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Do you use straplocks???

#21
If I have a beef about "strap-locks" is that the nut that holds the front strap on keeps coming loose. I have had to replace it 3 times. It is annoying. I've tried hellish torquing of the nut to try and immobilize it, but it always manages to escape.

I was almost thinking of trying to put standard pins on there just to get past it.

They were issued standard equipment on my 2002 MIA P-Bass. I love the bass, the strap-locks... :hmm:
 
#23
P. Aaron said:
If I have a beef about "strap-locks" is that the nut that holds the front strap on keeps coming loose. I have had to replace it 3 times. It is annoying. I've tried hellish torquing of the nut to try and immobilize it, but it always manages to escape.

I was almost thinking of trying to put standard pins on there just to get past it.

They were issued standard equipment on my 2002 MIA P-Bass. I love the bass, the strap-locks... :hmm:
Click to expand...

Those are Schallers that you're complaining about...they're standard equipment on Fenders....bleah...
 
#24
Like Gard... been at it since 1980

Had a bass with straplocks once in the late 80s.... took them off before first use and put a regular strap button on (it was a 74 Fender P and it had the perminent installed w/ plastic buckle like a backpack has).

I have never strapped on a bass with strap locks
 
#26
i have used both and have had neither fail. my personal preference though is the Dunlops.
i think both have design flaws, but luckily those flawes have never reared their ugly heads at me. i have a set of 9 year old Dunlops that have never had maintenance, and the strap goes on and comes off everytime i play it. it hasnt failed me yet.
 
#28
Lockout said:
Are there any alternatives to installing Schaller or Dunlop straplocks on a bass? I've heard stories of them widening out the strap button hole and coming loose, and I don't really want that to happen to my basses, even if it is an easy fix.

Does anyone know of any straplocks or large strapbuttons that don't cause the strap to stick out farther than it would on a normal strap button?
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I'm not sure of what to say about the first question- for the most part you'll have to enlarge the hole in the strap to get the straplock mechanism through, but then the washers and the locking mechanism (snap ring or nut) keep the strap in place. Generally speaking, if you put straplocks on a strap, the strap won't generally be safe with normal strap buttons.

Dunlop does make a recessed straplock. You have to drill out the body for the "female" end of a Dunlop lock, and it then sits flush with the edge of the body.
 
#29
hevydevy said:
My bandmates insist that Grolsch bottle top washers work fine, but I just don't trust them with a £1100 bass guitar! I'll be investing in some proper ones soon!
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That's something I don't understand, putting down that much for an instrument, and not putting out $10 for straplocks. :confused:

The market value of guitar I posted on the other page is more than $100,000 beyond the value of your bass. And he plays it out.
 
#30
Jim Dunlop Strap Loc's. Swear by them. I have them on everything I own!!! 2 things I buy no matter what when I get a new bass or guitar ~~ A Case and Jim Dunlop Strap Locks. I do not take any of my guitars out of the store without both of them. :bassist:
 
#31
all my conks have dunlops on them. they are the way to go, imo. i've only had one mishap, and thanks to the bullet-proof and near indestructible nature of my basses :D there was no serious damage. (dropped the bass onto the drum kit as i was playing. heh didn't even go out of tune :) ).
 
#33
Short answer:
Straplocks are cheap insurance, especially if you'll be jumping around on stage. Think of them like a helmet, chances are you'll never need them, but just in case...

Long-winded ramble:
I played for years without straplocks before I even knew they existed and never lost a bass. However, I don't jump around on stage and I did always try to use the widest strap buttons I could find (remember the old style Rick strap buttons? about the size of a pea, way too small.) I decided to get straplocks because I saw other people have guitars slip off of regular straps and knew that at some point my number would come up.

My first set of straplocks were Schallers, then I moved to Dunlops.

...time to fire a shot in the Dunlop vs. Schaller holy war...

I've had the same set of Dunlops on my main strap for a good 15 years of heavy use. They've never failed. All my basses and straps now have Dunlops. The only negative I've found with Dunlops is that the straplock portion, not the button, can sometimes rattle a bit if it's not on tightly (I use a circle of leather between the washer and the strap to make sure they're on tight.)

