Suggestions for damping a tailpiece buzz?

[gaucho]

My '31 Style 0 has suddenly developed a nasty tailpiece buzz. Any good suggestions for what to put under it that won't look ghetto? I've heard a piece of leather works well, anyone know where to get a thin piece of leather to slip under there? Any other suggestions? Search didn't turn up any results, thanks in advance!

[Deleted]

Hi Gaucho, regular crafting felt works great, a little strip under the string ends usually does the trick

[Michael Messer]

Hi Gaucho,

Leather or felt will stop the buzzing, but be aware that every time you put a gasket between two pieces of metal on a National guitar, you take away some of the resonance. With a tailpiece it may only be such a slight difference that it doesn't matter, but it does take something away. So before settling with a piece of felt or leather, I would investigate why it is doing it. Sometimes just bending the front of the tailpiece slightly to raise the ball ends of the coverplate can stop the buzzing, but to do this you need to know what you are doing.

Shine On
Michael.

[pete1951]

Has anyone made a resonator guitar with 6 x 1/4" holes in the cover/p, so that if a string is oddly fitted it could never hit the cover/p? You can`t see under the tail/p, so nobody would know (don`t do this at home folks)

[Stevie]

Now, I have learned valuable lessons regarding holding forth in the presence of many far more experienced individuals, but I must chip in with the following; My MMB has at least 2 of the string ball ends and the central part of the tail piece in firm contact with the cover plate. This should be taken together with the fact that when I installed the NRP biscuit, I had to discard the saddle and make a new taller one.
I'm not about to worry about it too much- it completely prevents buzzing after all- but it does leave the nagging doubt that I may be missing out on a bit of "tone" !
Yes, given the foregoing, it is (obviously) over strung! Should this be a cause for concern? I don't believe I'm off topic.

[slide496]

I just had a rattle that came out the the blue and got worse as I played. Thanks for the responses with regard to the balls of the string as I took mine apart to see if anything was wrong. and when I put it together the rattling stopped. I changed to lighter bass strings. Maybe the strings shifted and were touching the bottom originally- will look to that if it comes back. I also checked the cover screws and tailpiece screws to make sure they were in tight.

[bryanbradfield]

As anyone who has chased down a buzz of unknown origin knows, a buzz can arise from a variety of sources, both inside and outside of the instrument. After running down the checklist a few times while chasing a buzz, I decided that preemptive actions were in order. The first and easiest was to glue a thin strip of leather under the tailpiece to cover the string ball-ends. I also take great care to ensure that the cut end of the string in the tuner posts will never touch anything. I also gently inspect the tightness of all screws and nuts during almost every string change. I do all of these things because, as a performer, I don’t want to be surprised while on stage. I appreciate what Michael says about affecting resonance with the tailpiece damping, but my ears don’t detect that difference, and I prefer to err on the side of caution.