Aftermarket Carbon Fiber Legs

Matthew Walton · Post by **Matthew Walton** » 14 Mar 2022 12:35 pm

In the latest edition of "thinking about mods rather than practicing"...

Does anyone make aftermarket carbon fiber legs for steel guitars? I just had the thought last night that if I wanted to shave some weight off of my MSA Universal, swapping out the legs (and pedal bar?) for carbon fiber might be a good way to lose several pounds while maintaining or increasing stiffness, and keeping everything otherwise original.

It might pretty quickly get cost-prohibitive to the point where it would make more sense to just buy a new guitar, but I still find it to be an interesting thought nonetheless. Going for carbon fiber legs also assumes you've done due diligence in reducing case weight (or you're not using one at all).

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 14 Mar 2022 2:13 pm

Ross Shafer at Sierra here in Northern California builds guitars with carbon fiber legs. Whether he is willing to sell them separately, or even if they would work with your MSA - I have no idea, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

http://www.sierrasteels.com/products/pe ... itars.html

I would also think, if you haven’t already tried and you’re in Fort Worth, to contact MSA. Since they used to actually build a carbon fiber body guitar, maybe they would be of help.

Matthew Walton · Post by **Matthew Walton** » 14 Mar 2022 5:40 pm

Oh, great points!

I was at the TSGA Jamboree all weekend but the thought didn't occur to me until Sunday night so I couldn't ask anyone at MSA.

I need to make my way over to their shop soon anyways, so I may bend their ear about that.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 14 Mar 2022 6:43 pm

Matthew, if you could find some C/F legs, that would reduce the weight about 5 1/2 to 6 lbs., but that would likely cost you $150-$200. (Be advised that the C/F legs would add neither strength nor stiffness.) Removing the back plate would save a little over a pound, and it's not structurally needed. (I removed mine decades ago and left it off, with absolutely no ill effects.) If you wanted to keep the aesthetics of not having the holes in the rear apron showing, you could fashion a similar plate from a piece of wood 1/8" - 1/4" thick, spray paint it silver, and I doubt anyone would be the wiser. A lighter pedalboard might also save a pound (or a little more).

But finding one would likely be really difficult.

Ross Shafer · Post by **Ross Shafer** » 15 Mar 2022 6:13 am

Happy to make some legs for you and I even have some carbon pedal bars I've been prototyping/testing...a set of legs starts at $10k per set, a bit more than Donny's estimate, but the price includes a guitar to use them on and a case to put them in.

They are mighty light!

Matthew Walton · Post by **Matthew Walton** » 15 Mar 2022 8:27 am

Ross Shafer wrote:Happy to make some legs for you and I even have some carbon pedal bars I've been prototyping/testing...a set of legs starts at $10k per set, a bit more than Donny's estimate, but the price includes a guitar to use them on and a case to put them in.

Wow, what a deal!

Donny Hinson wrote:Matthew, if you could find some C/F legs, that would reduce the weight about 5 1/2 to 6 lbs., but that would likely cost you $150-$200. (Be advised that the C/F legs would add neither strength nor stiffness.)
. . .
A lighter pedalboard might also save a pound (or a little more). But finding one would likely be really difficult.

Honestly $200 would be better than I expected; I would expect more like $500 (just judging by some quick browsing of McMaster-Carr).

When you say it wouldn't add strength or stiffness, do you think it would be the same or slightly worse? I was basing my guess on the fact that CF tripods tend to be more stable than aluminum. Granted I guess most legs are steel rather than aluminum.

And like you said, the pedalbar would be another great area to save weight. My Universal has an aluminum pedalbar that's only 1/8" thick (apparently sometimes made for MSA employees, and likely usually only for E9) rather than the typical 1/4". So making a somewhat beefy CF pedalbar might save weight while also upping the stiffness from the 1/8" aluminum.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 15 Mar 2022 8:49 pm

Matthew Walton wrote:
When you say it wouldn't add strength or stiffness, do you think it would be the same or slightly worse? I was basing my guess on the fact that CF tripods tend to be more stable than aluminum. Granted I guess most legs are steel rather than aluminum.

