Walker & Williams Gold Extra Long Deep Barrel Strap Locks for Thick Guitar Straps

Walker & Williams is a long time US crafter of high end leather goods that has been in business for well over 100 years and has recently started producing outstanding guitar straps.

Walker & Williams signature feature is their thickly padded straps, which are really comfortable but they are not easy to get strap locks onto. So they have developed this set of strap locks with a longer, deeper barrel, bless their hearts.

As you may have experienced, it can be a real pain to get strap locks to screw down even on regular guitar straps. With W&W's double padded straps, it can be really challenging. The new XSL strap locks are machined with a longer barrel that solves that problem nicely both for the thick W&W straps and for many, many other brands of straps.

I managed to get some Schaller strap locks on my own W&W C-22 strap only by grinding down the washer until it was barely there and then smashing down the leather with vise-grips until I could just get the nut to thread on. It wasn't fun and it looks pretty amateur too. With these new strap locks, it ain't no thang. There's plenty of the barrel showing through to use the proper washer and no problem getting the nut threaded on without a struggle. Nice. I like 'em.

The new barrel is about 5/16" longer than standard strap locks and that's enough to make all the difference between trying to wrestle your strap locks on and having all the room you need.  

In addition, the W&W strap locks come with full sized US screws, so they won't pull out of your guitar just when you're getting into the music like the wimpy metric Euro screws a lot of strap locks come with. And since the screws are stainless steel, they aren't going to break on you either.