Why does a certain maker fit tapered pins to cylindrical holes?
 

I'm curious how it ended up happening and why it is still done. Is it really as simple as just drilling one size hole and avoiding fitting each pin? Or was there some intentional design behind this...

No brand war, but to me it really doesnt seem like the best idea, inviting bridge plate wear.

I'm under the impression that the best type of pinned bridge is slotted bridge with unslotted pins, with matching taper. Followed by Unslotted bridge with slotted pins, matching taper.

Cost. Pure and simple. It’s cheaper to simply straight-drill six holes and drop in a slotted pin than it is to drill six smaller holes, ream them to the correct size and taper for solid pins to fit correctly, and carefully cut correctly-sized string-slots in the holes.

The usual disclaimers apply......IMHO, YMMV etc.

If it takes 3 minutes to ream out 6 pin holes and you produce 200 guitars a day that comes to 10 hours of time. At say $15/hour for a production workers salary that comes to $150 per day. At the end of the work week that comes to $750 dollars. At the end of the month that comes to $3,000 dollars. at the end of the year that comes to $36,000.

The little things start to add up. And by the time there is bridge plate damage due to not properly tapering the pins it will be out of warranty ;)

A thought
 

Somebody somewhere makes tapered drill bits. But somebody's gotta find out who that source is.

But the customers seem ready to overlook the crude mass production techniques.

"a certain maker"
:lol

What maker?

Bob

Tapered bits will pull a bit uncontrollably into the work.

The proper hand reamer is the right tool for the job for fitting bridge pins.

That "certain manufacturer" (mentioned many times here on the forum) most likely feels that it doesn't make enough difference to matter and will in most cases last as long as the buyer will own that instrument. I'm guessing 99.99% of owners are unaware of the straight holes.

I wouldn't use that system, but they don't seem to have any problems selling guitars at a couple of grand each, so they most likely won't be changing any time soon.

(I'd also like to see them switch to wood binding, but that's a whole nuther issue...) ;)

Since they produce about 80,000 units a year that means it raises costs about 2 bucks per guitar. Is it really worth saving 2 bucks to shortcut such an important point of string retention on an instrument that sells at their price point?

If you're marketing a $100 guitar then $3 makes a difference... not so much on a $2000 guitar when you consider your reputation.

Which maker? Enquiring minds want to know.

Well, if one post is talking about 80,000 units a year and another post is after them to switch to wood binding, I will make a wild guess and say that in all probability, the maker referred to here, is Martin. But, that's just a wild guess. :)

Best,
Jayne

With proper tooling it's just as quick and easy to make a tapered hole as it is a straight hole.

One issue is gaging. A simple production gage for a straight hole is a simple Go/No Go double end gage. One end is at the smallest diameter. If the hole is to small it won't "GO". The other end is the largest diameter, it is not to enter the hole, "No Go"

With a taper you have a tapered gage with two steps that the top of the hole needs to remain between. Setup is a little more tedious but once set no problem.

With that the only reason I see is a greater tolerance range with the straight hole. The cost of the tooling and gaging is minimal in the grand scheme of things.

It seems like ~100 yrs old Martins have slotted bridge, solid pins, matching taper.

At some point features were deleted one by one until we got injection molded plastic, tapered, slotted pins in cylindrical holes.

I did some more digging and it seems like now they are doing a stepped hole, which fits the pin at the two ends. That seems a little better.

Still want to know the exact history though

I guess Gauging / the whole tapered hole idea could be more of an issue if Martin uses a bridge with a radius top AND 5 degree pins, which they do. The extra thickness in the center means that by the time the bridge plate is holed thru, the hole is too small to pass a ball end. It's less of an issue with 3 degree pins, but still an effect.

Well now... if a "certain manufacturer" were to hire a new CEO maybe bridge pin holes and
binding would be the first order of business. ;)

Hands up everyone who didn't buy a Martin because they use tapered pins in straight holes? Nobody?

And, that's the reason they do it, best I can figure. If it saves them $160,000 a year to eliminate that one step, somebody likely got a promotion or bonus for the idea that saves them money and does not negatively influence sales.

If they can't/won't fix or acknowledge bindings falling off, tapered pins in straight holes isn't likely even on their radar.

True, but $160k of savings is $160k of savings, with no apparent down-side since their warranty doesn't deal with it and few, if any, customers are lost due to it.

As a mechanical engineer, I can't think of a single application in any device anywhere where a tapered pin is used in a straight hole. A tapered pin in a straight hole defeats the purpose of using a tapered pin. Best I can figure, they want to use standard pins that have a taper, rather than have their own proprietary-shaped straight pins. In the quantities they use, that doesn't make much sense, at pennies a pin.