Guitar Gear

Fooled ya, didn’t I… You probably thought this was going to be about an actual guitar. From the picture, it’s obviously not about a guitar, but it is related. Let’s start out with a story…

Awhile back, my buddy Phil, of Phil ‘N The Blanks, a local classic rock cover band, shared a story with me. He was playing along, rockin’ out when suddenly his a strap loop came off its peg and his guitar ignominiously clattered to the floor, wreaking sonic mayhem in the clube ala Pete Townshend, and seriously banging up his axe. His lead guitarist laughed and said, “Now it’s a workin’ man’s guitar. I warned you a long time ago to get strap locks, and you wouldn’t listen. You learned the lesson the hard way.”

I didn’t have to have what happened to Phil happen before I learned that lesson mainly because I was able to catch my guitar before it hit the ground, so no harm no foul. But once that happened, the next day I was at the music store and bought strap locks for all my guitars. Now I won’t buy a guitar without having strap locks included in my order.

If you’re one who doesn’t mind playing a guitar with dings and scratches, maybe strap locks are low on your list of accessories to get. But you don’t want a workin’ man’s guitar, do yourself a favor: Get strap locks!

But then there’s the type of strap lock to choose as well. I’ve used two types: Schaller and Dunlop. I prefer Schallers because of their “cup” design. I feel it’s more secure, and the screw won’t get torqued. I absolutely hate Dunlops. Yeah, they install pretty easily, but the strap is actually held out away from the body, and I’ve found that with heavier guitars, the screw will get torqued and loosened. When that happens, even though the locking bolt will still go in the hole, the lock will not engage because the screw head keeps the bolt from sliding all the way in. I almost had a $4000+ custom guitar crash to the floor recently because of this very issue. Needless to say, I changed the locks to Schallers.