Hey there,

As my shoulder strap peg broke again (...), I remember a Stick player from France replaced it with a ingenuous system with a large spring (as a side note, I always wondered why Emmett didn't replace the peg with a Straplock system which seems very reliable).
Another problem I've to face is the displaying of the neck while playing, as the colour of the dots are very similar to the frets, so they are in practice almost invisible.

So I may consider bringing my Stick to my luthier to see what he can do to resolve those concerns.

But before taking the plunge : who made some modifications to his instrument in order to improve its playability or its look? (please share pics!)

My Railboard is still "in process" (though Jeff says I might see it in a couple of weeks!! ), so I haven't had a chance to make any modifications yet.

However, I had a chance to play one for a few days at the Stick Workshop in Interlochen (h/t to Greg Howard!!). I too noticed that the rails on a Railboard are difficult to see, which will definitely be a problem for a noob like me.

I've been doing some experimenting in the shop. Obviously we don't want to damage our instruments, but some kind of unobtrusive but easily visible "highlighting" of the rails would be helpful. I have a couple of different kinds of very thin tape (Kapton tape and mylar tape), both of which seem to adhere extremely well to anodized aluminum. The Kapton tape is an odd color, but might contrast just enough with the Railboard (mine will be blue) to do the trick. But I also experimented with applying flat white spray primer to this tape and it adhered very well. Just the primer might be good, but it would also be easy to color with permanent marker.

I also have some shiny gold (my hardware is black/gold) mylar tape that I can try as well. I think this highly reflective stuff might be overkill visually, but being just tape, I can give it a try.

The challenge will be to cut the tape into uniform strips of the proper length and get them applied properly. I've already goofed around with a couple of jigs to facilitate this, but not sure yet what the process will be.

Stay tuned...

Just my opinion but Ii would try to tough it out for a few weeks before going through all that. For the first few days maybe use a reading light to shine down on the fret board . You can have neon green frets and you’re still going to miss a lot at first [emoji51]


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I did a real simple mod to my NS Stick to eliminate that rod which I almost poked my eye out with, so it now hangs exactly like an electric bass guitar.
Was super simple, did not require any new holes to be drilled etc... and now this instrument is super fun to play

Now... my RB 8 will be modded over this upcoming winter, I may convert it to a RB 9 or I may just go with a different bridge and nut arrangement, all custom made of course... because the space in the middle of the 2 pairs of 4 strings is causing me more grief than I had originally anticipated.

But the RB 9 idea is the excites me the most plus I think there's enough room where this would be the most logical and easiest choice to really make this instrument properly sing

Hah! How is it you know me so well?

But to your point, yes, I was going to experiment with this, but I was also thinking that lighting might go a long way to helping me get oriented.

Can't do much experimenting one way or the other until the RB arrives!!

I attached mine to a Line 6 Helix Floor
and the sound quality went up astronomically!

I’ll never lose my truss wrench
Thanks to Andy Prokopyk

That's a very good idea! How does it hold?
And can you remind me who made that lap bar fixed to the belt hook?

I believe that’s a Lap Dawg.

indeed.
it is available at stick enterprises -made by Michael Jonestone