Over the last week, I’ve been trying to design something to run off on my 3D printer that will help dampen the vibration of the strings on my wall of guitars. I have been using bits of foam under the strings but they don’t hold up very well to being put on and off the instruments and I’ve reached the point where replacements are needed. That has led to this:

I’d tried a block to fit under the strings but it functioned more like a new nut because the hard plastic just changed the point the strings resonated from. Partway through the week I watched a video of 3D printed guitar accessories which had nothing in the way of string dampening devices but it did feature a printed capo that didn’t work very well. The plastic hinge wasn’t enough to properly hold down the strings on the opposite side of the neck. However, what if it wasn’t a capo to clamp the strings down but a customised clip to hold a piece of material?

That is what my new design does. I can enter parameters like the neck width and radius and create custom ones for each instrument. The material I’ve used here is a bit of old T shirt, which can also be used to wipe the strings down after playing. As well as the clip to hold the material against the neck, there is a second, smaller clip which is enough to hold the folded material onto the “capo”.

I’ve just done one electroacoustic bass so far but I’ve got another several more instruments to attend to so I expect to be doing some measuring and printing over the next couple of weeks to equip them all.