Mortua Dolce Cano

All the rest is sound and fury

2012-01-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I read, with delicious pleasure, a transcription of an NPR news report of a recent double-blind listening test--with "seasoned" musicians as the listeners--of two genuine Strad violins, a genuine Guarnerius violin, and three well- and recently-made modern violins. The researcher was an acoustics physicist from France's National Center for Scientific Research. "Everybody wore dark goggles so they couldn't see which violin was which." "No one knew which instrument was which until after the test. That rules out the kind of bias that might creep in when a musician judges an instrument he or she knows is 300 years old and maybe played by someone like Fritz Kreisler." The link is here.

"…of the 17 players who were asked to choose which were old Italians...seven said they couldn't, seven got it wrong, and only three got it right." Most significantly, "When [one] asked the players which violins they'd like to take home, almost two-thirds chose a violin that turned out to be new. She's found the same in tests with other musical instruments. "I haven't found any consistency whatsoever," she says. "Never. People don't agree. They just like different things."

"In fact, the only statistically obvious trend in the choices was that one of the Stradivarius violins was the least favorite, and one of the modern instruments was slightly favored."

I wonder how the last person who paid $3.5 million for a Strad at auction feels about that. Or, for that matter, $200,000 for a prewar D-45. Must shake them up a bit, no?

The test proved to me that the overheated claims I've been hearing over the last 40 years about the source of Strad's "special sound" being mineralized wood buried in swamps for centuries, the "aging" process, or magic varnish recipes that disappeared forever, are total bull-scheisse. The emperor has no clothes.

The inscrutable mythical primacy of scarce Brazilian rosewood and German Spruce is the guitar-world equivalent of this sentimental, often self-serving, fakery. I can add the speculations about crystallizing resins in 100-year spruce to the steaming pile of fake mumbo jumbo. I suspected all this from the beginning. To quote my mentor in guitar acoustics, Tim White, "if you build it to play in tune and play easily, you'll find someone who'll fall in love with it." But that in itself is asking a lot: What really counts is the the individual maker's acquired intuition, commitment and care.

All the rest is sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The rocky road to luthierie as a career change

2011-10-13T16:12:00.002-04:00

I am 25 and a college graduate. My reason for contacting you is to seek advice from one of the premier luthiers in the industry.
I am unhappy with my current profession, and have long dreamed about being a luthier and building/repairing guitars. However, as of right now my current situation with my family does not allow me to attend a school for lutherie, and there are no luthiers where I live.
My question is regarding learning the craft. I am more than willing to take my bumps and bruises in learning. I have purchased your book on guitarmaking as well as two others, and will be building my first guitar with my father-in-law soon. While he is a retired carpenter, I have no experience with woodworking.
Can you provide any advice as to how I could begin and progress competently as a luthier even though I will essentially be self-taught? What are the best ways to be able to apprentice under an established luthier? I am willing to do whatever is necessary to enter the field,

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I'll start with the second question, "what are the best ways to be able to apprentice under an established luthier?" You would have to start by finding one that needs an apprentice to help him in his shop. That would be extremely rare and fortunate, like hitting the lottery. But take a step back first: assuming you could find a working luthier willing to take you on as an apprentice, you need to thoroughly think through the kind of investment of time and money that you would be undertaking. I imagine this would be a daunting prospect, since you have only recently invested a great amount of time and money in the pursuit of your college degree. Are you prepared to make another such large investment? That would be tough, I imagine, putting myself in your shoes. Are you being realistic?

If the number of working luthiers willing to take you on is limited, the number of working luthiers willing to take on, teach a neophyte AND pay any kind of wage is probably infinitesimally small. You would have to defray all your moving, lodging and living expenses for the year or two, or three, that it would take to a) prove to the luthier that you're manually and emotionally competent to complete the required tasks and not become an annoyance or distraction in his studio and b) become productive enough to be able to equitably repay the luthier's time and attention to your education. I do not presume to know what your financial situation is, but I would guess that most recent college grads nowadays would have a hard time making that kind of commitment.

Then, of course there are the luthier schools. That's one way to begin an entry into the field, although learning in a classroom situation is learning in an environment which is quite alien to the reality of the actual trade. The building method you learn in a school is a method which has been adapted to the necessity of teaching many students in a room sharing the attention of usually, an instructor who is only a little more experienced than the students. That is what has come to my attention as the way things are in many of these schools. It is a distant reality from making a living in a custom guitar-making studio. But you do get to complete a guitar or two, and get to be walked through the maze of steps and techniques that are required to complete the task--so it can be a reasonable first step towards your goal.

As far as teaching yourself the craft, assuming you have the not only the resources but the right amount of persistence and commitment hard-wired into your personality, you can assume it's going to take you twice, maybe three times longer to achieve the same level of technical proficiency as someone leaving a professional luthiers' studio as a journeyman. Then you have to build your own market. But I know a dozen people who have done exactly that. You only need to start with a space, a basic complement of tools and start with Chapter One of my book--or somebody else's book. It's one step in a journey of a thousand steps: becoming a successful luthier is akin in time and effort to becoming a successful artist of any other kind.

The joy of guitar making (cont.)

2011-10-08T17:02:00.001-04:00

One of the distinctive joys of the guitarmaking profession are the lasting connections you make with wonderful people that last for many decades--and when you discover that the guitar you once made for someone had gone on to make a profound positive effect on a large portion of their lives. Allow me to share some of this exquisite pleasure when someone who purchased my first flamenco guitar over thirty years ago wrote these kind words to me recently:

Bill!

I've checked out your website and am quite impressed: ¡Qué bien! Hope all is well and you're enjoying life in the best of health.

Recently I was sitting with my guitar and musing over how well it is constructed and how grateful I am to you for having encouraged me to allow you to make a flamenco guitar by hand for me. I felt unworthy then, and I still do now; I am forever the amateur, but--to echo your words of thirty (!) years ago "You will feel much better about your playing"--you were right.

I thought you might like to take a peek at the instrument via this photo:

It's in great shape. I put it back ever-so-gently into its case after every session and keep it from drying out.

I hark back fondly to the moment when you said, in your gentle way, that you were keeping a piece of cypress on the shelf for the day when I would ultimately make the decision. It was eventually one of the most satisfying decisions of my life. Aside from the musical qualities of the guitar, I must admit that I'm still enthralled by the fact that the shadow of my fingers is visible when backlit against the back of the instrument, as you can see in this shot:

At present (age 72) I'm semi-retired. < personal stuff here>

I imagine you must be very busy, but I do hope to get to see you again one of these days. If I'm heading down your way sometime, I'll give you a holler to see if you would have time for lunch(?), coffee (?), a beer (?), a brief chat (?).

Bueno, hombre, cuídate....and feel free to use my words and photos as testimonials.

PS: I was almost forgetting, was this the very first flamenco guitar you made? I had that impression, but wasn't really sure. In any case, I proudly possess--in addition to the marvelous guitar--this token of your unparalleled craftsmanship and my abiding appreciation:

Who was José Yacoppi?

2011-09-19T19:54:00.001-04:00

In short, José was a Spanish luthier who escaped Spain's harsh dictatorship of the 30s, 40s and 50s and established his craft in Argentina. Interesting guy, fascinating life. Fascinating personality. Here's his story:

When he was a boy, José Yacoppi learned that in life, you don't need much to survive. Every time his father--a guitarmaking luthier like him--was chased by Franco's men in Spain, the Nazis in France and the war in Europe, he learned that a workshop had to fit into a valise, and the life of an entire family could depend on one guitar. Every time they had to move all they had to take with them was a finished instrument so that José could show his art and get supporters until he could begin anew. In 1949 he arrived in Argentina and opened his shop on quiet San Fernando street.

"My 84th birthday was on the 28 of December [2000]. People call on the phone and say, 'yes, can I speak to José Yacoppi?" and I say, "yes, speaking." They're surprised. They don't say it, but I can listen to the tone of their voice, "but how can that be? He's still alive?"

It's best you know from the start: the best of Yacoppi, after his guitars, is his black humor. He's been exporting guitars to Japan at a pace of 25 a year. "Look, I know there are a bunch of my guitars out there, and when I'm dead, their price is going to rise. Outside Argentina, my guitars sell for high prices. Do you know Eric Clapton? He bought a Yacoppi in Germany three years ago and paid seven thousand dollars. And at the Sotheby's auction house in London, he knocked down a 1950 Yacoppi after paying ten thousand dollars. I wish I had one to sell. It's that in 1950 I was very young, and what was I to guess, that my shop would eventually become so highly regarded. I also never thought I'd live so long. Look, once I even made a vihüela, the grandmother of guitars, that one over there..."

He walks to a showcase and takes out a vihuela, a large instrument studded with mother of pearl.
"The amount of work on this is so monstrous, so huge, that I hardly can believe it was me who did it. Once I took it to Europe. I told myself, "I'm going to kill with this one." He took it to Sotheby's and someone there said, "Oh, how pretty. Who made it?" "Me." "Oh, but you're alive." I say, "Yes, I'm alive." And he says, "Oh, no, you've got to be deceased." I told him, "I'll shoot myself and come back."

Jose Yacopi passed away on the 11th of August of 2006.

Jose Yacoppi

Classical neck pitch

2011-09-02T11:01:00.001-04:00

What do you think about the traditional spanish way of having the neck slightly sloped forward by 2-3 mm?

