Official Luthiers Forum!

What are most of you guys using for a bridge pin taper, 3 degree or 5 degree? also, slotted or unslotted?
I notice that LMI calls their 3 degree "standard"and Stew Mac calls their 5 degree "vintage"

Hi, Robbie,

I use 5° unslotted from Stewmac.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

3 degree, unslotted, custom made for a daydreaming boy......

BTW I "borrowed" that line from my friend Mark Swanson.

I would love to see a reliable supply of 3° unslotted pins. White and black plastic, with and without dots, ebony and rosewood would be nice. I'm not really interested in bone or horn, but I'm sure many others are.

Right now I stock StewMac's 5° pins, because I think they're the best and most consistent unslotted pins out there (best under $10 anyway). If I were building I would likely prefer 3° however, to better fill the bottom of the hole without needing oversize pins. More importantly for me however, it would be nice to have a good supply of replacement unslotted pins for Gibson, some older Martins, older Collings, and plenty of others that used 3°. (Hint, hint, StewMac )

I'm doing my best to educate and convert the world to unslotted pins. Hopefully as more people want to convert, there will be enough demand for someone to offer their excellent unslotted bridge pins in both 3° and 5° (again, hint hint).

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

It looks like RC Tonewoods has 3 degree taper unslotted BRW pins.


I've been "converted" and only use unslotted pins now...so it's working David!

I'm also only currently stocking the (unslotted) 5 degree bone pins from StewMac.

Joe

Edited for typos.

Those are nice, and I would certainly be buying those from Bob If I were building instruments. For retrofitting though, it would be great to have plain old plastics and perhaps ebony, with and without dots. And to make it easier to keep a decent number in stock of several styles, StewMac may be more well set up to put plastic ones out in the lower price range. I'm sure it's just a question of whether there's enough demand for them yet.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Thanks to the education on the matter I've received from David and others, I use 3 deg unslotted. I've gotten some very nice ones in bone from David Warther - http://www.ivorybuyer.com/sales/ - but I, too, would love to see Stewmac or somebody carry them in ebony, rosewood, etc.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

We did a group buy of Gurian pins a few years ago. After repeated assurances that we would be getting 5º (we were concerned, because the only unslotted Gurian pins anyone had seen were the 3º ones at LMI), they sent us 3º. And they just are not as nice or consistent or well finished as the StewMac 5º pins. They also are smaller in diameter at the top, and getting a ball string end into the hole can be difficult. I suppose it's been a long time to hold a grudge, but they told us (Paul Woolson was our contact person) at least three times that we would get 5º. Grrrr.

So, the 3º can be had, but . . .

I'm looking forward to making my own when I get the new shop built next year and have space for a small metal lathe.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

David,

Michael Gurian will make you pretty much anything you want. He has a minimum order, but it's not that much and his stuff is top quality.

Howard beat me to it. I didn't participate in the group buy and wasn't aware of the problem. Oh well...........

http://www.gurianinstruments.com

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Jimmy Caldwell
http://www.caldwellguitars.com

5 degree unslotted-Stew Mac.
TJK

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

3 deg unslotted white bone (or black buffalo horn) pau dots from bruceweiart via ebay at less than $10.

-

I use the 5 degree unslotted ebony pins from Stewmac, but I would like to use 3 degree ones if I had them and the quality was equally nice.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Well, you've just convinced me that you ARE a spammer. (Whatever that is)

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

About the only thing I know about Spam is that when I was little my mother convinced us that is was a special treat to have Spam for dinner.

It wasn't until I got much older that I realized that my mother called it a 'treat' because that was we could only afford Spam once a week!

Now, my children have no idea what Spam is...

Ain't America grand?

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- Lazy J

...just flat-picking my life away...

5 degree, moving over into the unslotted, from Stewmac.

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Brad Tucker

Sounds like preference is split between 3 degree and 5 degree, but most appear to prefer unslotted. How about material...bone, wood, plastic? Advantages of one over the other?

I've used the 3* like Bob sells and they are very nice. Definitely unslotted.
I like wood (ebony,rw) or bone.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Hi Alan and welcome to the OLF

I think that the taper, 5 or 3, is less important IMHO than the benefits of being unslotted. I would use either taper but I have arrested development when it comes to using unslotted pins.

As for materials, we have been to this movie before so-to-speak on the OLF and some claim to hear differences in different pin materials, I was one who did/do especially when switching to something very dense like bone. Others heard no difference and one of our favorite terms, psychoacoustics was mentioned....

The best rational that I have ever heard for why, if in fact there is a difference in the tone from different pin materials is the change in weight to the bridge area that some pin materials impart.

Regarding the quality of the pin fit - prior to having custom pins made for me the pins (wood and bone) that I purchased from commercial sources did leave something to be desired in terms of fit and quality. I found a few pins that they even forgot to machine the lip on all together and many were not uniform enough to be interchangeable and still maintain the height that we all strive for - uniform.

Mario/Grumpy solved my problem by suggesting that once I fit a pin write a number on it so it can always be used in the hole that it was fitted for.

Again welcome to the OLF.