About those magnetic arm rests ...

[belbein]

I actually went and built an armrest using magnets to hold the arm rest in place. The arm rest consists of two parts. The visible outer part--that crescent moon-y thing--and the matching internal crescent that I'll call the interior base. Some magnets were countersunk into the interior base; some are countersunk on the underneath of the actual arm rest on the instrument's top. The arm rest also had a lip on the outer edge to slip over the 90 degree seam around the circumference of the fretboard to keep it from sliding radially. Eventually I ended up with a total of 12 x 1/2" rare earth magnets.

The "success" part of the experiment was (1) it's beautiful without all that hardware and (2) that this construction held the armrest in place nicely. For playing. Even for adjusting a bit along the circumference. No prob.

The "qualified" part of the experiment? The arm rest has no visible means of support. That means it's a mystery why it sticks onto the top. It's an open invitation for someone to touch it. So if someone looks at the very stunning arm rest (heavily burled French polished Texas mesquite) and decides to kind of poke at it or pick it up, because none of us can look with only our eyes, the external arm rest detaches from the internal base. There are all kinds of metallic things in the interior of my Octave for that internal base to stick to: the truss rod nut, the tailpiece, etc., so it's not quite as easy as just turning the instrument over and shaking it out like you would a pick.

So I would say that my experiment was a brilliant qualified success. Which is kind'a like a, what would you call it? A failure.

[Marty Jacobson]

Super cool. Sounds like you need to blu-tack or double sided tape the internal part to the inside. Cool idea! My version is all external, never occurred to me to do it your way.

[Phil Goodson]

So is the internal base held in place just by its attraction to the external armrest?
Or is it glued or screwed to something internal? The side or the top?
(Are you working through an oval hole?)

Cool ideas.
Maybe you could at least tie a string or something to the internal part.

[belbein]

PP: All attraction, yes. Which as in life, works until it doesn't. Maybe if I could find a way to get the pieces to fall in love they could survive the mere attraction stage.
Marty: what a great idea. Im going to try it before I give up... Or use my go-to fixer-upper: drywall screws.

[Charles E.]

Photos? It sounds beautiful, would love to see it.

[tree]

Does the armrest wear against the finish where it makes contact?

[belbein]

I imagine it does. I used cork as an initial backing, planned to replace it with felt.