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As to the "Spanish" tradition of sloping the neck forward (I didn't know that it was uniquely a Spanish tradition), it's supposed to provide ample string clearance to avoid buzzing during vigorous playing without having to make the bridge massively tall. If the guitar is to usually play quietly for an audience in a small room it is unnecessary. I've learned that one must be careful to pitch it no more than 1.5mm at the nut, or impossibly high action may result.

9/12/11 Revision: I hasten to modify these remarks because they proved to be misleading: by stating the concept of "pitching the neck forward" I really needed to clarify that this effect can be achieved in a number of valid ways: by 1) tapering the fingerboard (so it begins thicker at the nut and ends thinner at the sound hole end) and then gluing it down to a neckshaft which is perfectly level with the perimeter of the soundboard--in which case the solera must be perfectly flat from end to end (and rigid enough not to distort or sag during the building process) and 2), keeping the fingerboard at a constant thickness (usually 1/4-inch) and tapering the neck-arm of the solera so that it is 1/16-inch thinner at it's end, which should coincide with the nut location of the neck. This the entire neck shaft will be induced to pitch forward (or upwards) by 1/16-inch and be fixed in that orientation when the back is glued on. This requires that you hollow the upper transversal face brace by about 1/32 to accept the diving fingerboard-fingerboard end (draft it out to ascertain the correct amount).

There is yet a third scheme which is to keep the solera un-tapered, and thus the neck shaft level with the soundboard perimeter, while keeping the fingerboard uniform in thickness along it's entire length. This requires however, that you induce a 1/8-inch to 3/16-inch dome or swelling in your soundboard at the bridge location--by curving all your fans and bridge-bottom. This will create a favorable action-height by raising the bridge rather than "pitching the neck forward."

Julian Bream's Bouchet bar story

2011-09-02T10:56:00.002-04:00

Regarding classical guitar construction, may I ask you your opinion about using a transverse bar under the bridge instead of the bridge block--like Bouchet ? [the "Bouchet bar" is a large, tapered transverse brace that Bouchet placed horizontally across the soundboard, directly under the bridge--it was characteristic of his work]

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I can best answer your question with an anecdote told to me by luthier Jeffrey Elliott many years ago (I hope the details are still accurate)--Jeffrey was accompanying the great Julian Bream on one of his occasional US tours. Bream often invited Jeffrey, whom he regarded highly, to accompany him in his US travels, to keep an eye on the several instruments he brought with him on his tour.

One day he told Jeffrey that he was dissatisfied with the tone of his Bouchet--in comparison to that of his Romanillos--and said that he thought it was the Bouchet's long transverse bridge bar, missing on the Romanillos, that made the difference. He asked Jeffrey to take it out. At first Jeffrey was very hesitant, given the value of the instrument, but Bream persuaded him, saying that he would accept all responsibility should the venture prove disastrous.

So in a hotel room and some improvised tools, Jeffrey removed the strings and proceeded to break up and carefully remove the rather large Bouchet's transversal bridge bar. Well, the upshot was that the venture was not disastrous, indeed it was a great success, according to Bream--and Jeffrey--the loss of the bar transformed the instrument, it's voice opening up dramatically. His account effectively kept me from ever experimenting with the Bouchet scheme.

Doming the top---and the bridge?

2011-08-30T20:32:00.006-04:00

My name is Andrea and I live in Italy. I bought your marvellous book many years ago, but only recently I decided it was time for me to build (try at least) my first guitar. After reading again your book I have a doubt: the soundboard is domed but, as far as I can see, there is no mention about shaping the bridge accordingly. Is it because the doming is so little in the central area that a flat bridge is correct ?

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While my building technique relies on a domed soundboard, it does not call for a bridge with a curved base.

Soundboard doming schemes vary widely among builders. It depends on what each individual luthier has learned from their teacher or how they individually perceive what the consequences or importance of doming to be. Clearly there is no rule or law in this regard.

In your country, luthiers of high reputation construct their tops differently. For example, Mario Garrone of Piemonte and Mario Rosazza of Roma build their tops completely flat with no doming at all, while Gabriele Lodi of Modena, in fact, does dome his soundboards.

Among builders who build their tops completely flat, obviously their bridges are flat also. But among those who dome their tops, some of them attempt to match the curve of the base of their bridges to match the curve of the soundboard at the bridge location. But some, like myself dome the tops, but choose to leave our bridges flat.

I can't tell you what justification the others have for these choices, you would have to ask them.

But as for me, I dome my top because I am certain that in itself this adds rigidity to the top plate, and allows me consequently reduce the thicknesses of the top plate and heights of the braces. I believe in minimal adequate structure, as you will quickly learn if you read my other posts on this blog.

Conversely, I would expect that if I was building completely flat, I would feel constrained to increase the thicknesses of the plates and heights of the braces to compensate for the top's relative weakness in a flat state.

I don't see much point in going to the trouble of hollowing the base of the bridge (and don't forget now, your bridge block must also be made correspondingly curved by the same amount in the opposite manner if you wish to preserve the bridge's contour when you are gluing it to the top).

All this is seems unnecessarily troublesome to me, particularly since you would have to be able to ascertain with precision the extremely slight curvature that is developed along the few centimeters of the bridge's length. Unnecessary, because in any case, it is my conviction that since all the elements of the soundboard are essentially elastic to some degree or other, the effect of the string's tension upon the bridge is too drag it into a new contour regardless of whether it is flat or curved.

I believe that string tension is enough to distort whatever laboriously-determined curvature was imparted in the first place. Indeed, I have seen how the string's torquing forces over time inevitably cause the bridge to slightly dip in the front and slightly bulge in the back on a good, lightly-built guitar. I would not be surprised that the tiny bit of curve imparted to the bridge would be long-lost by that time.

But that is my reasoning and thus my choice. All the others are welcome to their own traditions, rationale and experience. Great guitars are possible whichever scheme you choose.

Headblock puzzle

2011-07-24T11:56:00.003-04:00

[On a steel string guitar] If the neck is to be set at an angle to the body, and the body is arched to match that angle so the fretboard can be glued to the top, then why does everyone draw a headblock with a 90 degree angle between top and side? It seems to me if you do that, when you glue the fretboard down, you’ll be mashing it and the soundboard against a block of mahogany that is on a different plane. The obvious solution to me is to angle the top of the headblock. But, when you discuss fitting the neck to the body, you stress the importance of adjusting this angle at that time, so it seems the obvious solution to the above problem isn’t quite possible. How do you resolve this?

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Your perception is correct, as far as it goes.

If you draft everything out, side view, on paper in full size, you'll discover that for the action to be optimum and the saddle height to be optimum, the neck needs to be tipped back by a small amount, relative to the plane determined by the perimeter of the soundboard. Thus the end of the fingerboard must rise as it pivots upward, beginning from the point where it meets the front edge of the soundboard. The nut end of the fingerboard rotates downward, while the saddle end of the fingerboard rotates upward, pivoting right where the neck meets the body.

However that rise, measured over the width of the headblock, is exceedingly tiny--barely a 1/64-inch. Indeed the fingerboard-end keeps rising to its terminus and the soundboard must also rise to meet it--just above the soundhole. Thus the upper transversal face brace must be arched about 1/16-inch--generally enough to raise the soundboard under the fingerboard end to just reach it--on a 14-fret guitar--or around 3/32-inch on a 12-fret guitar.

What you propose, angling the top of the headblock to account for the rising fingerboard end is technically correct--assuming that you've kept the rest of the headblock strictly perpendicular to the workboard. But that's not the only way to go about it. If you leave the headblock square where it meets the soundboard, it will drive the front of the soundbox to a small tip-back relative to the workboard--which should match fairly closely the amount the heel would otherwise have to be trimmed later to achieve the required tip-back of the neck.

So take your pick--slant the top of the headblock by 1/64-inch and expect to trim the heel later to set the neck angle; or keep the top of the headblock perpendicular and let the headblock naturally tip back by 1/32 from perpendicular (to the workboard) and dispense with the heel-trimming neck-set procedure later on.

The Urge to Inlay - II

2011-06-16T14:31:00.002-04:00

An old student of mine from the Netherlands commented on an earlier post. He writes,

Hi William,

After your last blog about The urge of Inlay I just got to let you know that I just returned from a little trip to Berlin, and we visited .... the Bauhaus Archiv! Of course I knew about Bauhaus, its connections with the De Stijl group in this country, but to be completely immersed in it. It was a TRIP!! Beautiful pottery and the metal workshop designs are breath taking in their powerful simplicity. Forget about superfluous embellishments, just the elementary shapes.

I must say that I am starting to recognize the Bauhaus approach/ideas not only in your guitar design, but especially in the efficiency and economy of combining design with technology or rather craftmanship. Yeah, I guess I am slow. But you did not tell me that in the tutorial I was actually signing up for a slow but prolonged Bauhaus brain wash...

Thanks for the eye openers!

Best,

Pieter

Why not just screw the neck on?

2011-05-13T12:48:00.004-04:00

A correspondent asked me why I prefer to use a neck joint system that relies on barrel-bolts. He writes,

I wouldn't use barrel nuts at all. I would take a hanger bolt like this: I would drill a slightly oversized hole into the neck heel, chop the hanger bolt to length, and thread it in, locked down with epoxy. The epoxy will allow us to use an oversized hole so as not to put any significant compressive stress on the neck (we wouldn't want to risk a stress fracture, either during installation or 100 years from now). It would still "thread" into the neck, but it would be a loose threading and the epoxy will permanently lock it in place. Then I would use a nut inside the guitar body. Inside the body, I would use a spherical washer so that the bolt alignment/neck angle is not critical. I think this is a very unconventional arraignment and would probably have luthiers worldwide looking at us with scorn, but aside from that I think it's very simple and workable.

