Ray wrote, and David Replied:

>I have a Zuckerman concert double from around 1971 with plastic jacks,
 >and they're still going strong--no bending, , no cracking, no problems
 >whatsoever. Â In the roughly dozen years I've had the instrument,
 >they've never been a problem and, over that time, I've had only a
 >single plectrum and two strings that I needed to replace. Â Unlike
 >wooden jacks, there's no need for seasonal readjustment of jack height
 >to account for expansion and contraction of the wood.

This is a new one on me.  Wood expands across the 
grain, which would mean horizontally in the case 
of a jack.  Furthermore the type of wood used for 
jacks is in my experience more than sufficiently 
stable in the vertical direction in all humidities.


It’s certainly a new one on me, too, and I’m now on instrument 70-something and into the fourth decade, and, well, the polite answer is to say that Ray is very must mistaken here. Must not have followed the recent conversation about Skowroneck’s “lifters” and seasonal vertical movement. It is more difficult to write with civility about the snotty comments about those who know more than Ray does, making a “fetish of the authenticke.” I wrote last night what I really thought about that, and I am now grateful that the current protocol of HPSCHD_L that requires that we confirm our posts is in place, and gave me the opportunity to withdraw what I had written.

Owen

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