Stuffing guitar with foam

[wintermoon]

Controlling feedback has been discussed here umpteen times.
He's out of business now but I have a couple pairs of Doug's Plugs for my L-5 that work and look great.
But they're easy to make, just trace the f holes w a piece of paper and pencil.
Use a 1/2" thick block of black high density foam (EVA is great) and cut w an exacto knife (a band saw is even better if you have access to one as you'll get a nice even vertical cut) Cut to a size small enough to allow the plugs to be taken in out but not loose enough to fall through (you can use sandpaper to fine tune the fit)
Then using the exacto or band saw cut an f hole cover out of 1/8" thick sheet of black EVA just slightly larger than the f hole, around 1/8"-3/16" or so all around and glue it to the block. They won't protrude from the top so your arm brushing over them repeatedly won't affect them.
Shape it cleanly w sandpaper, done. The ones in my guitar are at least 15 yrs old and going strong. I never take them out.
These pics taken from an old thread here show what they'll look like but I like higher density EVA foam, it looks cleaner w out the foam's 'cells' showing

[GuyBoden]

Jim Mullen with plugs.

[pingu]

here’s how mine looks

[RyanM]

Yes I’m going to look into trying to make my own Doug’s Plugs.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Yes I’m going to look into trying to make my own Doug’s Plugs.

The two best maerials I've found are EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate - a closed cell foam) and PU (polyurethane - an open cell foam). I've tried both, and they're a bit different from each other. PU is an open cell foam that's softer and more flexible than EVA. But it's also more durable in that it resists abrasion and physical damage a bit better over time than EVA,

PU foam is more vulnerable to deterioration from moisture, heat and UV than EVA foam. This isn't a problem unless you leave them in place with the guitar on a stand near a humidifier. EVA is more dense and more firm than PU. Some EVA foams are prone to abrasion and will shed tiny bits on and into the guitar from repeated rubbing against the f hole rim if you remove them every time after playing (which I do). It also compresses over time, so plugs that stay in because the f hole edge squeezes them a bit them can loosen up over time.

The plugs in the pictures I posted are about 5 years old and made from a fairly soft PU foam with large open cells. Here's the foam I'm using now:

[RJVB]

I wonder if some poor soul tried to use a product like this:
Attachment 119438

A clever fool, because I was going to suggest the same thing. You'd have to calculate the dosage precisely though, if you don't want to spend more time than the actual filling operation too to deal with all the foam expanding out through the soundholes

Getting it out will be easy; just remove the guitar from around the foam

[GuyBoden]

Jim Mullen with plugs.

I bought an Aria FA-71 after seeing Jim Mullen's impressive playing in the 1990's, my opinion was that they were very prone to feedback compared to my Guild x170, which I also had at the same time.

[gggguitar]

I play a Gibson 330L and had trouble with feedback until I just learned how to mute open strings while I was playing. Now it's rarely a problem even though I sometimes play very loud music.

The only time I have problems with feedback now is if there is a ton of low-end sounds happening on stage. Either from just being in a very loud band (like venue with subs under the stage ugh) or if I wind up playing through an amp that just can't be made less bass-heavy no matter what you do. The solution was for a while to bring a bass EQ pedal that I could stick at the end of my pedal chain to tame that low-end. This worked very well.

I had long before rewired the guitar so that both pickups went through a single volume pot which meant that I had a free, unused pot to do something with. I had my tech put a bass-cut control in that vacant spot which comes in handy for rare feedback situations and more interestingly—it has a dramatic effect on fuzz and distortion pedals. Now I no longer need that EQ pedal.

[Christian Miller]

My guitars rarely feedback… maybe I’m playing too quiet!


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