Screwing the neck into the body is a worthy endeavor. But...

NEVER fool yourself that what you've just invented hasn't been done before

in the guitar world. There's almost a thousand years of "prior art" in the stringed instrument universe. There's very little low-tech guitar luthiery advances you can think of that haven't been done previously--a dozen times.

Regardless, guitar-improvement hubris affects us all at one time or another. It affected me when I devised the barrel bolt system--a reaction to my teacher Gurian's pinned mortise and tenon--which was a reaction to Martin's tapered dovetail--which was a reaction to the joint-less Spanish Method.

You're free to react to my barrel bolt system--be my guest! You won't get any flak from me, or any luthiers for that matter--they don't know any better. But you will get flack from formal cabinetmakers. My old friend Ian Kirby, instructor at the Royal College of Cabinetmaking told me when I brought up the subject, that one of the Ten Commandments of woodworking is "never screw into end grain." HE would look upon your idea as inelegant and hazard-prone.

But not me. Because his field is cabinets. Because I know that screwing necks on has been a luthier tactic since luthiers learned to cast lead or iron screws and bolts. Lag screws appear on lutes made during the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Taylor Guitars uses cap-head machine screws that screw into wood-threaded inserts inserted into the end-grain of the heel. Most luthiery schools teach two neck joints, tapered dovetail and neck screws. Period.

When I devised the barrel bolt system, advisedly, I never announced or claimed first use. And guess what? I had been using it for years when I discovered that my old partner, Michael Millard of Froggy Bottom Guitar fame, had devised it quite independently on his own for several years before also. Exactly the same arrangement. For exactly the same reasons:

1- the pinned mortise and tenon system was difficult, tedious and complex. As is the tapered dovetail.

2- we hated the look of two unartful nuts on the headblock staring at you from the soundhole.

3- we were concerned about the long-term effects of screwing into end grain, or the short-term effects of threading a screw into the endgrain heel.

4- you could get the barrel bolts at the local hardware store. You don't have to turn your own wooden taper pins.

5- having to change the neck to body angle throws bending stresses onto the screws, which throws strain onto the wooden parts. The rotating barrel in the barrel-bolt system solves that problem.

I confess, your selection of the spherical washer as a solution to 5) is a clever hardware choice. And your idea of drilling an oversize hole in the heel and casting epoxy threads didn't occur to us, but you'd have to be pretty confident that the entire epoxy plug wouldn't just pull out someday.

Your wanting to invent your own system has a noble heritage, so I won't be the one to squelch it. I'd experiment with how much force is required to pull out the epoxy plug first. Then go ahead--be my guest. Build your own guitar with a personal neck-attachment system that you think best fits your own priorities.

The Urge to Inlay

2011-05-10T11:23:00.017-04:00

I love the Grizzly tool catalog, and I'm delighted to see that like myself, Grizzly's president is himself a guitarmaking devotee. I often leaf through the Grizzly catalog's pages, salivating over the 18" wide-belt abrasive planer which I probably should get to replace my rickety 35-year old homemade 14" filetier, Galloping Gertie. Mr. Grizzly's guitar work is proudly displayed on various places around his impressive and weighty catalog, along with huge Gear-Head, Cam Lock Spindle, Gap Bed Lathes. I own half a dozen much smaller Grizzly stationary power tools myself, and for the price, they give remarkably good service. And I absolutely LOVE the bridge pins he supplies" and have been using them exclusively. The ones with the abalone dots surrounded by tiny brass rings. They're lovely. I hope he keeps supplying them forever.

Above is an example of his painstaking work, as displayed in a personal page on his online Grizzly catalog. Every time I look at it, it begs me to ask, Mr. Grizzly president, kudos for your ambitious effort, but: what on earth does Tutankhamun have to do with guitars? Okay, images of cowboys on horses surrounded with cactuses riding into the sunset--or even hula girls playing ukeleles. I can kinda see the connection. They've decorated guitars since the early 20th century. But an 18th dynasty Egyptian pharaoh?

To me, this speaks to a peculiar urge that is so prevalent in my field. The urge to Inlay. I'm intrigued by the urge to apply seemingly random images of all sorts on guitar surfaces. What do these disjointed images add to the already-elegant and sensual form, the iconic shape beloved around the world for a thousand years? I marvel every time I view photographic displays of fingerboard inlay masterpieces--with the strings removed of course, so the pesky strings don't interfere with our clear view of the real masterpiece.

Well, to me, the guitar's pristine form is as much awesomeness as I want to behold at one time, without distraction, thank you.

To varnish?

2011-05-08T14:24:00.009-04:00

Quick question. Is the hype about Varnish finish true? Does it make a big difference in sound? Is the finish on the top only?

Oil varnish is indeed a superior instrument finish for not only it's film hardness and high solids content but also–when expertly applied–its rich, warm glow. It's all but outdated in the guitar world, however: I know of only one maker currently oil varnishing his guitars. The main problem is that it takes several days to dry, because it dries by oxidation--slowly. Lacquer dries by evaporation--quickly. Not only does varnish's slow-drying properties make it time-consuming to apply, but problematically, as it dries it can accumulate floating particles in the air sticking to it. So it requires a scrupulously clean application environment. On the other hand, lacquer skins over in minutes, repelling any floating particles. You can theoretically apply a lacquer finish in a day--but it takes several days for an oil varnish coat to fully dry.

As far as whether it is "better" than lacquer, one would have to define "better," of course. People are always asking me, what's better? Better how? In film strength and durability? That can be judged objectively, and the answer is...yes, but only marginally. In sound? Better in appearance? That cannot be judged objectively. How would you determine that? Does it result in better sound? By which criteria? By whose criteria? How do you set up a test? How do you evaluate such a test?

Now as far as the hype of varnish's "superior sound," it's reputation comes, no doubt, from its traditional high-class associations with the bowed instrument world--the playground of the elites. When a violin or a cello is played before varnishing, that is, while its "in-the-white," they usually display an unpleasantly harsh, strident and scratchy sound. The application of varnish notably "smoothes" the sound out, turning scratchy into beautiful: thus the age-old, esoteric mystique of varnish in violin culture. So it must also be good for lowly guitars too, eh?

But violins are from Mars, guitars are from Venus. Arm-driven violin bows dump massive amounts of energy onto the strings–continuously. Your finger tips apply only modest amounts of energy into your guitar, a bit more by the action of leverage if you use a pick. Accordingly, the rule on a guitar is that you DON'T want the finish coat to dampen any portion of the guitar's response, the applicable rule being "less is more." On the violins however, you want the finish to dampen portions of the response lying in the unwanted frequency bands. The function of the finish film in perfecting the violin's response is a significant factor in its world, whereupon the major issue of the finish in perfecting the guitar's sound is "how little can I apply and still be able to polish it out?"

Interestingly, this is only one of several preachy "violin lore" dictums that have mindlessly passed on into the guitar world. The most glaring one is that if f-hole archtops are the thing for violins and cellos, they must be good for guitars. Don't get me started on that: I'm still waiting for an arch-top guitar to equal a flat top in loudness, sustain, and tonal complexity. But that's just me.

Oh, and then there's the "remove and replace only one string at a time" canard which I'm often asked to explain. Clearly on a violin if you remove all the strings at once, the bridge falls off, and the sound post can drop, too. But I'm yet waiting for someone to give me a persuasive reason for following that rule on guitars.

Someday the guitar world will get over its poor-cousin-to-the-violin inferiority complex.

Michael Kasha's legacy

2011-04-22T17:04:00.020-04:00

Florida State University physical chemist Dr. Michael Kasha created a stir in the guitar field thirty-five years ago when he proposed a systems-analysis approach to the resolution of the age old dilemma of structure vs. tone in the guitar. Dr. Kasha is Distinguished University Research Professor at FSU, an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences--the Oscar people.

The traditional specifications for classical guitarmaking were established for subsequent generations of makers and players to follow by the venerated nineteenth-century Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres (he died about the time of the American Civil War). Torres assembled into his new design what he considered the best of all the various ideas that were being used in Europe during his time. The combination of his chosen scale length, soundbox size, bracing pattern (which consisted of a series of long struts under the bridge) and even his decoration scheme became the "classic" guitar which we see today all over the world.

In a nutshell, Kasha proposed that under the traditional system, the long stiffening bars under the top unduly restricted the soundboard's movements. Instead, he proposed a multiplicity of no less than twenty short braces fanning out in what appeared to be a peculiar, yet seemingly purposeful pattern around the bridge. Second, he proposed an aluminum stiffener imbedded into the heel to keep the body and neck more integral and less flexible relative to each other. He also proposed an assymetrically-shaped bridge which purportedly coupled the bass and treble components of the string's signal more efficiently to the guitar. Unfortunately the lopsided Kasha bridge, which became the most visible and distinctive feature of the system, gave the guitar face a comical sneer, which perhaps contributed to the guitar's lack of acceptance in a rather conservative and hide-bound market place.

