what is the plastic tubing that comes with a pickup for?

[Justin Thomas]

Forgot the details...

Hey all,

I was just trying to give the benefit of the doubt... I'm not up on my "exotic woods pricing!" Before I pay crazy money for anything of this nature I try to say, would practicing make more impact? Or maybe tuning, or twiddling my knobs? Or turning up my amp? That <definitely> makes an impact on the vibrations that get back into the sound stream! What can I do myself to help out before I sink a paycheck? I mean, those things are a little more WORK on my end, but free. Maybe as a last resort after all else fails I'll buy a $450 knob, after I try making one myself, of course. And I'd use silver cuz it's a better conductor, and I'm an electric guitar player. Calling it art is one thing, this is another! Well, enough of my opinions... Carry on.

Justin

[David Schwab]

Hey all,

I was just trying to give the benefit of the doubt... I'm not up on my "exotic woods pricing!" Before I pay crazy money for anything of this nature I try to say, would practicing make more impact? Or maybe tuning, or twiddling my knobs? Or turning up my amp? That <definitely> makes an impact on the vibrations that get back into the sound stream! What can I do myself to help out before I sink a paycheck? I mean, those things are a little more WORK on my end, but free. Maybe as a last resort after all else fails I'll buy a $450 knob, after I try making one myself, of course. And I'd use silver cuz it's a better conductor, and I'm an electric guitar player. Calling it art is one thing, this is another! Well, enough of my opinions... Carry on.

Justin

There is no justification behind a $485 knob. Nothing about that knob cost that much, and the claims are all snake oil.

But there's nothing wrong with spending some money on exotic wood knobs or pickup rings or whatever for the looks. And none of them cost $485.

Titanium trem block? Not so sure about that. The block adds mass to the trem to help (along with stiff springs) prevent it from vibrating when the strings are plucked (according to Leo's patent). Steel or brass should be fine.

[David King]

I used to do a runs of african blackwood trem-blocks from one of my regular luthier clients. The trickiest thing was that NO TWO bridge plates were machined the same. The damned holes were all over the place and every batch that came in were different. I had made a complete set of drill guides for both LH and RH bridges but ended up having to start over again when the next batch came in.
BTW deep drilling ABW is a trip too. That stuff melts onto the drill and you have to hose the drill down with Boelube between every peck.
Now I'm doing a lot of strat style bone saddles which smells lousy but it actually machines really nicely with radius corner endmills. Apparently they sound OK too. I think guitar guys like to experiment with flavors of the month and if one cat does it then they all want to try before moving on to the next crazy idea. Having a whole range of different parts available to customize a guitar is a cool way of keeping an otherwise unplayed guitar in circulation. If one string sounds off you can toss different saddles at it until it conforms.

I might be wrong but I believe those $485 beech wood knobs have the pointer integrated into the knob starting from a single block of wood. Not something your average wood turner handles everyday.

[the great waldo]

Hi David

Looking at the colour of the pointers I would say they are glued in. Anybody that charges that kind of money for knobs is simply "taking the piss" as we say in Britain, and is sure as hell not going to put any more effort than needed into making the knobs. The HiFi industry has become absurd. I know a guy that has had a special building attached to his house with added mains supply isolated from the rest of the house, to improve the tone. 1500 euro mains cables etc, etc, It makes me laugh that they listen to the bluesbreakers recorded on fairly basic gear (great album) and was probably mixed to sound good on a car radio or a small hand held transistor radio which most people had access to.

Cheers

Andrew

[Kazooman]

Hi David

Looking at the colour of the pointers I would say they are glued in.

I think you are correct. Looking at the direction the grain runs that pointer would be very fragile and easily snapped off if it were from one piece.

[Mark Hammer]

We've had this same discussion in a great many contexts. If you're a multi-national with a workforce of thousands distributed around the world, your products in every Gutar center or equivalent, and a big bank loan to pay for the computer-controlled machnes, you can produce in less time and sell for less. If you're a small operation of only a few people (and even a one-man operation can have a fancy-schmancy website), the machines still cost what they cost, and you still have to pay your rent and personal overhead. People aren't buying 2nd Lamborghinis with those prices. They're charging what they feel they need to charge to meet their overhead and make a bit extra.

Personally, I'm not sure how much of an audible difference those brigdes would make in any of MY instruments, at any price, but I won't criticize folks for asking to be compensated for their time, even IF what they spent their time making doesn't amount to much. (Hmmm, kinda sounds uncomfortably like my desk job.)

[David Schwab]

BTW deep drilling ABW is a trip too.

I remember watching a show where they were showing how they make clarinets out of African Blackwood. They would get so far in boring it out and it would shatter!

I might be wrong but I believe those $485 beech wood knobs have the pointer integrated into the knob starting from a single block of wood. Not something your average wood turner handles everyday.

To me it looks like it's glued into a notch. It was clearly turned on a lathe, so the pointer was added later. If you were going to do something like maching it out of a single block, you would either figure out how to do it reasonably, or decide it wasn't worth the trouble and glue the pointer on! I can't see any benefit from trying to make it out of a single block.

[Stratz]

How about this?
Amazon.com: CTA Digital 2-in-1 iPotty with Activity Seat for iPad: Baby

"There are no customer reviews yet" I would hope it's because they haven't sold one yet. Unbelievable......

[rhgwynn]

"There are no customer reviews yet" I would hope it's because they haven't sold one yet. Unbelievable......

"This item will be released on March 1, 2013."

-Rob

[David King]

Maybe that's because he hasn't been able to get repeatable results?
If he comes to me to make them for him I'll be sure to quote him $233 each. I get a LOT of requests from audio manufacturers now for large quantities of wood knobs but they never want to drop more than a couple of $ per piece. They can go to China for that.