Beer, the Beverage That Does it All
September 8th, 2010Protect Your Investment With Grolsch Gaskets
Sometimes there are expensive ways to solve a simple problem, and you waste money on them, and then you find out about a much better way that costs almost nothing.
Today I have an example.
When I got my Gibson Blueshawk guitar, I did not realize that guitar makers were incompetent. The electric guitar has been around for something like 70 years, but most electric guitars are still designed so they fall off the strap unexpectedly. The manufacturers don’t warn you. If you’re used to acoustic guitars, you won’t see it coming until your precious instrument falls and gets badly damaged. This happened to me, and it’s how I learned that guitar makers are incompetent.
Over the next five minutes, I (or any intelligent person) could come up with ten good strap or strap-button designs that would solve the problem, but most manufacturers have not bothered to try.
I asked “experts” (mostly Guitar Center salespeople) what to do, and they recommended silly solutions like Dunlop Straplok buttons. I bought two sets of these. They are very stupid inventions. You have to mount a special adaptor to each end of your strap, permanently. Once the adaptor is there, you can’t adjust the strap without tools. You have to open up the holes the strap-button screws go into. And the Straploks are designed so you will probably fail to engage them correctly the first time. This happened to me, resulting in a second guitar drop and more damage.
Do not buy these things. They are worthless, and you will reduce the collectibility of your guitar by drilling into it.
A couple of weeks back, I was researching the issue, and I found an Internet forum thread that contained the most intelligent solution to the problem. You won’t believe it.
Buy a six-pack of Grolsch beer, or, better yet, buy a GOOD beer that comes in the same type of flip-top bottle. Remove the gaskets from the bottle tops. Put your strap on your guitar. Stretch two gaskets and slip them over the strap buttons, outside the strap. You’re all set. Unless you jump around like a monkey, your guitar will never fall off the strap again. No drilling. No tools. And you get beer.
The gaskets obstruct the strap holes. There is no way the strap holes can open wide enough to let the gaskets through, and the gaskets will not come off unless they are subjected to stretching. The pulling of the strap does not stretch the gaskets, so it doesn’t pull them off the buttons. It’s brilliant. And the gaskets actually look better than those stupid Straplok monstrosities.
I bought a bag of 100 gaskets. I’m set for life. You can get them at any online homebrew supply joint. I think I paid ten bucks.
At least I can be glad I dropped my second-cheapest instrument.
September 8th, 2010 at 1:03 PM
So Steve, are you walking around your back yard with your guitar?
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When I was trying to play 35 years ago I practiced sitting down in front of a music stand looking at Mel Bay Guitar method books so I didn’t need a strap.
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Then I gave up and bought a trumpet…which by the way doesn’t bounce very well either.
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Any way, congrats on solving the problem in your usual determined manner.
September 8th, 2010 at 1:25 PM
Acoustic guitar makers use similar strap buttons at the rear of the guitar — a friend has a really nice Taylor, but keeps a strap on it with soft leather ends that I would not trust to stay put.
Gibson & Ibanez actually both came up with better strap-button designs in the late 70s / early 80s. Gibson’s solution was shaped like a football, and Ibanez’s was shaped like a boomerang.
The Ibanez ones were a lot more secure, though with the tradeoff of being more difficult to install or remove a strap made of really stiff leather or with a tight hole. Gibson’s football buttons made it a little easier to install / remove the strap, but with the tradeoff that if the strap button rotated so the ends of the football were vertical rather than horizontal, the strap might still come off. Both were good ideas, which probably fell victim to manufacturing cost-cutting measures later in the decade.
So I use a rubber gasket on my Firebird with the football buttons, and leave the strap pretty much permanently on the Ibanez Roadstar. The rest of my guitars get Schaller strap locks, with enough straps around that I have a couple in each of various lengths to use with guitars that need a longer or shorter one.
September 8th, 2010 at 1:29 PM
“So Steve, are you walking around your back yard with your guitar?”
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How would I hold my assault rifle and barbecue tongs?
September 9th, 2010 at 12:04 PM
Ummm, Grolsch is a good beer.
September 9th, 2010 at 12:06 PM
Do yourself a favor and avoid the good stuff. Once you’ve had it, it will be hard for you to enjoy Grolsch.
September 10th, 2010 at 9:55 AM
I know what you mean about the guitar. I bought my camera on an Amazon promotion, bundled with a fancy neck strap. The neck strap has quick releases so you can save $5 by sharing your strap among multiple expensive cameras. A great, great idea that for some reason didn’t sell well.
September 10th, 2010 at 1:43 PM
I agree with aelfheld, I like Grolsch. So what IS a better beer?
September 12th, 2010 at 9:29 AM
Can you post a Pic?
Of course, you probably could find gaskets at a hardware store, but they’d be far inferior, so your method is much better. In fact, people with only one or two guitars should consider buying and drinking lots of beer, in order to become gasket evalngelists.
September 12th, 2010 at 5:04 PM
I have a tendency to fix things that ain’t broke, so I resisted the urge to go to the hardware store and look for a substitute that might cause me a problem.
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I set all the guitarists at my church up with beer gaskets.