As a scientist, Dr. Kasha sought the approval of other scientists and proposed the system before physicists and acoustical engineers during at least one convention of the Acoustical Society of America. Ordinarily, musical instrument acoustics is given faint attention at these gatherings: the preponderance of the interest goes to papers treating submarine sonar ranging systems and nuclear-explosion detection devices for the Defense Department. So, even within the faint attention afforded to instrument acousticians, Kasha's paper was pretty much ignored, for what was explained to me then as it's shaky science: unsubstantiated claims, no supporting data, and the killer: even though a celebrated chemist, Kasha was not one of the acoustics boys.

Kasha enlisted the support and interest of the late Richard Schneider, the Kalamazoo, MI guitarmaking genius. Schneider became for a considerable period of time the main proselytizer of the Kasha system and a fountainhead for a small group of young luthiers and concertizing guitarists that got on board in an attempt to promote and popularize the system. Dismayingly, they were often damned with faint praise, and even treated by some traditionalists over the years as if they were a silly cult.

Several of the later samples that Schneider built, utilizing Kasha's system reportedly were, indeed, impressive sonically--but not extraordinarily so. Even this limited success was attributed not to Kasha, but to Schnieder's personal skill and intuition which, it was believed, could extract excellent results from whichever scheme he might set his mind to. Nonetheless, the proponents of the system claimed a sea-change of improvement to justify the bewildering complexity of the new system.

Listeners and builders simply were not sufficiently impressed to change their ways. Hence, the faint praise. Seemingly, this just stiffened the Kasha clan's resolve: they were determined to pursue the system, hoping to refine it until it fulfilled the promise that they eventually expected from it.

Thirty years later, very little interest remains in the Kasha approach, not that a great deal of interest was ever elicited from the general musician/guitarmaking public. The Kasha system is simply not a subject of discussion or interest in the field any more. Apart from the merits of the system, one of the major factors that contributed to the decline in visibility of the system was the fact that in his later years, up to his death, Richard Schneider stopped using the system. So the main driving force behind the system's general acceptance pretty much died with him. The coterie of younger builders that worked with Richard have gone on to devise personal variations of their system, or just adopted one or two features of the entire system and returned to more traditional forms for the rest of their instruments.

At the height of its interest during the mid-70s, Richard Schneider was an indefatigable proponent of the system and a tireless advocate. He came up to me after showing me a Kasha guitar he called "Wanda" (I thought it a peculiar name at the time), I played it and simply could not hear it well in the large, noisy room. I greatly admired Richard on a personal level, so I felt compelled to say something positive...so I praised it's stunning workmanship. That wasn't the response he was looking for. Visibly irritated, he glared earnestly at me and said: "You're looking at the future!" and turning on his heels, walked away into the crowd with it.

It was this manic energy that drove some to call his interest obsessive, even overbearing. He reportedly dogged this century's greatest grand master of the guitar, Andrés Segovia, to get him to evaluate a Kasha-system guitar. The version of the story that I heard was that the Great One--who rejected modernity in all its forms--resisted what he must have considered his annoying entreaties, but finally consented to try it, just to appease the persistent guitarmaker. Segovia played it and immediately rejected the guitar out of hand.

The rejection just increased Schneider's sense of conviction. Convinced that Segovia's eventual approval would insure the system's universal acceptance, Schneider kept dogging the old man over the next several years with progressively-improved versions of the instrument. Segovia finally accepted and retained a copy. It's unclear whether he liked it or simply that he wanted to put an end to the whole matter. It's my understanding however, that Segovia, up to the date of his death, never performed in public with it. Yet Schneider and his followers believed that they had nonetheless won a major victory for the cause.

About the same time, the victory was counterbalanced by an embarrassing setback: a botched effort to bring the system to the mass market. On the weight of his own considerable reputation, Schneider was able to persuade one of the oldest and largest guitar-making factories in the world, the Gibson Company, to build and market a Kasha-braced instrument. In a conversation with me, Schneider blamed the ensuing fiasco on Gibson marketing executives who insisted the system be inaugurated to the mass public on a line of steel-string folk guitars, rather than on nylon-strung classic guitars, which was what Kasha had originally intended. Regardless of what Schneider later called (in conversations) the impulsive and premature decision to misapply the system, Schneider indeed participated closely in the design, tooling, production and marketing of the Gibson Mark steel-string guitar. The production of the Mark guitart was vastly more complex and difficult than the production of ordinary guitars. The result was a certifiable flop. The Gibson Mark guitar was heavy, ugly and an utter failure sonically. It also suffered from all the worst aspects of guitar mass-production: bad glue-ups, poor materials selection, indifferent workmanship, bad action adjustments...in short, a complete fiasco. Subsequently, Richard tried valiantly to put the whole matter behind him.

Kasha's legacy remains as simply an earnest attempt to redesign the acoustic guitar, in a laudable effort to bring science and art together. Unlike instruments with a far simpler anatomy--such as violins--the guitar's fantastically complex signal response defies easy analysis. I believe that Kasha's attempt to create a system to bend the guitar to his will and Schneider's effort to promote it, was perhaps all an exercise in self-delusion. It was a failure in many ways, a failure most notably assisted by the hide-bound culture of the classic-guitar field at that point in time, not to speak of the peculiar appearance of the instruments themselves.

The Kasha system still resonates occasionally when guitar lovers who hear about it for the first time, are attracted by the "product-differentiation-in-the-marketplace" look of the guitar and not knowing the particulars of its history and the personalities involved, ask for my take on it.

Although my take is that the system fell far short of it's sales pitch, its not to say that the guitar's traditional acoustical anatomy cannot be made more efficient. There are today a small number of builders who are, as we speak, dramatically wringing remarkable changes in the guitar's response. Alan Chapman and Greg Smallman are two builders whose work I'm familiar with, who are achieving impressive results with graphite-reinforced lattice-bracing systems and beefed up soundbox structures. They and others following their footsteps are now consistently producing classic guitars which can aptly be termed "cannons.". The best and brightest guitarists are starting to flock to this new breed of builders, and more and more makers are starting to emulate their success. No button-holing or proselytizing has been necessary. It seems everybody is stealing the idea from them--the sincerest form of flattery.

But with everything that is gained, usually something is lost. For me the warmth and intimacy of the traditional sound is lost on these new shouting instruments, much of the gestalt is gone. The traditional anatomy has enough value for me to only venture tinkering peripherally with it, since I, for one, love it as it is.

Guitar abuse

2011-04-22T11:37:00.001-04:00

Do you do any extra reinforcing on the side in the bend of the cutaway? I was thinking that the bend itself provides some structural rigidity in one sense but that it could also be a weak spot if the guitar were dropped.

Here's my perspective: It's not your responsibility to make the guitar drop-proof. You're making crystal goblets, not cafeteria tumblers. You're not making a back-packing guitar either. What you're making is a delicate eggshell optimized for sound, not rugby. Any treatment other than taking it out of the case, playing it, and putting it back in the case is abuse.

Look at that grain!! IT'S AWESOME...!

2011-03-22T21:21:00.010-04:00

I'm constantly receiving unsolicited mail from tonewood suppliers, with pictures of guitar sets like the one above, usually with stratospheric prices attached. It makes me pause and wonder if it would be a good marketing move to have my next guitar look like a Rohrschach test.

Naah, I'm more of a form-follows-function guy. Bauhaus aesthetics was thoroughly drilled into my head during my early years in art school. Now, when considering an artistic decision, I think back at what my Form and Structure instructor would say. In this case, I can hear him ask, "is a guitar's pure, highly-evolved form so deficient, so uninteresting, that it needs all that pretty stuff lathered onto it?" I know he'd berate all those objet d'art guitars pictured in those upscale wet-dream guitar magazines, dripping with glistening pearl and abalone acanthus leaves and Parthenon scrolls, all slithering up and down the fingerboard and headstock--and drooling over onto the back and sides. He'd berate them in the same way. It's so...it's so...nineteenth century! A guitar's pure form isn't beautiful enough for you? Noo--you gotta trowel on some of that pretty stuff. NOW it's really pretty.

Well maybe the Rohrschach wood is okay 'cause--well, it's nature, isn't it? If its from a burl--like the above--its really cut from a monster knot the wood grows around a wound, or just a vegetable cancer growth. Not exactly the kind of Nature you'd like to warm up to. Or if its wild wood from a stump, it grows that way so the tree won't tip over when the wind blows. So that means all that skittish tension wood should be built into something that absolutely-positively must be dimensionally stable? A fine recipe for an eventual wall-hanging!

When wood gets to look like that sample above, its fiber structure gets to approximate something like oatmeal: nothing like the orderly array of long, relaxed fibers that you imagine all those mathematically-organized harmonics would choose to travel across, unimpeded and unhindered, hither and fro.

No, I know it doesn't do that. I'm just imagining. But I remember what happened in my early days when I thought it would be bitchin' to have crazy wood all over my guitar: I had to super-glue 10,000 splits in the side after bending them, and then several years later I had to replace the back after the plates cycled through several climate changes and seasons, when that cool oatmeal-wood actually began to look like lumpy oatmeal. A bitter lesson: that very kewel oatmeal-wood is not just awesome--it's big trouble.

Are luthiers fetish-makers?

2011-02-22T10:39:00.005-05:00

fetish |ˈfeti sh |nounan inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.• a course of action to which one has an excessive and irrational commitment : he had a fetish for writing more opinions each year than any other justice.• a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc. :Victorian men developed fetishes focusing on feet, shoes, and boots.ORIGIN early 17th cent. (originally denoting an object used by the peoples of West Africa as an amulet or charm): from French fétiche, from Portuguese feitiço ‘charm, sorcery’ (originally an adjective meaning ‘made by art’ ), from Latin factitius (see factitious ).

