Official Luthiers Forum!

Stainless and spring. I have only used .015" SS and wondered if thicker would give more support?

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Pat

much depends on the temper . Many buy the shim stock that is non tempered and will bend I use the tempered stainless.
.015 is plenty for support .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I've been using blue tempered shim stock at 0.010 with no problem for a long time. Wrapped in foil plus the brown wrapping paper.

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

I got mine from John, perfectly sized for the fox bender. If what I have is what he is selling now, they do bend some, easily reshaped, but not that true blue spring steel. I've always been a bit wary of that stuff. What I use now will pop if tape comes undone (after bending), but not bad as to worry me. I have never had a support issue with these.

What do you use the foil for?

To make sure the slats don’t discolor the wood. Might not be necessary with the paper but i’ve been doing it so long I just keep doing it. I just wrap it around the slat and secure with binding tape. The same foil has been on my slats quite a while.

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

I use strips of Formica for slats. They do eventually take a "set" but they are semi disposable. I don't use paper or foil and keep the blanket to the inside of the work piece so any minor scorching that might occur is on the inside.

I just bought John Hall's whole setup. It works, the thermostat is reliable and just made my own bending forms.
Looking back on it all, I probably should have ordered a third slat, but it worked very well, Only problems I had were of my own making.

This "Frank Barraza" bot or whatver is a bit of a pain in the proverbial @/.'*.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.