fix your strap buttons?

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oh_the_blood

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my top strap button on my tele is falling out, ive heard of the toothpick trick, is there any other method to make sure it stays on secure?
 
oh_the_blood said:
my top strap button on my tele is falling out, ive heard of the toothpick trick, is there any other method to make sure it stays on secure?
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Get strap locks. The screw should be a bit bigger so that should fix the problem. Plus strap locks are the greatest thing since sliced bread.
 
Toothpick is a temporary fix. Best case scenario, buy a nice quality wooden dowel the size of your screw hole, get some thick gel super glue and glue it in there. Let it dry really well and then clip it off and razor blade off the excess. Then get a nice thick long steel screw. Drill out a pilot hole and use another pass to widen it just a little smaller than you think the screw will fit into(the size of the shaft minus the teeth or slightly less). Coat the teeth of the screw in wax (so it goes in easy) then cram that fucker in there.

I did this to one of my guitars and had to modify the screw. For the size of scew I was using, the head of the screw was too wide to fit in my strap button so I had to grind it to a smaller diameter. My strap pin hasn't budged since.
 
oh_the_blood said:
the dunlop ones right?
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They should be fine.

i have two types of them on my guitars. One I think is the Dunlop, but I can't remember. The other is Schaller. Eitehr works well, but they both have a different release method you might want to look into. I will try to explain...


Schaller:
Has a knob-like end that is spring loaded or something that you pull to release the two sections of the strap lock from one another. Its basically a horse shoe that slips over the end pin and drops a small pole into it. The spring tension keeps it from releasing until you pull the knob/pole. Make sense?

Dunlop (I think, they are not marked anywhere visible while on):
A push button design where you depress a knob to loosen a few ball bearing type beads and insert the strap piece into the end pin. When the button is release the beads gets forced outwards to lock the pole into the end pin without being able to pull out. To release you just depress the button while pulling.


Which is better is up to you. I like them both, but the Schaller design IMO just seems to be less likely to get released...but even then...its a toss up as pushing a button is easier than pulling. ;)
 
I have dunlops and i LOVE them. my friend has shallers and they fall apart sometimes.but when the dunlops arent on the guitar, it just looks like a regular strap. they're amazing.
 
Scallers tend to rattle if you move around much, that was why I threw mine away.
 
I've got Dunlops on my Les Paul, love em. I'd still like to add that they arent 100% bulletproof.. the screw can still come out if you're all wild and crazy about it.. but hey, in 99.999% of performance situations you'll be just fine.

And if not...

Duct Tape.
 
I forgot about duct tape... hmm I guess I could use that on my Ibanez since I only have straplocks for my SG, but duct tape might look bad :p
 
I use these plastic strap locks.
http://www.jimdunlop.com/products/accessories/straplocks/images/Straplok.gif

They don't require any modification and they solve the "leverage" problem I've had with the schaller and metal dunlop locks. The problem with the other locks is that they put the strap hovering 1/4" away from the body. That tiny bit of leverage starts wiggling the screw. When you use the plastic locks, your strap is right against the guitar and you have almost no leverage to start to wiggle the screw.

It seems like a small difference, but since I swapped over to the cheap plastic locks, I haven't had a strap button come loose on me.
 
Use a couple of toothpicks, and put a little wood glue on them. It will work fine. Without the glue, they will get loose pretty fast, but if you glue them in there, they can last forever, if you stop doing what ever you did to make them loose in the first place (which I don't expect of ask you to do. When they get loose again, a couple of toothpicks will do it again). There is nothing that is going to keep it from recurring though, as it is caused by the way you hold your guitar and play (and I am NOT saying you are doing anything wrong - it's a tool, nothing more).

Dowels usually suck, as they are made of really crappy wood (at least the stuff you find at the average hardware store).

If you have a problem with your strap falling off your buttons, THEN you should think about strap locks, or if you are worried about the strap falling off. But don't spend the money if you don't have to.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Oh, and I HATE Dunlop straplocks, as it is all to easy to imagine a situation where you hit the button and the guitar falls off. I used to use schallers, but I am finding more and more that I don't need them. You could also look into the plastic Lok Strap ones, which work with normal strap buttons, and are difficult to remove even when you want them off, which probably means the do their job well.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Yeah... I was a Schaller guy until I discovered the plastic Lok deals.

The Schallers always came loose on me and they wiggled around and made lots of noise. The Dunlop ones make the leverage problem worse because they stick out so damn far.

As for dowels, yeah, you have to make sure to get some good quality wood and glue to use. Re-drilling the hole can help though. I've seen some shitty strap pin angles on guitars with some really short and thin screws used. The combination of Dunlop metal strap locks giving you lots of leverage, a short/thin screw, and a badly drilled strap screw angle makes it very easy to wiggle them loose.

I play really aggressively and move around a LOT on stage. Re-drilling and using a long screw fixed my problem completely. I haven't even had to tweak the strap knobs on my ESP since I replaced the screws.

For most people just fixing it will work. But for extreme cases, you need to use stronger hardware that you couldn't possibly compromise.

I'd probably snap the top horn of my guitar clean off before the strap pin would pull out.

I really reccomend those plastic Lok strap deals though. It's nice because, if you use the same cord, you can have the Lok strap attached to your cord with the supplied cable tie, and you can use that same Lok for all of your guitars. If you had 3 guitars, you only need two sets of Lok straps because the one that locks onto the bottom of the guitar could "float" between all 3 guitars that only have the top horn locked for good.

Removing them isn't too much of a pain, you just have to make sure you turn the Lok exactly 180 degrees so its fully open before you pull it off the pin. One of my Parkers had those BIG Dunlop strap lock knobs... eventhough they're so huge, it is really easy to get the plastic Lok on and off when I swap guitars. It's much easier to put it on the ESP and the other Parker that has the original small "Fender style" buttons.

Actually... I need to order some more.
 
Or you could do like I do... I play sitting down. I don't even own a strap. :-)
 
Go MEtal Style and use those big screws witht the round eye at the top, then hook a chain to it as your strap.

vanhalen style or zach wylde style.
 
I'm personally a fan of the DiMarzio Click Lok straps. The ends are permanently attached to your guitar and the strap is comfy. I love them.
 
god how could i forget about duct tape?

haha it fixes everything.

plus i think camo duct tape on a midnight wine tele would look bad ass.
 
oh_the_blood said:
god how could i forget about duct tape?

haha it fixes everything.

plus i think camo duct tape on a midnight wine tele would look bad ass.
Click to expand...


Oh dear God.


Don't even get me started on this one.


Let us just say that I have cleaned WAY more than my share of duct tape goo off of guitars.


YUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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