Lies, damn lies and acoustics I

2011-02-22T10:03:00.023-05:00

What makes a guitar sound good?

For the interested musician or dedicated guitar-making student who seeks to get to the truth about the instrument's nature, the scientific and the popular media have, alas, provided only a muddy minefield.

The field of guitar acoustics has become populated both by sincerely interested speculators who, with little fear and with remarkable facility, pass on untested information as if it were gospel; and a few real experts who usually confine their comments to the scientific literature.

In the scientific journals and professional publications, you will find that when researchers make even the most modest observations, they make them with guarded hesitation--elaborately qualifying them with an eye to the strict rules of the scientific method. They will make their observations about the guitar's behavior only from what is clearly evident from laboriously-generated data. Not a sentence more, not a period less. Thus, guitar enthusiasts searching for enlightenment in the turgid prose of formal acoustical papers (even those that can actually follow them), usually come up with a dry hole.

Large guitar companies, on the other hand, have no such hesitation--all too often, I catch them making shameless claims about their guitars in the popular media--purposely allowing the impression to remain in the public mind that the keys to the mysteries of guitar acoustics are well in the hands of their production managers. Perhaps that, too, is to be expected: many of them must find it irresistible to create impressive sounding, though ultimately vacuous, impressions of their products. After all, who will know the difference?

It is difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff in this matter because even instrument makers themselves (and who else can we turn to?) have created and perpetuated a body of acoustical mythology that pervades the background of acoustical inquiry, like noise. Instrument makers, for all their intuitive skill, usually make very, very poor sources of hard information on guitar acoustics. The vast majority is not trained in acoustics and I'd hazard to say that only a handful could actually define "sound" or explain the behavior and effect of sound waves traveling in air or through solid objects. How many are driven by a profound--or even working understanding of point sources, sound pressure, resonance theory, acoustic declension, near-field holographic interferometry, acoustical damping or standing waves? Hardly a one, myself included.

In truth, they should only be asked about what they do best: create charming cultural artifacts by following patterns and practical strategies passed on to them by their teachers, duplicating the work of past masters whose work--marvelously accomplished, skilled and intuitive work--offers up a treasury of effective problem-solving solutions. To this they add the wisdom gained from their own painful trial and error past experiences--and then, each adds subtle variation to this acquired methodology, the product of their personal inclinations and individuality.

As if this wasn't impressive on its own merits, I nevertheless see too many "guitar authorities" ducking difficult questions by wrapping themselves in the mantle of vague acoustic-science terminology, gulling the un-initiated among us into thinking that they have the sound thing all wrapped up.

For instance, a prominent guitar-making textbook put forth a popular misconception among traditional builders here and abroad: that, starting at the bridge, the guitar creates sound by waves "radiating" away in all directions toward the edges of the guitar, not unlike the effect that follows the dropping of a pebble into still water. That ignores, of course, the fact that the string is coupled to both ends of the guitar, the much-ignored neck as well--making it a significant sound source at certain frequencies. In reality the guitar top--nay, all the guitar's surfaces--wobble and heave in all sort of deceptively fitful ways, in response to the energy interactions occurring between the guitar and its vibrating strings. The explanation also ignores the fact that the guitar's vibrating wall surfaces account for only a fraction of the its total sound production. Yes, the guitar is a fantastically complex vibrating object which defies simple description--and simple descriptions in this case can only be misleading. The least misleading response may be just a shrug.

Yet, I have read in guitar magazines solemn assertions by experienced guitar makers and observers that sound waves travel to all areas of the soundboard via its braces. I call this the "highway" model. For all intents and purposes, though, braces are invisible to the several major low-frequency guitar vibration modes that have been identified on a guitar (there are too many high-frequency vibration modes to individually identify). Then there is the "bass-treble side" model which divides the soundboard into discrete bass and treble halves (each "under the control" of the corresponding bass and treble strings immediately above them). In this scheme, alterations to the bass and treble response of the guitar can be directly manipulated by somehow fussing with or changing the thickness or height--or number--of soundboard struts in the corresponding area. My acoustician friend tell me that's a ridiculous myth, too.

We have also seen the soundboard likened to a trampoline, or requiring its individual parts to be tuned to the notes of a chord so that the instrument's response will take on the sound character of that chord, be it sad or happy or mellow or bright. I kid you not.

These acoustical models are passed on in a good faith effort to educate the public. unfortunately they fly in the face of even the most elementary teachings of vibrational physics. But that doesn't stop the copy writers in the guitar media. For example, in various trade magazines one advertisement boldly claims, "...scalloped, hand tapered 'parabolic' braces not only give an even balance between bass and treble, but give the clarity of tone ordinary bracing cannot achieve." Yikes! Another ad for a mass-market import boasted that the edge bindings on their guitars are made from "natural Maple--this greatly improves tone and acoustic qualities. The rosewood bridge patch transmits more vibes."

So how should a luthier respond to the question of how guitars work...truthfully?

How about,

"the guitar is essentially a cultural artifact which has evolved in form over the centuries in correspondence with the aesthetic preferences and technological level of its times. Essentially, it is a complex resonating system that transforms the kinetic energy of its strings into acoustic energy in the air surrounding it. Very little is known for sure about how it does that. It offers a method for the user to control just the fundamental frequencies of the harmonic components of the acoustic energy of the generated sound field--that is, the pitch of its notes. The builder determines the production of the remaining frequencies--the ones that determine the quality and character of its notes--only to a very limited extent. However, builders can do so only after persistent trial and error and after developing a refined intuitive sense. But the lion's share of the remaining frequencies in the sound field are fixed by cultural factors such as the guitar's accepted form and by the intrinsic elasticity of each of its components."

Although essentially accurate, this description still gives an unsatisfying answer. So a wise skeptic ought rather to view the guitar-maker's work more like a painting or sculpture than as an electronic sound device without batteries. That would be closer to the mark.

Quarter sawn wood vs. rift-sawn vs. vertical grain wood

2011-02-17T10:29:00.006-05:00

The adjective "quarter sawn" is popularly used to describe boards that display its annular rings at 90 degrees to its widest face. Much goodness flows from this vertical grain orientation, particularly in ways that are important to luthiers: stability, stiffness, structural efficiency and on and on. However, in truth, there is actually very little "quarter sawn" wood which actually has vertical grain! So if you go to a lumberyard looking for "quarter-sawn" wood, expecting to find vertical grain boards--expect to be disappointed.

(image credits: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-quartersawn-wood.htm)

The "quarter sawing" strategy is so-called because the log is cut into quarters and then the quarters are all sawed at a 45-degree angle yielding...very little actually vertical grain lumber!!

That's because the purpose of quarter-sawing lumber is not to extract the greatest yield of vertical grain boards. Not at all. The purpose is to maximize the yield of planks with straight-line figure on their wide faces.

Plainsawing yields the greatest yield of lumber, period. It also yields the widest boards. But it produces very few straight-grain-figure boards and very few vertical grain boards. It produces the greatest amount of wavy-grain-figure or "cathedral" figured boards.

Quartersawing yields more waste that plainsawing. It yields more vertical grain boards than plainsawing, but narrower boards. But all the boards it produces are straight-grain-figure boards.

Now look at the rift-sawing diagram. It would appear to yield 100% vertical-grain boards, but with the greatest amount of waste of all. Indeed some sawyers have computerized equipment that rotate the log to maximize vertical-grain boards, leaving much of it however, on the floor as waste. Technically and correctly, that is called rift sawing.

But this is weird: there is widespread confusion as to what rift-sawing actually means. Commonly, "riftsawn" boards are generally considered to be boards...with the annular rigs oriented 30 to 60-degrees--essentially, most anything between flat and vertical. So that is the term of art, although the popular term is technically incorrect.

So much confusion. What to do? Easy. Stop using the wrong and confusing term"quartersawn". Don't specify "quartersawn" when you ask for luthier timbers: specify "vertical grain".

PS. You all know how particular I am about soundboards. I don't go to lumberyards looking for vertical grain spruce, no matter how "vertical" it seems. "Vertical grain" spruce boards are an inferior source of soundboards for luthiers. If you are a follower of the school from whence I came, you only get your soundboards from suppliers who process spruce specifically for stringed instruments--that is, they don't saw planks at all. They buck the logs at predetermined lengths, use wedges to split them apart into blocks and then saw the soundboards off the split faces. Calling the product of this process "quarter-sawn" soundboards is non-sensical. Calling them, say, "split" soundboards is rather more accurate.

Where the rubber hits the road

2011-02-16T18:31:00.005-05:00

I am in the process of finishing a OO 12 fret steel string. When I adjusted the neck angle by adjusting the heel/guitar body joint I ended up with the correct angle per your book page 304 but a gap between the end of the fingerboard and the sound board of 0.060 - 0.080". I suspect this is not uncommon but I am not sure of the best way to deal with this. Just clamp the finger board to the soundboard when gluing the neck in place or shimming the fingerboard extension with an ebony wedge?

This is precisely where the rubber hits the road, vis a vis your building chops. It should all come together: your bridge height and scale length; your fingerboard thickness, how upright your headblock was when you glued your back on, and if your upper transversal face brace had sufficient proper arch. If all those are working precisely and in concert, your fingerboard end will just come down and sit on your soundboard nicely when your neck angle is cut appropriately to your bridge.

