I’m looking to get some inexpensive string dampeners. What size rubber grommets work best, and where do you source yours?
I’m looking to get some inexpensive string dampeners. What size rubber grommets work best, and where do you source yours?
Eastman MD-514 (F body, Sitka & maple, oval hole)
Klos Carbon Fiber (on order)
And still saving my nickels & dimes & bottle caps & breakfast cereal box tops for my lifetime mandolin.
Bought a load from China via Amazon and they cost next to nothing. Can’t remember the size but they come sized in terms of the hole which an electrical cable is intended to pass through. As long as they’re big enough to hold in place, if they’re too large, they should compress.
Now someone will come along and tell you to make sure they’re rubber and not vinyl!
interested here too - seems I can order a pack of 100 for $25 or pay ~$1 each from music retailers or Lowes. Ray do you remember exactly what you ordered? size descriptions on amazon are a bit sketchy...
Sorry, it was several years ago but I don’t think I’d have paid the Sterlingeuivalent of $25 for them; though times have changed!
Edit - searching Amazon for “Rubber Grommets” turns up a packet of 3mm grommets for £3.50 including delivery by Saturday (it’s currentley 8.00 Thursday) so there must be an equivalent in the US.
Last edited by Ray(T); Apr-19-2023 at 11:59am. Reason: Update
Have you a local hardware store...not of the Lowes/Home Depot variety, but the one that has aisles with rows with thousands of tiny drawers filled with fasteners and small plumbing parts of all variety? Measure the distance between the strings you wish to inflict these upon and select the grommets of a slightly larger dimension. Be sure to create a whimsical pattern of display, as is so popular with the adornment of these. Or...take a hunk of felt, soft (latigo) leather or sheet cork and jam it under the tailpiece cover where the strings exit the tailpiece...
too many strings
Just search Mandolin Grommets on eBay. They're like 2 or 3 sets for $6
What I play
2021 Skip Kelley Two-Point
Eastwood 'Ricky'
Morgan Monroe RT-1E
Epiphone Genesis guitars
Various Basses
https://www.mcmaster.com/products/gr...er/grommets-6/
These are from Greg Boyd:
Monte
Northfield F2S
Weber Yellowstone Octave F
Gosh, nobody chimed in this time with the existential danger of vinyl grommets this time, or even mentioned how they skitter away if you break or try to change a string without premeditation. Or how to tell vinyl from other elastomers. Or what happens when they escape and the cat or infant eats them. Or that you can not only size them for between courses, but between strings in a course, for different decorative effect.
In another current thread, a period ad for the famous L&H two-pointer with violin scroll is posted showing how the harmonics aft of the bridge are a carefully designed feature (!).
With so many rabbit holes, there must be some rabbits, to paraphrase a vulgar saying.
You can get them very cheaply at any electrical goods shop here in the UK
Dave H
Eastman 615 mandola
2011 Weber Bitteroot A5
2012 Weber Bitteroot F5
Eastman MD 915V
Gibson F9
2016 Capek ' Bob ' standard scale tenor banjo
Ibanez Artist 5 string
2001 Paul Shippey oval hole
Fascinating!!!
Deleted - duplicate
I was at a jam and some mandolin player I didn't particularly like asked what the grommets were for and I told him. I had them on my tail strings in random positions. Then he asked why they were in the positions they were in.
I was in a mischievous mood and told him you can move them to change the tone. He bought it. I got a kick out thinking he would make the same explanation to someone else at a jam someday when there were people around who knew better.
FWIW. the only instrument I use them on is my Rigel A+ Deluxe. When it was new, it had a bad characteristic where the course adjacent to the one you were playing would sometimes sound an unwanted overtone. The grommets didn't completely cure it, but they helped. Eventually, the problem went away as the instrument aged, but I still use the grommets.
I bought a bag of 300 3mm rubber grommets off of Amazon for $7.00. I figure that's a lifetime supply.
Eastman MD-514 (F body, Sitka & maple, oval hole)
Klos Carbon Fiber (on order)
And still saving my nickels & dimes & bottle caps & breakfast cereal box tops for my lifetime mandolin.
If that was recent, could you share a link? (if that's allowed here?)
All the amazon listings I saw were much more $ and sketchy re: the sizing...
“Installed” four of them on my 514 yesterday. Work great, look great
https://www.amazon.com/Uxcell-a14061...89968919&psc=1
$ 6.95 for 180 pc. About 30 of them will be the right size. Then you about 150 that don't fit to figure out what you may use them for.
Big Muddy EM8 solid body (Mike Dulak's final EM8 build)
Kentucky KM-950
Weber Gallatin A Mandola "D hole"
Rogue 100A (current campfire tool & emergency canoe paddle)
https://www.amazon.com/180-Piece-Rub.../dp/B01GGWE2BS
Add a stand up base mando and you may be able to use all of them!
Big Muddy EM8 solid body (Mike Dulak's final EM8 build)
Kentucky KM-950
Weber Gallatin A Mandola "D hole"
Rogue 100A (current campfire tool & emergency canoe paddle)
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