Below are 3 reasons I stopped using Schallers, as always YMMV, and I'm certain most people use Schallers for a lifetime and never have an incident.

1. The nut always coming loose drove me stark raving crazy, if it takes loctite to secure the thing than Schaller should include a small tube of it in every package. As far as I'm concerned it's a design flaw. My truck can drive down 20 miles of rutted dirt road without losing its nuts. ;)

2. The Schaller assembly is so small that I was able to pull them right through the strap hole. When attaching a Schaller to a strap I would always sew shut the vertical cut of the strap hole, leaving only the small hole for the Schaller post to go through. Once, while a friend of mine was extolling the virtues of Schallers, his strap pulled off the straplock and he just barely caught his guitar. He quickly said, "That only happens once and while, other than that, they're great!"

3. If the U-shapped channel is facing the floor (which many players seem to do), pulling on the release without a firm grip on the instrument means bye-bye bass. Odds of this ever happening to anyone is quite remote, but I'm a paranoid s.o.b.
 
#34
msquared said:
"Do you use straplocks?"

That's like asking, "Do you transport your bass in a case?"
Click to expand...

Not to me, it's not. I've got Dunlop straplocks on all of my basses, but I haven't used a case for about the last 7 years. Levy's leather gigbags, or an InCase Dubbag work just fine for me.


Over the weekend, I installed Dunlop flushmount straplocks (Thanks Gard!) on both of my Bongos, and they look great and work as well as the rest of my Dunlops. I've never had a problem with any of them, either.
 
#35
bassmonkeee said:
Over the weekend, I installed Dunlop flushmount straplocks (Thanks Gard!) on both of my Bongos, and they look great and work as well as the rest of my Dunlops. I've never had a problem with any of them, either.
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I was just looking at those pics on the EB Forum. It looks great - very clean. (Nice bass, too. White Bongo = GAS :D )

Although I've been pro-Schaller in this thread, I don't dislike the Dunlops. I should probably add here that I replaced the worn-out set I mentioned above, and didn't have any problems whatsoever with them.
 
#37
BenF said:
...time to fire a shot in the Dunlop vs. Schaller holy war...

Below are 3 reasons I stopped using Schallers, as always YMMV, and I'm certain most people use Schallers for a lifetime and never have an incident.

1. The nut always coming loose drove me stark raving crazy, if it takes loctite to secure the thing than Schaller should include a small tube of it in every package. As far as I'm concerned it's a design flaw. My truck can drive down 20 miles of rutted dirt road without losing its nuts. ;)

2. The Schaller assembly is so small that I was able to pull them right through the strap hole. When attaching a Schaller to a strap I would always sew shut the vertical cut of the strap hole, leaving only the small hole for the Schaller post to go through. Once, while a friend of mine was extolling the virtues of Schallers, his strap pulled off the straplock and he just barely caught his guitar. He quickly said, "That only happens once and while, other than that, they're great!"

3. If the U-shapped channel is facing the floor (which many players seem to do), pulling on the release without a firm grip on the instrument means bye-bye bass. Odds of this ever happening to anyone is quite remote, but I'm a paranoid s.o.b.
Click to expand...
I used Dunlops for somewhere in the 10-15 year period. I had a few incidents and, although I don't dislike the Dunlops, I believe the Schaller design is better.

To address your points:
1. You also need a pliers and a screwdriver to remove/replace the snap ring with Dunlops. Should that have to come with them?

2. There's supposed to be washers there. If the hole in your strap is too big for the washers- it's not the system's fault. That would be an operator headspace and timing issue.

3. The U-shaped cup should have the opening facing upward. Again, that would be an operator headspace and timing issue.

The redundancy in the Schaller design is evident in the 3rd point- if it's installed properly, even if one of the 2 locking mechanisms fails, the unit still works. If the spring loaded pin fails, the U shaped cup catches the instrument, if the cup fails... well the pin should be holding it in, and if you're using straplocks that are so beat that the metal cup breaks, it's your fault anyway.