I guess that in an ideal world, the C/F would be stiffer and stronger, or at least as good, but that's not the case in our application. That's likely due to the fact that the masses are vastly different.

Matthew Walton · Post by **Matthew Walton** » 16 Mar 2022 11:57 am

Interesting. In that case, I wonder if maybe it's not the leg that's the stability weak link, but where it screws into the body, and the lighter legs allows the heavy cabinet to have a higher effective torque... or something.

Hence part of the brilliance of Ross Shafer's conical leg joints.

Ned McIntosh · Post by **Ned McIntosh** » 17 Mar 2022 1:18 am

When I started out in the video production industry back in 1993, tripods with carbon-fibre legs were just starting to appear.

Camera-crews loved them initially because they made the tripods so light.

They quickly fell out of love with them when it became very clear the legs were much more fragile than tubular aluminuim legs. If you threw something heavy onto the tripod in the back of a vehicle, or a Betacam SP dockable camera, lens and recorder in a road-case fell on it during travel, the legs could shatter, and replacing them meant a trip back to the factory.

I left my tripod with the aluminium tube legs it was made with, and I still use it to this day. Works like new.

Maybe carbon-fibre today is more shatter-resistant. The age-old use of split-cases is one well-tested solution to the weight of a steel packed in its case. It's probably the cheapest solution out there.

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 17 Mar 2022 8:20 am

If you find some, I want in on it for several guitars.. which may reduce the cost for us all!... J-D.

Bobby D. Jones · Post by **Bobby D. Jones** » 17 Mar 2022 8:41 pm

Just a thought. How is the pedal bar attached to legs on your 1981 MSA? The old MSA's Classics I have owned had holes drilled through the front legs with a bolts and wing nuts to attach pedal bar. I would not trust a hole in a carbon fiber leg. May split leg from end to end. Unless somehow hole was reinforced.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 17 Mar 2022 9:19 pm

Ned McIntosh wrote:When I started out in the video production industry back in 1993, tripods with carbon-fibre legs were just starting to appear.

Camera-crews loved them initially because they made the tripods so light.

They quickly fell out of love with them when it became very clear the legs were much more fragile than tubular aluminuim legs. If you threw something heavy onto the tripod in the back of a vehicle, or a Betacam SP dockable camera, lens and recorder in a road-case fell on it during travel, the legs could shatter, and replacing them meant a trip back to the factory.

I left my tripod with the aluminium tube legs it was made with, and I still use it to this day. Works like new.

Maybe carbon-fibre today is more shatter-resistant. The age-old use of split-cases is one well-tested solution to the weight of a steel packed in its case. It's probably the cheapest solution out there.

What many of our members are not aware of - because he pretty much keeps it to himself here on the forum - Ross Shafer of Sierra came from a long history in the bicycle industry as the founder of Salsa Cycles (I have one of his road bikes). Ross designed and built beautiful road and mountain bikes along with high quality parts.

As an avid cyclist who has done a fair amount of geeking out on the subject, I can tell you that carbon fiber has advanced tremendously from your tripod legs in 1993. There were episodes of catastrophic failure with carbon fiber frames and forks in those days. It’s pretty rare to hear about that sort of thing these days unless a bike is built lightly to the extreme. In ‘93 carbon fiber was still in the early stages of becoming “a thing” in the cycling world. Nowadays on higher end bicycles it has become the dominant material for a lot of what goes into a bike.

As Ross posted earlier - He can build one a set of carbon fiber legs, but you have order the guitar that goes with them.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 17 Mar 2022 11:29 pm

Bobby D. Jones wrote: I would not trust a hole in a carbon fiber leg. May split leg from end to end. Unless somehow hole was reinforced.

Indeed, you are right Bobby. C/F tubing is very strong in tension, but it doesn't handle compression nearly as well. When you would make such a hole in thin C/F tubing, you'd normally sleeve it, or fill that area of the tube with an epoxy resin.