Hi All - Does anyone have rough plans for building a lap bar? I imagine it is something like four pieces of wood glued together such that there is a space in the middle to accomodate the belt hook. I'm curious about the width of the belt hook gap and any other tips that would be helpful

Cheers

John

Hi John,
I've recently seen/tried a lap bar from another local stickist... basically, it's just a thick wooden plank with a thinning cutaway in the middle to fit the belt hook. Pretty simple and handy enough, and no need to glue etc. I'm going to make one like this too.
- Vladimir.

Hi Vladimir - thanks for the post. Any pictures you can provide would be very helpful...

Thanks

John

David Parr uses a piece of bamboo with some rubber hose around the middle part so it does not slip.

I'm pretty sure someone mentioned this at the seminar in Melbourne; apparently an older style wooden coat hanger can do the job. Has anyone tried it?

Cheers,
Andy

I was prototyping one a while back constructed out of some 2.5x.5" baseboard molding. I was intending to make a bamboo or composite one, but found that I really prefered standing and feeling connected to the instrument. Although, every once in a while I think about constructing a stand like the NS Bass has.

I believe that Bob C has one that fits tight and allows him to stand up and slip the belt hook in with the bar attached.

Below is the plan I used that might take some tweaking to find the angle and contours you prefer. I would suggest constructing a mock-up out of chipboard (fedex envelopes & cereal boxes nice and easy to cut).

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This image was uploaded as a 8.5"x11"/72dpi gif. There is a scale to help you get it to the correct scale. Good luck.

I’m sort of inspired by this idea (and I’m a much more skilled woodworker than a Chapman Stick player at this early point in my career) as I am still very new to my Chapman Stick and spend the majority of my practice time sitting pondering how to finger things etc… and I just still find the whole “having it on your belt” position very uncomfortable….I realize this will come with time and familiarity but I still find the lap bar in interesting idea. Anyway, I liked the “stick with the hose on it” concept and spent some time wandering around the hardware store today trying to be inspired along those lines. I have tried sliding narrow pieces of wood into the belt hook before with thoughts along the lines of the plans above in some early attempts at this basic concept and was always surprised by how narrow the gap is (honestly I haven’t measured it but it was significantly less than a standard ¾” piece of wood) which made me think that you would have to do some serious shaping of a standard square edged piece of wood to make this comfortable on your legs…. so the “round stick with some tubing on it” idea got me thinking in this way….something narrow enough that it would fit through the gap but be a wide enough and have a curved enough diameter that would be comfortable on you lap while playing….hum. What I came up with was to buy a 1½” dowel and I’m going to dado an appropriate flat grove into the middle of this for the belt clip. I’ll fix the ends of the dowel with blocks on each end and dado out a flat spot in the middle for the belt clip to slip over leaving two round ends. I should be able to make this flat spot tight enough so the stick stays upright and the larger diameter of the dowel should be reasonably comfortable across my lap I imagine. I also think this will let the Chapman Stick to rock on my lap slightly allowing for changes in position as I play or move my hands from position to position. I won’t have time to do this for a week or so unfortunately but I like the idea and simplicity of it…I’ll have to let you all know how it turns out.

I never found the lap bar (of any design) to be as comfortable as simply using a very loose belt, the only function of which is to keep the instrument from slipping of the front of the chair.

The belt hook can rest on the chair between your legs, so there's no weight on your legs, and the instrument has more "freedom of movement" than when it's on a bar.

If I were to use a bar it would need to have a dip in it so the instrument wasn't too high. Love the wooden coat hanger idea!

Just my 2 cents.

I agree, I tried a few variations of a lap bar and found none that were better than just letting the belt hook rest on a chair.

I have to admit I haven’t tried the front of the chair idea…and I’ve read the suggestion before here. The rounded end and uneven levels of the front and back of the belt clip have made me uncomfortable with that as an anchor however. I’ll give it a go though… along with my dowel idea… I mean I spent $5 on it