Strap button felt washers needed or not?

Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

Gibson ain't making, or selling, 200,000 guitars a year, not at their prices. Not even trying to be the working man's guitar. All the Epi's & other imports I have came with felt washers. If they can do it, everyone else can.

I assume that you have direct access to their sales records and can back this statement up with something in hardcopy form? Or that you at least work for them and can count how many guitars are made every day? Interesting also that you automatically take it as a statement intended to defend Gibson.

Either way you´re taking a theoretical example that was applied to no company directly but posted to illustrate a point and acting like it was an obvious defensive statement purely to help a specific one. Sorry man, but that type of bull**** is asinine and does nothing conducive to reasonable discussion. If I talk about the cost of tomatoes that are still growing on the vine, do you go off and rebutt with how Old Man O´No´s Ketchup Factory in Whothe****cares, BS does it wrong and is not making that many bottles a year anyway? Same reactionary BS for the pure sake of a cheap shot, different industry ;)

For the record and your information, Gibson is not the only nor the largest guitar manufacturing company in the world, just the one that people (sometimes validly) like to pick apart and criticize the most because they usually can´t afford them. But assuming that all statements are designed to protect or illustrate their specific situation merely hints at a skewed perspective and vitriolic agenda on your side.

So, now that we have established the difference between a theoretical example and "This is meant to be applied directly and only to Gibson", let´s take a look at the economy and big business themselves, shall we.... After all, cost cutting is almost universally driven by capitalism.

If you take a look around, those companies that are still doing financially well these days are those that make next to nothing targeted at the "average Joe". How many End Consumer products targeted at a 35-50k/year income household do Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed, Lamborghini, McLaren or Rolls Royce produce. The companies that realized that the average joe is the largest mass of the public but with the lowest per capita buying power and went above that sector early to reap the rewards are the ones still afloat and doing as well as ever. Diversification helps as for ex. in the case of GE, but is not essential as shown by Rolls, Lambo, McLaren and many other manufacturers of high end exotic cars. They all did the smart thing: designed products the average joe wants but can`t afford, but that are perfectly within financial range of the celebrities and governments that the sheeple keep showered in money no matter how bad the economy is ;)

And if we really want to get Anal about it, Gibson is one of the handful of companies that can claim an actual, valid reason to not use them. Namely because they have never used them and get flamed to hell everytime they change anything away from what is not "Traditional" or "vintage spec".

Again, I agree with you 100% that they should be standard on every instrument, period. But hearsay and opinion-based Gibson bashing for no apparent reason without really thinking about all the factors involved first is a bit too juvenile for me to take seriously. ;)
 
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Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

I assume that you have direct access to their sales records and can back this statement up with something in hardcopy form? Or that you at least work for them and can count how many guitars are made every day? Interesting also that you automatically take it as a statement intended to defend Gibson...Again, I agree with you 100% that they should be standard on every instrument, period. But hearsay and opinion-based Gibson bashing for no apparent reason without really thinking about all the factors involved first is a bit too juvenile for me to take seriously. ;)

Geez. Easy fella. Save the heat for your enemies, not your friends. You're not cramping or retaining water now, are you? BTW, I thought someone mentioned Gibson earleir in the thread.
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

I love how people always assume that I´m pissed off for some reason when they disagree with me. :chairfall

I recommend that those people read my posts in the most cold, emotionless voice they can imagine and then they´ll get an idea of how much I really get riled up by these things, which is usually less than nothing.

It is easily possible to state both fact and opinion without inflecting emotion, most people just don´t (or refuse to) realize that when they´re reading something they disagree with or that they interpret as a personal attack.

Side note: This is one of the reasons why Earth with humans sucks so bad, everybody feels attacked by everything and assumes that the "attack" is being made with the same conviction as they are investing in being offended. This is however complete idiocy from multiple logical and philosophical standpoints. :beerchug:
 
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Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

I use little rubber washers from the hardware store OH NOES WHUT NOW MAN?

:D

The finish on my #1 cracks pretty easily so it's just something I do to protect the finish as much as I can. The felt ones were kinda crappy so for a while I used little folded peices of terry cloth from an old towel but I got ahold of some little rubber washers that work great.
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

The felt washers are like putting a blanket on your amp- it just sucks all the tone right outta your guitar!!!

Seriously, I think they are really there to protect the thin finish found on lots of import guitars from cracking, they have come on almost all of my Korean made guitars.

Really
on the strap button
Really
c'mon
I mean
Really
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

Really
on the strap button
Really
c'mon
I mean
Really

Seriously!

Although you have to beware of cheap Chinese counterfeit felt. Genuine American-made felt made by Navajo Indians on peyote is the way to go.
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

Seriously!

Although you have to beware of cheap Chinese counterfeit felt. Genuine American-made felt made by Navajo Indians on peyote is the way to go.

+1!
:eyecrazy:
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

You mean that wrap that had a tendency to get hung up in just about every type of tremolo bridge on the market?? Yes, I remember, and am glad that that cost was cut for the benefit of greater tuning stability. What good does a string do me if the part nobody can see looks cool but the guitar won´t hold tune properly?

These days I usually only see it on bass strings, where IMO it looks more "in place" as well...

Yeah...you use that whammy flammy thing. I put the strings on my Les Pauls, the guitar real men play and use their fingers to get vibrato! ;)
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

Thanks for the input.

In the last year I have bought at least 4 guitars from ESP & PRS that list over $2,000 and none of them came with the felt washers. My most recent purchase was a PRS Experience Custom 24 (those list for around $3,700)....no felt washers. I personally wonder what their reasoning is. I can't imagine that it could be a $ or attention to detail issue because ESP and PRS are both rather attentive to detail and the guitars aren't cheap. But then again, maybe it is just to save a few cents per guitar?

Anyway, after reading everybody's comments I'm gonna start adding felt washers on every guitar that doesn't have them already.

The next anal retentive dilemma.......to use black or white felt washers. For me, if it has chrome or nickel hardware, then I'll use white. If black or gold hardware, then I'll use black. Actually, I've got to order some more washers because I only have a few left.
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

i stopped putting strap locks on guitars myself... i'm finding the buttons Fender and others are using these days hold a strap pretty good for me not to worry too much.... but what that caused me to do is go buy new straps as i had strap locks installed on all of my straps!

the felt i like to use... same as a neck plate pad... i like using them to protect the finnish
 
Re: Strap button felt washers needed or not?

Yeah...you use that whammy flammy thing. I put the strings on my Les Pauls, the guitar real men play and use their fingers to get vibrato! ;)

LOL.. point taken, but conversely most of us can´t do full octave pre-bend and release moves on the first few frets, I can only get 2 whole notes if I really dig in deep :beerchug:
 
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