My take on the guitar string damper.

I have seen these in various shapes, sizes and material for sale. I did not find one that could be 3D printed, so I designed one myself.

It’s minimalistic and very sleek looking. Currently made for six string electric guitars.

If you don't know what this is for then the following YouTube video by Max Solo Music explains it well:

The branding is something that I came up with and it’s derived from my name (Gustav) and the word ”guitar”. I understand that some may not like having anything on it, but I wanted to make it personal. You can of course mount it flipped other way around.

I recommend printing it slow and 0.1 mm layer height. The print is small and the increased resolution really helps with details. For infill I recommend 50% to make it stiff. Three perimeters and five top and bottom layers seems perfect. The tolerances are quite small (0.25 mm) so your printer must be calibrated well. Especially extrusion amount.

Once print is done, I recommend letting it cool down and not pry it up from warm bed as it can bend the still warm plastic and latching mechanism might not be as tight as it should.

To make the hinge work after printing, hold the damper between two hands with the hinge facing upwards (logo downwards). Then try and pry it with your thumbs pushing from the middle up and index fingers acting as lever points, but keep all fingers close to the hinge the prevent bending and cracking the model. Once it moves a little, start slowly opening and closing it to wear it in. As mentioned, the tolerances are tight but only because making them looser made the whole model really loose and too much play in hinge.

For the damping material I recommend searching and buying some foam tape. Easiest would be one with adhesive side so just cut to size and stick it on. The size for the pad should be 14 x 50 mm and maximum thickness I recommend 1.5 mm per side. The gap is 2.8 mm wide so that gives some squish as well as strings still fit.