Why do we hate plastic so much?

[Silurian]

Originally Posted by Guitarplayer_PR

-It sounds plastic.

-It's not (bone, wood, Tusq, etc.), but just plastic.

-It's not. . . organic.

Can we saw something good about plastic in guitars?

Isn't Tusq just a type of plastic? It's a polymer produced through heat and pressure just like any other plastic.

[jt1]

Originally Posted by justonwo

We love plastic. John Thomas, cue the 1/3 Century of Progress horrible plastic mess...

As Juston signaled, I love the aesthetic possibilities of plastics. Yeah, wood is beautiful, too. But, the ultra-conservative aesthetic that rejects all synthetics, also limits aesthetic vision.

My all time favorite guitar, executed by the one and only Kim Walker, features some of the finest, well, plastics, ever produced: 1930s Italian pearloid and the last bits of 1950s Rickenbacher checkerboard binding (plastic) extant on the planet at the time of the build (2010).





And, the guitar's back story:

Hate on my plastic-laden guitar if you wish, but it will be your loss if its synthetic content repels you sufficiently that you refuse to play it.

[jt1]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

So when I purchased my D-41, I HAD to replace the cheap plastic bridge pins with bone because they sound so much better! NOPE!! Killed that magical tone I bought the guitar for, so the plastic ones went right back in and the tone was back!! I think I'll just keep the plastic bridge pins and have me a couple of extra sets on hand In case one breaks or bends.

Plus, the guitar features plastic binding.

[zoopeda]

Because it’s capacity for pollution is antithetical to an environment that supports guitar making. Plastics live almost forever. They stay as they are for a long time, and then become micro plastics. Even fish we eat are starting to contain them, and now they’re in our bodies. They alter endocrine balance and cause cancer for certain. So on a guitar—although it often looks chintzy to my eye—it serves a purpose. When it goes back to nature, it’s toxic. That, I feel, is counterproductive for a guitarist. I prefer wood that’s been sustainably harvested. But we have an uphill battle on that front too...

[dwasifar]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

So when I purchased my D-41, I HAD to replace the cheap plastic bridge pins with bone because they sound so much better! NOPE!! Killed that magical tone I bought the guitar for, so the plastic ones went right back in and the tone was back!! I think I'll just keep the plastic bridge pins and have me a couple of extra sets on hand In case one breaks or bends.

Just out of curiosity, have you tried any other material? Ebony, for example?

[Wade Hampton]

As he does on a great many subjects, Frank Hudson articulated a perspective on the use of plastics in acoustic guitar construction that's identical to my own:

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Yes, there's a element of plastic being equated with fake and cheap which became a Sixties cliché. A few decades before that plastic has something of an aura of modern and technologically advanced.

Engineering-wise either "feeling" is merely fashion. Engineering-wise wood is a fascinating material with a lot of uses.

Then John Thomas, a guitar scholar and author as well as a vintage guitar collector wrote:

Originally Posted by jt1

As Juston signaled, I love the aesthetic possibilities of plastics. Yeah, wood is beautiful, too. But, the ultra-conservative aesthetic that rejects all synthetics, also limits aesthetic vision.

(Glorious full color photographs deleted.)

Hate on my plastic-laden guitar if you wish, but it will be your loss if its synthetic content repels you sufficiently that you refuse to play it.

John, I particularly like this insight:

Originally Posted by jt1

...the ultra-conservative aesthetic that rejects all synthetics, also limits aesthetic vision.

My own attitude is that plastics are a marvelously useful and adaptable set of materials. I've always found it ironic that the Baby Boomer generation that benefited greatly from the use of plastic materials in the toys of their childhood should often disparage plastics as adults.

As a guitarist, I personally prefer plastic flatpicks, pickguards, bindings and bridgepins, as I find those to be the most practical substances for those uses. The primary purpose of body bindings around the edges of our guitars isn't to provide a vivid color contrast to the rest of the guitar - it's mainly there to protect the vulnerable corners of the body from blows. For that use plastic is simply more resilient and dent-resistant than wood. As for bridge pins, plastic pins do not alter or color the sound of the guitars they're put in, and don't shrink from being exposed to low humidity or swell from high humidity.

Yes, inexpensive molded plastic bridge pins eventually get worn and distorted with years of use, but the hard plastic bridge pins sold by Stewart-MacDonald and other vendors wear better than ebony or bone.

As for picks, those made from celluloid and Vespel give me a better sound and a more controllable plectrum than any wooden picks I've ever tried, and won't shred the top the way that a metal flatpick will if you're foolish enough to use one.

Microplastic pollution caused by the use of plastics in guitars was mentioned, so let's get some perspective on that: down the road from my house is an elementary school that serves dozens of breakfasts and probably a couple of hundred hot lunches to its students five days a week. Unlike the lunch room lines that I trudged through as a child, for at least the past thirty years or so all of these meals have been have been prepackaged into single use disposable plastic trays at a central location that the Anchorage School District maintains and operates.

