I finally got around to completing this for the Railboard. It already has convenient threaded holes so I figured I'd try it out and see if I like it.

Note this isn't a necessarily recommended solution as it relies on stuff I had laying around. In addition to the salvaged legs from an old tripod, I had a piece of anodized aluminum channel - the kind used to make a shop fixture to accommodate a sliding miter gauge. It has a 3/4" wide by 3/8" deep channel that was perfect for nestling the top end of the tripod leg. I cut a 6" length of this (should have made it about 4 1/2" as you can see from the pics), and glued a bit of neoprene on the back to act as a "gasket" so it wouldn't mar the anodized aluminum on the back of the stick. A block of oak 3/4" thick, 3" wide and about 5 1/2" long is used to "capture" the leg. A couple of passes across the router table made a little channel in the oak to accommodate the leg also.

The holes for attaching the belt hook are 10-24, and the holes (presumably for attaching MIDI pickups) are 6-32. If you do something like this on a Railboard, I suggest drilling the holes a bit oversize (I used 1/4" and 3/16") as it's difficult to get the holes perfectly aliigned with the threads without a whole lot of fussin'. A washer gives the screw heads a firm purchase. Note that the screws here are 1 1/2" long, and were just barely long enough to do the job.

After using this for a half-hour, I'm not sure how I'm going to like this. To be honest, I'm still not sure what I prefer, having gone back-and-forth between a belt and a lap bar. I do note that this particular tripod leg is a bit light-duty to use when playing while standing up — It tends to "bounce" a bit while playing, but I'm not big on playing standing up anyway, so for me it will be fine.

I'll give this a good try and see how I like it long-term. Right now I only have one piece that I'm working on that uses MR, so that's all that's getting played on the Railboard other than general goofing around and experimentation.

Very interesting SteveS.


I take it that's a US machine screw specification? I wonder if that's what the inserts used in the Graphite Sticks take? I found that the machne screws supplied with the two 'flat' belt hook mounts I got from SE are fine for my bamboo, but on the Graphite I get the impression that the pitch may be slightly off[1].

Looking at this I wonder if the inserts might be M5 or vice-versa? That's almost the same, but with a slightly different pitch. Maybe I ought to ask SE?

Getting back on topic, sort of, I've taken the inspiration of Werkspace's idea in a different direction and combined it with seeing an 'Electronic Module Mounting Plate' used in a post in the big SUSS topic to add such a plate to my bamboo stick using only the existing screw holes, and with the belt hook still in place. The result is that I can use the Stick on a lapbar, on a belt or attached to a drum stand. It seems to be working out okay. I showed it on Bob's Zoom call last Saturday (Feb 18, 2023 - it may be a while before the recordng is up). I'll try to organise some pictures and a post, probably in the SUSS topic?



[1] I can screw them in but it's a process that goes in a series of okay/tight/okay/tight cycles, and if the screw is then withdrawn there are shiny bands of threads at regular intervals.

Interesting thread.

IMO the biggest weakness with a monopod is the tendency of the instrument to rotate. In the cello this isn't a problem because the instrument is held in place by the player's legs. If you could have two feet at the end of the shaft spaced slightly apart, that would fix this, but then it wouldn't be a monopod, would it? , though is might be an excellent idea.

The one thing you don't want to have to do is "hold" the instrument while playing. This restricts your Free Hands from moving freely, which is quite self-defeating.

The front of your chair can provide something for the instrument to lean against, so rotation becomes the only difficulty.

That was my concern too,Greg, but in practice it doesn't seem to be an issue. The strap seems to provide enough rotational stabilization that the Stick is always facing the right way, and I'm not finding that I'm having to "hold" it at all. I go back and forth between the Railboard with the monopod and the rosewood with a lapbar, and am still trying to decide if there are any downsides. Unfortunately right now there is only one piece I play on the Railboard, so I may not be "stress testing" it sufficiently, but time will tell...

Yes, David - #10, 24TPI (threads per inch). A #10 is 0.190" about 3/16" or about 4.75mm

My guess is that all the fasteners on Sticks use US machine screw sizes, but yeah, I'd poke Jeff and find out for sure. We can readily get any metric size fasteners over here - how difficult is it to get US/Imperial sized fasteners in the UK?

Possible, but not as easy as it used to be. Metric fasteners dominate the market.

As they should. There was a push in the 50's to get the US to standardize on the metric system. The pushback was just as vitriolic as you'd expect from stupid know-nothing Americans. over 60 years later, we're still making people grapple with 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 3 tsp to a tablespoon, 16 oz to a pound. A system that could only be loved by a Neanderthal on acid...

Just about the only vestages of Imperial measures left in everyday use here are miles and pints (of beer).

Somehow kilometres never seemed to become part of the plan, and politicians decided that trying to change a nation's beer drinking habits from pints to (half) litres was a not a task they wanted to consider. LOL!

Flexible tape measures are still typically metric on one edge & imperial on the other. Stiff rulers may be the same, but are often fully metric.

Quite a lot of grocery packaging (tins, jars, & some packets) never actually changed size, but nowdays they are only labelled in metric.

When I started education I was taught in imperial, but education switched to using metric probably when I was around 10. So I'm 'bilingual', with a very strong bias towards metric.

There are few traditionalists who still insist they ought to have the right to sell apples by the pound & so on, but such views are now largely considered as eccentric by most.

Now described in this post in the SUSS topic...

Don't hold back, Steve...tell us how you really feel!