The gap you describe is really the total amount of slop that accumulated in all of the above.

If you put a wedge under the fingerboard end, it would look screwy. And that would contravene the Prime Directive: It Can't Look Screwy. On the other hand, you could just glue the fingerboard end down, the most expedient and simple solution. No one will notice, no harm, no foul. It won't look screwy.

But if you try to play beyond your 14th fret, you would probably find it impossible. On a regular guitar, you could say, well, it'll be okay as long as no one plays beyond the 14th fret. But believe me, someone is going to try to play past the 14th fret sooner or later, and then the luthier Gods will punish you.

So what's the solution with the immediate problem at hand? Well if you're lucky, there's the following fix: reset the neck angle for a thinner bridge. That will bring your fingerboard-end down. Were you planning on a 3/8" thick bridge? Well, you're in luck. 3/8" bridges are dogs. 5/16" thick bridges usually work and sound better for anything below Dreadnaught, and even on a Dreadnaught they're better most of the time. Resetting your neck back up is going to move your nut closer to the body, but you can just make up for that when you set your bridge for glueing.

Did you already set the neck angle for a 5/16" bridge. Oh well, that invisible fix is not available. Sorry. You may have to resign yourself with the expedient recourse of just glueing your fingerboard end down to the soundhole.

Next time: make sure your headblock is not allowed to float when you glue the back on. It's real easy to have it rotate a tiny bit when you clamp the back over it. Make sure it is immobilized 100% when you glue the back on.

If it was immobilized, then the chances are that for your scale, you had insufficient arch in your upper transversal face brace. Make note for the next time to add extra arch.

Also make sure your workboard is flat and rigid if it is cantilevered off the edge of the table. That will throw a chunk of randomness into the equation.

Ed.: The fellow reset his neck for a 5/16" bridge and solved his problem!

More thoughts on wood-specie choice

2011-02-13T16:15:00.003-05:00

I'm repeatedly reminded by my experience and research that the choice of wood species plays a rather small effect on the the quality of tone of the guitar made with it.

Excuse me while I duck.

This is an extremely controversial statement in some quarters! I've had to avoid some rhetorical stones thrown at me from makers persuaded to discriminate between a far more narrow list of traditional choices than I.

Regardless, my own perception is that you'd have to posses the ear equal to a spectrographic apparatus to unmistakably discern between a rosewood and a mahogany guitar, let alone between a brazilian rosewood and a thai rosewood guitar. The myth that certain woods are "nobler" than others has been gladly perpetuated by the trade, and as you would guess, the "better-sounding" woods tend to gravitate towards the top of the cost and rarity scale. But I've found over and again, that cost and rarity of the tone woods does not a great guitar insure.

Some recent evidence: I've recently discovered Michigan Sycamore. A student sent me a few sets from a tree that fell in his back yard. Several guitars I subsequently made with that wood rank up with the best-sounding guitars I've ever made. So much for cost and rarity! And the color and figure is as exotic and visually inspiring as the finest Brazilian!

Some older evidence: flamenco guitars. Spanish guitarmakers built Brazilian rosewood guitars for their professional trade, mahogany and walnut guitars for their student trade--and cypress guitars for their holes-in-the-shoe-soles trade. Time was, you could throw a stick in any direction in Spain and hit a cypress tree. The Spanish Roma were the dispossessed population and cypress was literally the cheapest building material you could obtain. The two were joined in flamenco guitars and the rest is history.

Cypress is a conifer--a softwood--a light, foamy-textured gymnosperm, like spruce. Rosewood, of course, is an angiosperm--a dense, glassy hardwood. Totally different fiber and vessel orientation. Nothing more contrasting in density, tambour, texture--you name it--than cypress. Rosewood had to be brought on galleons from Brazil, swapped for barrels of Port wine from Portugal, then sold in Spain as imported lumber or as furniture that was later deconstructed by luthiers to make high-end guitars with. Cypress was sawn from trees in the guitar maker's backyard or cousin's field, where for centuries, long lines of cypress trees divided fields up and served as windbreaks.

Clearly the choice of woods for the fabled flamenco guitars was not made to please guitar "connoisseurs"--it was made to satisfy the pocketbooks of the low-income populace. Yet for at least two centuries, the Spanish Roma created legends of musical history with these knotty, figure-less, "expedient" woods.

I look upon flamenco guitars as guitars with soundboxes made entirely of soundboard material. Is it thus an instrument lesser in grandeur of tone than their rosewood cousins? Is their tone dimmer? Is their musical status inferior? If you believe that, you must listen to a flamenco guitar some day.

So this guitarmakers advice would be to cast away historic prejudices in this regard. Widen your horizons as well as your experience. Go forth and save the rain forests. Check your own back yard. It's safe.

Are larger guitars necessarily louder?

2011-02-13T16:08:00.005-05:00

I have not found any real-life evidence to support the popular assertion, "larger guitars are louder guitars." Larger guitars seem simply to have an expanded bass range, usually at the expense of its treble response. My acoustician-mentor Tim White maintained that smaller guitars express their acoustic power in the voice range, to which the ears are more sensitively tuned. That very well may explain why many well-made small guitars can seem to be extraordinarily loud. I can demonstrate that effect with several sub-0 size (also known as parlor or "Ditson") guitars I've made in my shop with students. These 13-14-inch guitars are becoming very popular nowadays, ever since, seemingly, Sting appeared on YouTube with his "baby Ditson". They are ever bit as loud and satisfying to play as any good, large guitar--perhaps even a shade louder. I find the trick is to keep the string scale the same length as you would on a larger guitar. The old parlor guitars tended to sound weak and wimpy, I feel, because their small size was always paired with sub-sized string scales. Pair up a parlor-sized soundbox with a Dreadnaught scale, and you've got yourself a potential small cannon--I've found, and repeatedly.

My soundbox goes dead right after routing for bindings

2011-02-13T15:44:00.003-05:00

The book you wrote with Mr. Natelson is an invaluable source of informations and suggestions, as well as your website and blog. Let me say that, besides the strictly technical guitarmaking teaching, I do appreciate your radical intellectual integrity, refusing any kind of shortcut in the making method and in particular in the "skills building" process. Yes I know, this way everyting is a bit harder, and sometimes discouraging... well, for these and other reasons: thank you. ok, ok... let's get in topic...

After routing the binding ledges (7 x 2 mm) I noticed the tone of the soundbox had dramatically changed. this seems reasonable to me, since the routing process removes material at the nodal point of the oscillation, allowing a larger vibration (is it right?). after binding and purfling installation the intial tone was almost recovered, however with substantial changes. so the question is: do you think that the binding choice (material, dimensions) and installation can affect in a relevant manner the final tone of the instrument? If not, can you imagine I did something wrong in my binding installation process?

I honestly don't know for certain. My guess is that since routing the binding usually reveals a number of gaps or holes at the corners that permit air into and out of the soundbox, usually at the spots where the transversal top and back braces meet with the sides (and especially when individual tentellones are used), this creates a lot of air leaks around the rims. The principal of an ordinary resonator requires a single point of escape for the air which is trapped inside the soundbox, and if you pierce a resonator of any sort with countless small openings, all the acoustic pressure gets dissipated instead of focused. Thus--I theorize--the soundbox goes dead when you tap it after routing the perimeters off. A resonator shot full of holes is no longer a proper resonator.

Apparently, binding the guitar subsequently plugs all the small gaps and openings around the rim, and the guitar now can clearly resonate all the frequencies that are are excited when you tap it. I don't wish to speculate as to what the ultimate effect is on the finished guitar's tone. However, it's fair to say that the soundboard has changed in a fundamental way from that of a clamped plate to that of a hinged plate after it has been bound and it is thus freed to vibrate at a considerably lower frequency and greater amplitude than it could before the binding mortises were routed. I imagine that's why the soundbox sounds louder, clearer and deeper-pitched when you tap it after it is bound. No doubt scraping the bindings reduces the thickness somewhat also around the rim, freeing even further the lower-frequency response of the entire soundbox.

Disclaimer: I have no proof of any of this nor, I'm sure, has anyone else. I've only described my reflections on the subject. I can already hear the sounds of skeptics claiming that I'm all wet because guitars with multiple soundholes seem to resonate just fine. Okay, fair enough: I would hasten to ask these folks what happens when you route the edges of these multiple-soundhole guitars, does the same deadening drop in resonance occur? Their response would be revelatory: it would enlighten us as to the differences between the resonance of a given soundbox with one full-size soundhole, one with several smaller soundholes, one with a second sizable soundhole cut out of the ribs (a feature gaining popularity nowadays)---and a series of many smaller air leaks around and just beneath the perimeter of the top and back plates--as what happens after you rout for bindings. And the results of this inquiry...alas, will inevitably lead to even more questions....

My simplified steel-string bracing design

2011-02-13T15:35:00.006-05:00

I noticed a picture of an elegantly braced guitar top on a forum that was credited to you (heres a link to the forum if you're interested).

It certainly shows some Cumpiano characteristics, though has only 1 lower face brace and 1 finger brace each side, is it one of your later tops? Obviously it differs from the standard in this respect, and it got me wondering (if in fact it is one of your tops) how you have developed your craft over the years? For example, does a later Cumpiano guitar show any character of sound that differs from an early one? Has there been any particular character found wanting in an instrument (eg unbalanced treble/bass response, lack of sustain etc) that you have made steps in subsequent instruments to correct? From what I have read on your blogs you seem to aim for 'less weight' regarding guitar tops - has this led to any changes in bracing design striving for better efficiency and 'improved' performance or have you just refined your approach through every step required and arrived at where you are?

