this is a case where they looked around to see what was "sexy" from a marketing point of view, even when from an engineering or materials point of view it is less than useless. There are plenty of good uses for Graphite and Carbon Fiber. Heck I make guitars with a CF soundboard! This, however, is probably not one of them.

To be fair to the makers, it is neither Carbon fiber or graphite that they are using, it is "pyrolytic carbon"
I still think it is snake oil.

"Good carbon fiber will wreck your tools in a jiffy! Graphite does sand well, but you are not hurting the carbon, as it is the hardest known substance (Diamonds are near pure carbon), you are sanding the resin and the carbon just breaks away..."

"I believe this is a case where they looked around to see what was "sexy" from a marketing point of view, even when from an engineering or materials point of view it is less than useless. There are plenty of good uses for Graphite and Carbon Fiber. Heck I make guitars with a CF soundboard! This, however, is probably not one of them."

Yeah! let's go sexy! Diamond! Diamond saddles! Those measly hun-erd dollar saddles can't compare to diamond saddles, black diamonds, like the strings!

Well you guys nailed it, it's some wicked sexy snake oil! They use CF on race cars for structure with little weight, but on passenger cars it surrounds the shifter, adorns the speedometer... but nowhere near where it really counts, and just enough to catch attention.

I have no problem with cars and guitars looking sexy, but I still have a hard time believing how easily people fall for snake oil, even when the claims are as ridiculous as "Intelligent Molecules", Digital Motor", "HD paint", "Tone improving guitar polish"... Something tells me that if someone would start an automotive additive company named VIPEROIL, and sell nothing but branded bottom of the barrel oil and trans fluid, with some great sounding claims that mean absolutely nothing tangible. People will buy it like crazy, just to take it off of the display rack with the hissing snake head with flashing LED eyes (set to the hypnotic rhythm of course)!!!

Yesum, I sure did pay a hun-erd dollers for that their gallon of oil, but it's what my engin' craves! And I won't have to change it till my next sheduled oil change!!!

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If what you see is what you get, then Stevie Wonder ain't got nothin'!