There are no squads of sullen cafeteria ladies shoveling the food out onto reusable trays to the kids anymore, the way they did when I was a child: instead at each school there are one or two people getting these trays out to the children, then cleaning up afterwards.

In a single day more plastic waste is generated in the Chugiak Elementary School lunchroom than the plastic in all of the musical instruments I've owned since 1974.

There are 90 schools in the Anchorage School District. Do the math.

Then, while you're at it, make the probably correct assumption that the schools in your community are using the same approach, and count the schools in your community. Then apply that to all the public schools in the United States and Canada.

Even if 50% of the schools in North America have retained the older approach of having lunchroom employees cook all the food in the school kitchen and are serving it on reusable trays, (which is doubtful, for economic reasons alone,) that's still an immense amount of plastic waste being generated every day.

The use of plastics in acoustic guitars is not the pressing problem here.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Tnfiddler]

Originally Posted by dwasifar

Just out of curiosity, have you tried any other material? Ebony, for example?

It’s perfect as it is, so I’m gonna mess with it anymore.

[DenverSteve]

Originally Posted by justonwo

We love plastic....

Originally Posted by AndrewG

Doesn't bother me in the least. .....

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

... I HAD to replace the cheap plastic bridge pins with bone because they sound so much better! NOPE!! Killed that magical tone I bought the guitar for, so the plastic ones went right back in and the tone was back!! I think I'll just keep the plastic bridge pins and have me a couple of extra sets on hand In case one breaks or bends.

Uh,..."we" don't.

[justonwo]

Originally Posted by DenverSteve

Uh,..."we" don't.

Ok, thank you for clearing that up.

[zoopeda]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

As he does on a great many subjects, Frank Hudson articulated a perspective on the use of plastics in acoustic guitar construction that's identical to my own:



Then John Thomas, a guitar scholar and author as well as a vintage guitar collector wrote:



John, I particularly like this insight:



My own attitude is that plastics are a marvelously useful and adaptable set of materials. I've always found it ironic that the Baby Boomer generation that benefited greatly from the use of plastic materials in the toys of their childhood should often disparage plastics as adults.

As a guitarist, I personally prefer plastic flatpicks, pickguards, bindings and bridgepins, as I find those to be the most practical substances for those uses. The primary purpose of body bindings around the edges of our guitars isn't to provide a vivid color contrast to the rest of the guitar - it's mainly there to protect the vulnerable corners of the body from blows. For that use plastic is simply more resilient and dent-resistant than wood. As for bridge pins, plastic pins do not alter or color the sound of the guitars they're put in, and don't shrink from being exposed to low humidity or swell from high humidity.

Yes, inexpensive molded plastic bridge pins eventually get worn and distorted with years of use, but the hard plastic bridge pins sold by Stewart-MacDonald and other vendors wear better than ebony or bone.

As for picks, those made from celluloid and Vespel give me a better sound and a more controllable plectrum than any wooden picks I've ever tried, and won't shred the top the way that a metal flatpick will if you're foolish enough to use one.

Microplastic pollution caused by the use of plastics in guitars was mentioned, so let's get some perspective on that: down the road from my house is an elementary school that serves dozens of breakfasts and probably a couple of hundred hot lunches to its students five days a week. Unlike the lunch room lines that I trudged through as a child, for at least the past thirty years or so all of these meals have been have been prepackaged into single use disposable plastic trays at a central location that the Anchorage School District maintains and operates.

There are no squads of sullen cafeteria ladies shoveling the food out onto reusable trays to the kids anymore, the way they did when I was a child: instead at each school there are one or two people getting these trays out to the children, then cleaning up afterwards.

In a single day more plastic waste is generated in the Chugiak Elementary School lunchroom than the plastic in all of the musical instruments I've owned since 1974.

There are 90 schools in the Anchorage School District. Do the math.

Then, while you're at it, make the probably correct assumption that the schools in your community are using the same approach, and count the schools in your community. Then apply that to all the public schools in the United States and Canada.

Even if 50% of the schools in North America have retained the older approach of having lunchroom employees cook all the food in the school kitchen and are serving it on reusable trays, (which is doubtful, for economic reasons alone,) that's still an immense amount of plastic waste being generated every day.

The use of plastics in acoustic guitars is not the pressing problem here.


Wade Hampton Miller

No question, the guitar industry is not remotely among the biggest sources of plastic waste (or rainforest destruction, for that matter). But the question by OP is "why do you hate plastic?" So my answer is that it's a disgusting and toxic substance. Super, ultra convenient, for sure. And super, ultra inconvenient to avoid in daily life. (I got the world's biggest eye roll at the grocery checkout counter yesterday for asking for paper bags--something the store has a sign to ask about if interested.). It's a pretty messed up substance, when used in mass the way us modern folk tend to, in the long term. Meanwhile, like most inconveniences, a lot of people just kick the can down the road for my grandkids to clean up. Add it to our grandkid's credit card bill and list of crap to clean up for us, I guess. That's why I "hate plastic."

