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September 2019 NewsletterJuly 2019 Newsletter
Welcome to our September 2019 Newsletter
Fast Dispatch Saddles
We have recently streamlined our production for bone components and this has allowed us to now offer bone components to be dispatched with 24 hours of placing your order. We are rolling this out over the next few months, the saddles that are currently offered with 24 hour dispatch are
- PS015 Martin Style Bone Guitar Saddle
- PS001 Diagonal Compensating Bone Guitar Saddle
- PS002 Blade Compensating Bone Guitar Saddle
- PS023 Compensated Bone Saddle. Length,Width,Height, RADIUS and Action change.
- PS009 Takamine G Series Guitar Bone Saddle. Action Adjusted
- PS011 Takamine 2 Part G Series Guitar Saddle in Bone.
Fast Dispatch Pins
All our bridge pins have also been promoted to 24 hour dispatch with free UK shipping. We manufacture pins in many different materials such as Ox-Bone, Buffalo Horn, European Hardwoods (such as boxwood, ash, oak) and North American hardwoods (such as Black Walnut, Hickory)We have been specialising in oversized pins (e.g 5.7mm and 6.0mm at the collar) and now plan to extend our range into the more common smaller sizes (e.g 5.5mm, 5.3mm, 5.0mm). These will be available with both 5-degrees and 3-degree cone angles.
Chris Alsop Guitar Tools
Our Diamond Crowning, Bevel and Leveller files continue to be top sellers and we are planning to soon release nut files. We now give out cleaning rubber with all our diamond files.In the past year, we expanded out Action Gauge range to include Electric and Classical gauges. The Electric gauges are proving to be very popular and get excellent reviews.
Flamenco Guitar Saddles
This month we have also had several orders for ultra-thin saddle for Flamenco guitars. We have been exploring the relationship between high-frequency enhancement and crown shape.The bone we use has remarkable strength allowing us to narrow it to less than 1.0mm whilst maintaining structural integrity so transferring the strings vibration forces properly.
Bone Guitar Saddles for Tune-O-Matic Bridges
Finally, we are concluding our development on bone saddles for the Tune-O-Matic bridges, these are mainly used on Les Paul guitars. We hope to release these onto the market with the next month or so.Thanks for reading - see you next month
Chris
July 2019 Newsletter
Our main focus this month has been steel strung acoustic guitar pins. We have been doing further developments on our pin milling facilities which has allowed us to design and manufacture a whole new range of European and North American hardwood pins. This newly built pin mill machine compliments the simpler (but slower!) pin mill we built 8 years ago.
The new pins extend our existing range of pins and compliment our acoustic Bass pins which we have been making for a couple of years.
The new pins have been made and being marketed in the following wood types
| Wood Type | Description |
| English Boxwood | This is the hardest English Hardwood. It carves very precisely and has a lovely yellow/lemon colour |
| North American Hickory | This is a very hard and durable wood. It polishes to an orangey, buff, super shiny finish |
| North American Black Walnut | Here we have a very dark, chocolate coloured wood which polishes extremely well and is easy to mill very accurately |
| English Yew | These trees grow extremely slowly and so a wealth of grain lines are visible giving a wonderful display of natural wood on such a small item |
| White Ash | This is a very hard and durable wood. It is a whitish light colour that matches and compliments both light and dark pin head decorations |
Pins Decorations
We have mainly concentrated on 3mm dots for the inlay decoration on the the pins. We also offer all our pins with unadorned pin heads. We have made a new dot making machine which allows us to make dots out of any materials - the range is massive !
All our pins are highly polished using natural beeswax, linseed oil and fine talc abrasive.
Our pins are milled and stored and then finished to order so we can offer any of the combinations you can see in our range. We are always open to suggestions, please just request the combination you prefer.
Pins Sizes
We have directed our facilties towards 3 Degree pins for this month with diameters of 5.5mm, 5.7mm and 6.0mm at the collar. The 6.0mm pins are large (or oversized) pins which can be used for unusual pin holes.As a note, the smaller the pin angle the more parallel the pin; so a 5 degree pin is quite pointed whereas a 3 degree pin has a larger size at the base of the cone and is more parallel than a 5 degree pin.
Where next
Our aim next month is to focus on 5 degree pins (which is maybe a more common size), in the same range of diameters and also smaller diameters.Also, we hope to explore more decoration options, such as engraving onto the pin head ball and, maybe, star shaped dots as can be seen on some guitars.
Many of our products have been developed by suggestions from our customers, please contact us and we can discuss your requirements to find a solution that fits.
Thanks for reading - see you next month
Chris