My bracing scheme has indeed evolved from 1984, when I wrote the book (I had been making guitars for 11 years already when I wrote the book) to now (27 years later). When I wrote the book I was closer in time to the modalities of the workshop where I learned my trade, and the way I learned to build guitars in the Gurian Workshops when I left there in 1974 remained evident in the book I wrote in 1984. Those guitars indeed were considerably heavier-braced and heavier-built in general than the guitars I've been making more recently--because over the years I have become more confident in the soundness of my own thinking about guitar design, and I have since broken away from those earlier designs in many respects. That photo you sent is indeed typical of how I brace steel-string soundboards today.

The guitars I was making in the mid eighties with the design philosophy of my teachers were more stoutly built in every regard. Their sound was pleasing and they were commercially successful. But they had a rigidity and opacity that began to trouble me, as my experience broadened and I realized that the guitars that inspired me with their surrounding, airy, crystalline, transparent sound--were without fail all exceedingly light in weight, and their bracings spare and minimal. As I studied the work of many of the past grand-masters of the craft, particularly those in the classical guitar world, I became aware of a factor that has since colored my approach, and is the philosophy that I now teach and espouse: "minimally adequate structure." It is actually a design philosophy well known to architects and bridge builders, who know very well that the most successful structure is the least: every once of material beyond that which is necessary to support the load is working to bring it down. I heard Erwin Somogy say it best: "The greatest guitars are built right on the cusp of collapse." I believe that the guitar is a loaded structure like an airplane or a suspension bridge. In the guitar's case, where minute and instantaneous changes in string tension are actually the string's signal--it's become my perception that any degree of mass or stiffness beyond that which is necessary to successfully support the string load--is working to mask or impede the signal. So I began to remove the elements of the guitar that were just there for the ride, and reducing the critical load-bearing components to their minimal dimension--as derived by trial and error.

The result is that I've achieved the goal of open airiness in the sound that I set out to find. But I wouldn't say that the earlier schemes were inferior--just that my guitars sound different now, and closer to my own sensibilities than to those of my early mentors. Let's just say that my stews taste different than those stews by the cooks that I originally learned from.

Acoustical effects of the classical closing bars

2011-02-13T15:30:00.003-05:00

I certainly take your point about the sound of a guitar being a function of the integrated WHOLE. But in arranging fan bracing on the classical guitar, I wonder if you could explain how one decides to use closing bars or not. What part of the acoustical whole do the closing bars affect? Your book seems to take the issue for granted (installing them), while other makers have gone both ways. Can you explain what general differences come about?

All bracing designs are the result of the personal notions of their makers--or the notions of the teachers of their makers, without any science or data whatsoever to back them. There is simply no way to document--or for that matter, to express--what the effect is on the "acoustical whole" of any particular element of the guitar's anatomy. Sorry.

You may have to inquire elsewhere. But I suspect you are likely to get a less candid answer.

Outdoor guitarmaking

2010-03-10T09:45:00.005-05:00

My name is Uri, and I am trying to make an steel string guitar with your book as my guide. The only place I can work in is a semi-open balcony, in which I have no means of controlling the humidity level. I purchased an unserviced kit from lmii, and let it acclimate for some time in that semi-open space. When I got around to handling the top yesterday (about two months after their arrival, and after a heavy raining storm last week - now it's suddenly summer) - it was all curled up. My back and sides, of curly maple, are in about the same condition. I can get a pretty reasonable glue joint in the middle of the plates, but I'm quite sure it'll cause me trouble down the road when I plane the plates to thickness. I really don't know of a way to get around this, and also don't really know if there's any major change in humidity in the near future as I'm at mother nature's mercy. I would really appreciate your response or any input on that matter.

If you're keeping your plates face down on flat surface, like a table top, you are exposing the up-face to the weather and shielding the down-face...so the plate will curl. Try flipping them over and waiting for a day or so to see if they flatten by themselves (if left too long, they might continue to curl in the opposite direction and actually reverse). So keep an eye on them, and when they flatten, instead of keeping them flat face-down on a table, tip them upright against a vertical surface (or hang them with clips from a stretched string, like the Spaniards do). The point is to have to freely expose both faces to the air. When you finish working with them instead of laying them flat, tip them upright or hang them.

But a very likely outcome is that if you build your guitar in the outdoors in a changeable climate, when you bring your finished guitar indoors, especially to a period of dry weather, the guitar will probably crack or distort. You can bet on it. And curly maple, especially if it is flat sawn is, among all the guitar-woods the most reactive of all to humidity changes. I don't know where you live, but if it is rainy and warm in the summer and cold and dry in the winter, your guitar is likely to become a small time bomb waiting to pop.

I know this will happen because I am from Puerto Rico and all the folk instrument makers work outdoors. But in Puerto Rico, the tropical weather doesn't change during the year: it's always warm and steamy. So after they are made, the folk instruments remain fairly stable. But when travelers bring those water-soaked sponges to the Northeast United States with its long, cold, dry winters and artificially heated apartments, the instruments invariably shrink, twist and crack dramatically.

What species has the greatest impact?

2010-02-03T11:31:00.002-05:00

Everything I read (and people I talk with) suggests that, although there are a seemingly infinite number of contributors to sound, the top wood has the single largest impact.

Let me guess: none of those you read or talked with that told you that the top wood has the "single largest impact" specified what kind of impact they were talking about, nor what precisely about the top wood was making the impact, nor for that matter, specified what was being impacted, by the soundboard.

Am I right?

The impression you must have received was that just that somehow, some kind of "good" flowed from making some kind of "good choice" about the soundboard. Kind of vague, right? The advice sounded pretty convincing (after all, the strings sit right on the soundboard, right?), but it nevertheless left you with that funny feeling that you had been given important information, but you didn't know whether you were smarter now after knowing it--or not.

The advice must not have been so enlightening, because here you are asking me to confirm or decipher it for you.

Welcome to the world of guitar lore.

If you're interested in eventually making consistently good guitars, my first advice is to a) learn to recognize lore when you hear it and then b) disregard it.

How can you distinguish what is lore? If the source is a person, ask, "how have you come to that conclusion?" He better sound very convincing to your well-developed skepticism. If it's something written, if it is couched in broad, vague generalities ("the top wood has the largest impact"), put all the red flags up. There's nothing to be learned here.

There is no "best" soundboard wood specie, so don't waste your time trying to find which one it is. There is no "best" bracing pattern, so, likewise. There is no "best" body wood, so, likewise. And so forth. So what makes the greatest "impact" ?

Precision of construction

Quality of cut and seasoning of materials

Precision of scale and saddle placement; uniformity of fretwork

Architectural choices: i.e. structural efficiency and minimal adequate structure

Closely following precedents set by cultural models

The precedent set by cultural models is, with a very few exceptions, coniferous softwoods. The precedent is vertical grain, resulting from the plates being sawn from a split billet. The demands of woodworking excellence is that the workpiece be scrupulously well-seasoned. There is no precedent for species.

The illusion of tap tuning

2010-01-11T19:20:00.005-05:00

It's the most mysterious and compelling aspect of the guitarmaker's craft--the one that commands the greatest mystique and controversy, particularly among neophytes: the mythic skill claimed by, and claimed of, some older luthiers, the skill of consistently being able to impose the optimum "quality" of tone [whatever that means] into a guitar during its construction by selectively removing material--usually from the soundboard--until it elicits a particular response. This purported conversation between the dead wood and luthier savants is often described as "tuning" or "tap tuning" the top, and is described by those claiming to be able to teach that the optimum moment arrives when the top rings at a certain musical note, or as admittedly I once thought, twenty-five years ago and declared, no note at all.

I've often reported my conviction here that this is a sad illusion that these people are laboring under--as reading a number of earlier posts in this blog will testify. Well, I'm admitting here that there was a chink in my certainty all along. The fact that I seemed to be a lone voice opposing the din, the only one speaking with any kind of conviction on this, made me a little concerned that I may be wrong. Was there no one to corroborate my perception that I was sane and the rest of the world was crazy?

Well then, imagine my sheer delight in listening to none other than the "last of the great Spanish luthiers", the great maestro Jose Romanillos. There he was, in a youTube video, an ocean away, echoing my thoughts, as if reading from a script that I could have written for him, myself: in his modest and gentle way, he was saying, like I do, that tuning is an illusion, and the only over-arching "secret" to making great guitars is... striving to achieve minimal adequate structure!

It takes a lot of guts and knowledge to take this piece of wood down to the bare minimum. And Hauser, with the traditional regularity of thought, the strength, the rigidity, all things--he couldn't really go further in his thicknessing of the wood as the Spaniards. And that is because the bass resonance of the Hauser--it hasn't got to the level of the...if you listen to the first recording of Segovia in 1912, Ramirez, Santos Hernandez, the bass is...deep. And the Hauser never got that resonance, never got to that level. And that is precisely--this is my opinion, for what it's worth--because he didn't quite go a step farther into that situation

Then, in the video, Erwin Somogyi appears for an instant, asserting that:

I like the adage that the best guitars are built at the cusp of disaster. Which means that--just strong enough to hold together. So that they're maximally able to respond without breaking.