With the Dunlop design, if the bearings fail, the male end comes out, the guitar drops. If the female end wears a groove onto the base of the male end, the male end "tilts" and the bearings can slip out of the track in the female end, and the guitar drops. In either case there's nothing to prevent the guitar from dropping if the primary mechanism fails.

In the past, I hated the Schaller design because I had the screw come undone- putting nail polish or loc-tite on the screw is just normal operater level maintenance.

Again, I don't exceptionally dislike Dunlops- just that in 16 or so years I've had at least 2 unexpected failures of the system. With Schaller, I've had one failure, and that's because "I" didn't make sure the nut was tight.

Edit: After reading this, I didn't mean to come off snotty- just addressing your valid points.
 
#38
I have no experience with the Dunlops. So, I won't comment on them.

Schallers have been on every bass that I have ever owned. I have never had a problem with them. Installed properly with the washer on the strap, I have never had one come lose. Being able to quickly release and reconnect the strap is a huge advantage. I can't imagine gigging without some sort of strap lock.
 
#39
The Golden Boy said:
I used Dunlops for somewhere in the 10-15 year period. I had a few incidents and, although I don't dislike the Dunlops, I believe the Schaller design is better.

To address your points:
1. You also need a pliers and a screwdriver to remove/replace the snap ring with Dunlops. Should that have to come with them?

2. There's supposed to be washers there. If the hole in your strap is too big for the washers- it's not the system's fault. That would be an operator headspace and timing issue.

3. The U-shaped cup should have the opening facing upward. Again, that would be an operator headspace and timing issue.

The redundancy in the Schaller design is evident in the 3rd point- if it's installed properly, even if one of the 2 locking mechanisms fails, the unit still works. If the spring loaded pin fails, the U shaped cup catches the instrument, if the cup fails... well the pin should be holding it in, and if you're using straplocks that are so beat that the metal cup breaks, it's your fault anyway.

With the Dunlop design, if the bearings fail, the male end comes out, the guitar drops. If the female end wears a groove onto the base of the male end, the male end "tilts" and the bearings can slip out of the track in the female end, and the guitar drops. In either case there's nothing to prevent the guitar from dropping if the primary mechanism fails.

In the past, I hated the Schaller design because I had the screw come undone- putting nail polish or loc-tite on the screw is just normal operater level maintenance.

Again, I don't exceptionally dislike Dunlops- just that in 16 or so years I've had at least 2 unexpected failures of the system. With Schaller, I've had one failure, and that's because "I" didn't make sure the nut was tight.

Edit: After reading this, I didn't mean to come off snotty- just addressing your valid points.
Click to expand...

No problem, I didn't read it as snotty. You raise some good points that I hadn't thought of.

I do agree that, as a system (with U cup and pin), the Schallers are theoretically safer than the Dunlops. However, in practice and based on my experience, the Schallers do seem to have a lot more room for operator error than the Dunlops, and any design that doesn't factor in operator error from the start, at least to some extent, even if it's a better system, is worse than a less inovative competing system that does, again IMHO.

1. True about the tools for the Dunlops, but I didn't say that the Schallers should come with a wrench to tighten the nut. It's obvious, even to an idiot like me, that you need a wrench to tighten the nut, though I've seen people tighten the nut by hand (eek!). I'm about the least mechanically inclined person you'll ever meet, so during the time I used Schaller I never even thought to use loctite, having never even heard of it. For some it might be normal maintenance, but for others it's an unknown. Ask a few people the following, "What is loctite?" and "What is a wrench?" I'd bet the wrench wins.

I honestly don't know if there are instructions on the Schaller packaging that recommend the use of something like loctite to secure the nut, I would hope so, because without it the straplock is inherently less safe due to the possiblity of the nut coming loose.

It takes a bit of force to install and remove the Dunlops, once that snap ring is in place it's there to stay, no loctite needed.

2. Brand new Schallers with washer installed pulled right through a new strap for me, don't know the condition of the guitarists strap. The washer in the Schaller system is just too darn small, IMO.

3. Agreed, this is a total operator error issue. Confession time: at one time I was one of those operators and had the U upside down.. made snapping in easier. Later I realized how dumb it was and flipped it up.
 

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