Issue with Hercules Guitar Stand
 

I bought a Hercules Guitar stand (GS414B) from GC a good while back and thought it was a good product. It has developed a problem though. The squeeze grip that adjusts the length of the neck and the knob that tightens to hold the tripod legs in place are made of some type of rubber material that has become disgustingly sticky to touch. Tried to contact Hercules but that link in their webpage is conveniently "under construction". The website says to contact the distributor. I guess I should take it to Guitar Center.

Anyone else have a similar problem?

Don

I've used Hercules stands for a long time, and have never experienced that. Any idea why it happened? Too much heat in the trunk of a car in Summertime? Accidentally sprayed with some kind of chemical? Bad batch of plastic to begin with? I really don't know, but am interested to see what you find out, and how to deal with it. Good luck!

cotten

Ditto-I've got 6 of them, never had any kind of trouble with them, take them back to where you bought them, and sort it out with them, if they value your custom-they will refund you, whatever.

I play at church, and we leave all of our equipment set up from week to week, except for the guitars, of course. I recently noticed that one of the stands was tristed a bit with a guitar on it. I removed the guitar, and noticed that the top half of the adjustable back part had detached below the squeeze grip. When I grabbed the grip to try to fix it, I noticed that it was extremely sticky as well. I could not get the bottom part of the stand to stay in, so I threw the stand away and replaced it. I like these stands, but thought that they would be more durable than this. If you find anything out, please post the info.

I have three of them and have never had a problem at all. The knobs are made of a plastic/rubber compound, so perhaps did you or someone touch them with insect repellent of sun screen containing Deet? It will soften and eat right through some plastics.

Cheers,
Mark

The stand in question has never been out of my temperature and humidity controlled music room. And no chemicals have ever been in contact with it. Hercules has no contact info on their website so I took the stand back to Guitar Center. I didn't have the box nor receipt and they could not find my purchase in their records. I bought the stand with a gift card. They offered me a 10% discount on a replacement. I asked them why they could not give me an exchange and return the bad one to Hercules but they were hesitant. I told them I would just try to contact Hercules but didn't think it was right that they could do no better than that. Nathan, the young store manager said he wanted to make me happy so he did give me an exchange. When I inspected the exchange, I noticed that the parts in issue are a different material, harder plastic not rubberized like the faulty stand.

That's kind of odd. My Hercules stand's parts that you describe are definitely hard plastic. Glad they swapped you out; it was the right thing to do!

I think they cover the topic in the FAQ section honestly. As for their webpage conveniently "under construction". I would suggest its probably true as well. They may be changing it to serve their customers better. Any way, its seems to have worked out for you. :)

Is SFF (Special Formulated Foam) safe for Nitrocellulose lacquer finish?
As a professional stand manufacturer, HERCULES goes to great lengths to provide the highest quality and the most secure stands. HERCULES had conducted numerous experiments on our SFF foam and is pleased to find that it does not react with most of the guitar finishes in the market, including Nitrocellulose. The tests included subjecting the instruments on the stand to heat, cold and normal temperatures for periods of up to six months without movement.

However, each manufacturer has their own formulation of Nitrocellulose, with differing proportions of the chemicals involved. There are literally thousands of different variations of lacquer in use today, making it impossible to test them all. Therefore, to provide your valuable guitars with the best support, we recommend you to refer to your instrument's owners manual for more information regarding the proper storage of your instrument.
http://www.herculesstands.com/index.html

Thanks for the further explanation and this update. Good for Nathan and his Guitar Center! Hope you have no further issues with your replacement stand.

cotten

I had a pair of fairly expensive shoes that had soles that self-destructed. I was giving a talk at a professional meeting and the soles of my shoes started sticking to the carpet behind the podium. As I moved my feet, chunks of the material were just pulling away from the shoes. Driving home, the soles were sticking to the carpeting in my car.

I later bought another pair of the same brand (I'd had several pairs that were all fine) and mentioned to the salesman what had happened. He said that the factory had gotten a bad batch from the supplier of the plastic/rubber compound they used on the soles. It was a known problem and he said if I still had the receipt, any dealer of the brand, including him, would instantly refund the purchase price or replace the shoes.

So, I guess it's possible that this is a relatively isolated problem that can occur when material obtained from a plastics supplier has something wrong with it. I have had several Hercules stands for a long time with no problems. But then, the same was true of the shoe brand I just referred to. I suspect that some cleaner that had been used on the carpets was part of the problem. It may be that you just had the misfortune of buying a stand that had been made with a bad batch of plastic components. I'm glad that Guitar Center did the right thing and would like to think that Hercules would have stood behind their product if the retailer hadn't.

Sticky Plastic - Hercules Guitar Stand
 

I own five Hercules Guitar stands and experienced the same stickiness problem described by several other contributors. Two of the stands that I own developed incredible stickiness, and the handle on one actually broke when I tried to adjust it.

I believe the problem is probably plasticizer migration from the vinyl parts that happens over time. The plasticizer is used in rubber and vinyl parts to keep the plastic flexible over time, but "cheap" plasticizer can exude out of the plastic and become "sticky" which is what I believe happened on two of the stands that I own which have a sticker on the bottom that says "Made in China A008G". I have three other stands with a different designation, and none of them exhibit the problem.

I contacted KHS America who distributes and services for Hercules Guitar Stands and they told me this is an well known issue, and asked me to fill out a description of the problem, and to send pictures. They immediately sent out two replacement stands at no cost.

It is really nice to see a company who stands by their products, and I would like to acknowledge them for taking great care of their customers. They are an outstanding company! The process was a simple email correspondence with a few details and pictures of the stands. Their phone number is (800)283-4676. Ask for Customer Service.

Dave Tull

Six year old zombie thread. I think this had been resolved half a decade ago.

Yep, I had the same issue and Hercules replaced both of my stands at no cost a few years back. I haven’t had an issue since, but the original problems took years to develop.

I had to toss a Snark tuner last week because its plastic case broke down and became sticky. It’s the second one I’ve had to get rid of. The new Snarks seem to be made of a different plastic.

Contact Hercules they will replace it no problem. The newer ones seem ok.