Carbon Fiber Tuning Keys and Bridges from GOTOH

I have no idea how the weight compares to standard keys and I have no need for them, but I realy want a set!

 

the bridge kinda doesn't make sense but the keys look intriguing

 

Some are concerned more with total weight than neck dive. In any case, I'm happy to see innovation. Gotoh already had some very light keys (Stealths and ResOLites), but these are likely even lighter.

 

35.3g vs. Hipshot ultralight full clover around 50g - impressive!

 

I had these tuners in my hand at NAMM in January. It's unreal how light they feel. I can't stand basses that neck dive so this was of great interest to me. They're quite beautiful to look at too if carbon fiber is your thing. I think they look amazing. They're smooth as silk too. Not surprising. I've a 5'r with Gotoh Resolites on it and they're fantastic. These would be killer for anyone with neck dive issues. Especially the 6 and 7 strings guys around here.

 

Cool. Don't need 'em...want 'em...

 

I know! Looking for an excuse to buy em'. I'm a huge fan of the properties of carbon fiber. I've got a Zon Sonus and a Stingray 5'r with a Status Graphite neck. It's an amazing material. Not the be all end all tone wise. I still love a straight up P. My favorite bass I own tone wise, is an all wood Mike Lull P, but carbon fiber gives a bass has that 'calm' feeling to it under your fingers. Tones ring with amazing consistency. I think these tuners will be really good in the right applications. Like everything else carbon fiber, in cars, motorcycles, etc, they'll be quite expensive.

 

Carbon fiber embedded in a plastic resin. Might be okay for the tuner backing plates. I've seen too many plastic parts made for things that are under stress, fail. So you try'em out. If they work for a few decades, I'll try'em when I'm 90.

 

From what I could tell seeing them up close, it looked like it’s just the cloverleaf and backing plate are made of carbon fiber. The worm gear and support brace were certainly some kind of metal. Either aluminum or brass i suspect. Since million dollar cars and the space shuttle utilize carbon fiber in plastic resin, I wouldn’t have many reservations about its longevity.

 

I don’t care about the weight, but they look really cool! I would need a carbon fiber pickguard to match.

 

Apologies for the zombie thread revival, was just looking these up again, I just followed the link posted at the top of this thread and discovered Gotoh no longer lists these on their website. Edit: (Pointless false conjecture removed.) Anyone hear anything?

 

Ah, no, false alarm, still there, just listed in an odd hard-to-find spot: CBT-01 | G-GOTOH Ltd.

 

Captain Pedantic would like to stress the point (already intimated by ricknote in post #10 above) that everything made out of carbon fiber is basically "carbon fiber embedded in a plastic resin." That's practically axiomatic: Raw carbon fiber comes in thread form. In order to create any carbon fiber structure -- a tuning machine backplate, a bridge, a Modulus Graphite bass neck...or a bicycle frame, an airplane wing, an antenna mast on the Voyager spacecraft, etc. -- those raw CF threads have to get woven together to form a "prepreg" fabric, which then gets impregnated with epoxy resin, then shaped, then cured under heat, pressure, vacuum, or all three.

To presume that, just because epoxy resin is technically a form of plastic, carbon fiber items must therefore be as susceptible to stress failure as other plastic items, is to mischaracterize the whole point of carbon fiber: The strength, modulus of elasticity, and strength-to-weight ratio of CF structures can be controlled by thread size and thread direction such that a woven prepreg fabric in an epoxy matrix will be more stress resistant than almost any other unreinforced polymer...usually by an order of magnitude.

/today's lesson

 

[btw, my sincerest apologies if any of my preceding post comes across as condescending or "man-splaining". It was honestly just meant to be elucidating. I own a number of graphite necked basses, and my hobby is as a recreational bicyclist so I have a number of carbon fiber bike frames, forks, and components. I really like carbon fiber as a material; it fascinates me. And I also see a lot of detractors (especially in the cycling world) who intentionally use the word "plastic" as a derogatory term for carbon fiber, so I'm probably a bit sensitive to that particular insult.]