[Mandobart]

A lot of archtop mandolin family instrument players use leather straps or rubber grommets in the strings between the bridge and tailpiece (known as the afterlength). Some, like Mike Marshall do this in the area between the nut and tuner posts as well (forelength?). This dampens those parts of the strings to prevent vibration and unwanted tone. This is never done on orchestral strings, where the tailpiece is adjusted to make the afterlength 1/6 of the scale length. I don't think I've ever seen this done on an archtop guitar. Does anyone know why or why not? Thanks.