[Wade Hampton]

Zoopeda, the Municipality of Anchorage's law against single use grocery bags took effect last month, and we're all getting used to taking reusable grocery bags into the stores with us now.

Unsolicited customer testimonial; by far and away the most reasonably priced and sturdiest shopping bags that I have found are the canvas totes that Trader Joe's sells:

˙˙˙

Unlike most canvas shopping bags you'll see for sale, the straps don't end an inch below the top of the bag, where they can easily get torn loose, but extend down the sides and are sewn to the sides and bottom of the bag. That's a much more reliable and durable feature than what you usually see.

We don't have any Trader Joe's stores in Alaska, but the bags are available online for considerably less money than comparable bags sold elsewhere. And of course they're sold in Trader Joe's stores.

I am NOT an artist endorser for Trader Joe's and have no commercial ties to them whatsoever But I sure like their shopping bags!

Okay, Trader Joe's digression aside, I recognize and agree with your urgency regarding plastic pollution. It has an impact on us up here in Alaska, too: all sorts of plastic crap washes ashore on our coastline every day. Since Alaska has more miles of shoreline than the rest of the Lower 48 states put together (didn't know that, did you?) it's a major problem for us, too.

That said, in my opinion the use of plastic materials in acoustic guitar construction is one of the more appropriate and responsible uses this family of materials can be put to. For the reasons I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread, I prefer plastic over wood for use as pickguards, body bindings and bridgepins. I think it simply functions better for those uses than other materials can.


Wade Hampton Miller

[zoopeda]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Zoopeda, the Municipality of Anchorage's law against single use grocery bags took effect last month, and we're all getting used to taking reusable grocery bags into the stores with us now.

Unsolicited customer testimonial; by far and away the most reasonably priced and sturdiest shopping bags that I have found are the canvas totes that Trader Joe's sells:

˙˙˙

Unlike most canvas shopping bags you'll see for sale, the straps don't end an inch below the top of the bag, where they can easily get torn loose, but extend down the sides and are sewn to the sides and bottom of the bag. That's a much more reliable and durable feature than what you usually see.

We don't have any Trader Joe's stores in Alaska, but the bags are available online for considerably less money than comparable bags sold elsewhere. And of course they're sold in Trader Joe's stores.

I am NOT an artist endorser for Trader Joe's and have no commercial ties to them whatsoever But I sure like their shopping bags!

Okay, Trader Joe's digression aside, I recognize and agree with your urgency regarding plastic pollution. It has an impact on us up here in Alaska, too: all sorts of plastic crap washes ashore on our coastline every day. Since Alaska has more miles of shoreline than the rest of the Lower 48 states put together (didn't know that, did you?) it's a major problem for us, too.

That said, in my opinion the use of plastic materials in acoustic guitar construction is one of the more appropriate and responsible uses this family of materials can be put to. For the reasons I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread, I prefer plastic over wood for use as pickguards, body bindings and bridgepins. I think it simply functions better for those uses than other materials can.


Wade Hampton Miller

Ok, I can’t resist. +1 for Trader Joe’s! (No affiliation, but the checkout folks all know my kids names). :-)

[jt1]

I love the irony of folks typing into plastic devices their disdain for using a few bits of plastic to decorate a guitar.

We live in a world that two years ago surpassed the million bottles of water per minute production milestone. 90% of those bottles are not recycles. But a few of those bottles could be recycled to produce the plastic necessary for guitar bindings, bridge pins, and pickguards, rendering unnecessary the sacrificing of trees to fulfill the same purpose.

[zoopeda]

Originally Posted by jt1

I love the irony of folks typing into plastic devices their disdain for using a few bits of plastic to decorate a guitar.

We live in a world that two years ago surpassed the million bottles of water per minute production milestone. 90% of those bottles are not recycles. But a few of those bottles could be recycled to produce the plastic necessary for guitar bindings, bridge pins, and pickguards, rendering unnecessary the sacrificing of trees to fulfill the same purpose.

I don't think anyone thinks a few grams of plastic on a guitar designed to last 50+ years is as big an environmental problem as a plastic item designed to be thrown away almost immediately. Sadly, there are plenty of loathsome substances that are unavoidable in daily life. At this point, life as a member of modern society without encountering plastic in this country is essentially impossible--especially now that microplastics are in our drinking water. Again, not a guitar problem, but a problem nonetheless.

[TRose]

I’m old enough to remember the paper bags we put our groceries in( and then used to cover our school books ) were considered a threat to the rainforests and all trees for that matter. The solution to the impending catastrophe was the plastic bag. Obviously, hindsight reveals a clear view of the irony.