Double Bass Braided steel cable

[Jake deVilliers]

Jake,
What are these locally made adjustable cable clamps ?

Little pieces of aluminium rod with a hole through the middle and four stainless steel Allen head set screws to bite down on the cable. I had a local machinist make me up a bunch. I should probably make a little sales page on my site in my spare time...

 

[Mark Carlsen]

Little pieces of aluminium rod with a hole through the middle and four stainless steel Allen head set screws to bite down on the cable. I had a local machinist make me up a bunch. I should probably make a little sales page on my site in my spare time...

So they are very similar to the brass ones made for Lemur.

 

[rjspear]

There's braided cable, and then there's braided cable. Raising the saddle places more demand on the glue holding the saddle to the body. Also, the various cables I've seen have differences in the "coarseness" of the braid. I've seen them grip the saddle in such a way that when you tune up the bass the cable gets stuck and tips the saddle. At the least, I'd run the cable through a sleeve. I find that Kevlar rope is an even better solution. It's soft, flexible, doesn't stretch, is very strong, and the required knot is ridiculously easy to tie. It's also easy to undo the knot when the cord is not under tension in case you want to make adjustments to the length.

 

[Jake deVilliers]

So they are very similar to the brass ones made for Lemur.

Similar but different. They're made to work with much thinner cable, they're 1/4 of the weight and they're made in Canada.

 

[Jake deVilliers]

There's braided cable, and then there's braided cable. Raising the saddle places more demand on the glue holding the saddle to the body. Also, the various cables I've seen have differences in the "coarseness" of the braid. I've seen them grip the saddle in such a way that when you tune up the bass the cable gets stuck and tips the saddle. At the least, I'd run the cable through a sleeve. I find that Kevlar rope is an even better solution. It's soft, flexible, doesn't stretch, is very strong, and the required knot is ridiculously easy to tie. It's also easy to undo the knot when the cord is not under tension in case you want to make adjustments to the length.

If you're using the 7 x 7 or 7 x 19 3/32" stainless they're as slippery as the synthetic tailguts. And of course, they are much easier to adjust for length with the cable sleeve.

 

[robobass]

There's braided cable, and then there's braided cable. Raising the saddle places more demand on the glue holding the saddle to the body. Also, the various cables I've seen have differences in the "coarseness" of the braid. I've seen them grip the saddle in such a way that when you tune up the bass the cable gets stuck and tips the saddle. At the least, I'd run the cable through a sleeve. I find that Kevlar rope is an even better solution. It's soft, flexible, doesn't stretch, is very strong, and the required knot is ridiculously easy to tie. It's also easy to undo the knot when the cord is not under tension in case you want to make adjustments to the length.

Good points. I use a 133 strand, 1/16" stainless, plastic coated cable, so the flexibility is on par with synthetic and there's no digging into the wood parts. Some people including Arnold have mentioned that there is a difference in sound between braided steel and synthetic, probably down to elasticity.