Well that's odd, from what I understand, that's not exactly what he teaches. In other similar youTube videos he advocates tap tuning.

Then Romanillos continues:

..there is a lot of talking about tuning the guitar to G, G sharp and all that. Because some of the innovative guitars, they are tuned to that. And they haven't got the quality that is required for the classical guitar.

There is a lot of speculation about tuning the soundboard to a specific frequency. And that, it cannot be done on the open [plate]. And when you put it on [the guitar], the thing changes. What happens is that some guitars for some reason sound better, or people think they sound better. But what happens, that's the area where the normal guitar, the resonance of the normal Spanish guitar concentrates in the space of about 10 or 12 cycles (gestures up and down) and that is it.

But you cannot control that. It happens by, if you like, by natural resources, that the guitar is built up to that set of frequencies.

And when some people think, it hits there, its a good sound. Well, I don't think that is because if you could tune anything to G sharp or G and not produce the sound quality.

I read somewhere that Herman Hauser used to sit on a chair with a jug of beer and get the guitar in tune by taking [off] here and you know, there, pieces and scraping. I think that is to me, total nonsense.

People today, they finish the guitar and then they tune the guitar by, with a little plane, taking a piece from the bass...and that sort of thing, until they get the resonance they think [is good]. Well it could work to a specific frequency, but we haven't got to, we haven't acquired enough knowledge to produce, or more or less control, fixed resonance. And all this is open...it's good in a way, because it creates a field for people to think about it, you know...but there is you know, you could really change [the soundboard] by scraping.

There. Well said. I swear I didn't write his script.

And believe me I don't want to rag on Erwin or rain on his parade. Erwin makes beautiful guitars. But there were people who built beautiful guitars who believed that it was their mastery of numerology that gave you them power to achieve consistent perfection. Or deflection tests. Or like Jimmy d'Aquisto said, he made oval soundholes because it caused the sound to squirt farther, like pinching a hose.

The aspiring guitarmaker's dilemma

2009-10-21T11:24:00.004-04:00

I cannot thank you enough for your book and online articles. I have dedicated countless hours to those words of instruction. I wish to ask for your advice on a concern of mine, but first I want to set the stage from where my questions arise.
When I was considering building guitars I interviewed a guitar maker in San Francisco about what he thought of the craft and the business. His words were "Don't do it! You will lose your house and family, everything you care about... become a doctor or something." At the time I wasn't married nor did I own a house so of course I decided to move back to Southern Illinois to build guitars. I found a good day job to pay the bills and proceeded into seven years of learning to build acoustic guitars. My autodidactic nature proved to be a good fit.
I built guitars like tanks at first. They were not dreadnoughts, just dreadful. They did get better. After seven years of absolute gut wrenching euphoric devotion I discovered how little I knew and that it would probably take another 5-10 years of practiced learning before I could actually start selling them. But that's when my first daughter was born. My devotion to her won out over guitars and I stopped building so that I would not miss being a parent for those early years.
After almost six years of not being in the shop I feel it is time to return to building, but now feel the responsibility of caring for my family financially. Those ominous words I heard years ago from the disgruntled guitar builder still ring in my ears. My relationship to guitars has never been one of a side hobby. It is either all or nothing. The process takes everything I have. In doing so I, look forward to a possible day that I could make an income. I use to feel that I had a lifetime to devote to the craft, but with the family there is now a sense of urgency upon me to make the right choice. Now for the questions...
In these rather scary economic times is guitarmaking a viable choice? The market seems to be flooded with well-made guitars both factory and handmade. Is there still a market for all of them? Or is this recent golden age of instrument construction taking a downward turn in terms of sales. It seems a solid number of the luthier's websites have vanished. I wish I could give up all hope of fruition and just focus on the moment of building, but will that ever provide for the basics of food in mouth, roof over head. Of course it depends on whether or not I could be a highly skilled competent builder with something to offer, but lets consider that true for the questions at hand. I come from a long line of craftsmen and want to continue the tradition. There is a fork in the road here.
I respect your work and life immensely and am asking for some feedback as to the current state of affairs in the guitar world. Thank you.

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Your dilemma arises in your viewing this as an either-or, all-or-nothing proposition. "Either I drop everything to become a prominent, successful, famous and wealthy guitarmaker, or cast this foolish, impossible dream from my mind forever and go back to making widgets for a living." Sounds silly when put that way, doesn't it?

Fact: given the required time and the required persistence you can eventually make glorious and coveted guitars.
Fact: at any given time there will be guitar makers better than you, that is, far more experienced and established.
Fact: luthier-made guitars are not a necessity like toilet paper or food. They are more like a sacramental fetish object, an object of desire and mystery. Only a subset--a surprising large subset--of the population can play a guitar. They live all over the World. There's a rising horde of millions of them in China alone. But within that subset, there is another subset that covets them, desires them, dreams of them. New people are daily joining that subset-within-a-subset. That subset will move heaven and earth to obtain the object of their desire.
Fact: within THAT subset, there's the fifteen people a year that are willing to pay you $5-10,000 for your guitar. Not a Taylor, not a Martin, not a Collings. Your guitars. 10-15 guitars: that's a living. And that is your potential market. You don't have to find enough buyers to buy 100 guitars a day, like Martin must; or 1000 guitars a day, like Goden does. Just 15 guitars a year, a decent living. Not getting rich, mind you, but enjoying a high-status, moderate income job. If you have have rich tastes and like to overindulge yourself. THEN forget it.
Fact: those 15 guitar cravers are looking for something different, something that they can't get from a Martin or a Taylor. It could be just a look, or a size, or a feel, a shape, a sound. You must be patient enough to wait until you find that market, and that market finds you. In other words, you have to find and work yourself into a sparsely-populated niche where you excel, and wait till those who find that niche attractive, find you. It's a lot like the music business, no? Or...just the business business.
Fact: You won't be able to create that coveted niche product by next week. Or the next. But given the required time and the required persistence you will find that niche and that niche product.
Fact: I know, easily, several dozen people with your same passion. And a day job. They see the day job as a valuable asset, because it buys them the time to incrementally find that niche and excel in it. They don't see it either-or. They've joined their dream with reality. They've made their passion, their calling, a practical pursuit. Sure, some of them have since thrown up their hands and went, naaaah--*&(^k -it.
But they were the ones that were not called.
You seem to express the similar "fire-in-the-belly" that I had when I began. But I began thirty-five years ago where virtually all the guitars being made and sold in the United States came from large factories. I also had the unlikely privilege as a 20-year old of being paid while I learned. Once on my own, my business grew with little competition. It was easy to stand out in a world that consisted of just a handful of individual builders working hundreds, if not thousands of miles separated from each other. Now aspirants to the profession face a completely different market, a market crowded with dozens of builders in every state who are more experienced than you are, many with a developed market and an efficient operation--which you have yet to develop, let alone just learn how to make a consistent and attractive product. So you are facing a different set of obstacles than I had to. But I had obstacles of my own to overcome, you can be sure of that. The world thought I was crazy and self-indulgent, for one. I had to suffer poverty for a dozen years, for another. But I persisted.
Having said that, as an artist, I'd be the last to urge you to abandon your passion for prudence. I developed as a guitarmaker while casting aside any care, notice or fear of the immense impracticality of it all. If I had thought of all the practical and prudent reasons for dumping this silly dream I could easily have persuaded myself out of it and would be retiring now, 30 years later, from an industrial design office (my degree was in Industrial Design) with a hefty pension (or maybe a string of layoff notices) and a heart problem. But I kept my blinders on and persisted. And the world rewarded me for that single-mindedness and persistence: I finally made a creative, self-directed life doing what I loved and received a measure of security, recognition and a lot of good will for it.

So I would have to tell you that there are probably as many good reasons today to drive you away from pursuing a career in guitarmaking as there were 35 years ago for me--just different reasons, unique to today's world. But knowing what I know now, if I started today, I would NOT set my goal to be independently wealthy and successful as a guitarmaker-superstar--but simply to educate myself in how to make unique and beautiful instruments, consistently and efficiently. Not to become Eric Clapton's guitarmaker, but for the sheer power that that knowledge in and of itself bestows--and the soaring feeling of accomplishment when you look back and remember those clunky dreadnoughts and what transpired between then and the sonorous, light and enchanting instruments which you will be producing. If indeed that is your goal--your self-transcendence as a creative artist--you will indeed find your unique niche in this now-crowded field.

To dome or not to dome

2009-07-03T11:27:00.004-04:00

Hello William, I have this doubt I cannot wait for another month. Suppose we have two identical tops, same thickness, same rigidity. Let's say they are clone of each other. One you build flat or with a slight arch on the lower face brace (as described in your book), the other one is built on a concave dish (I started to use one). Do you think you need the same bracing? Or, in other words, if you use the same bracing on the two tops, do you think you will get the same results? I am asking because I started to use a concave dish. I like the result better, but I suspect that the top is much stiffer this way and using the same bracing as built flat, will inhibit vibrations. I am not sure, but this is an aspect where I notice a difference. It might be one of those macroscopic aspects you were telling me.

Grazie, Enrico

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It is very hard to answer your question in a helpful way. You're presupposing that there is a "good" stiffness opposed to a "bad" stiffness. But how do you ascertain or quantify those two? How do you predict or evaluate the results of the two? How can you be certain that the difference in sound is the result of that particular difference in construction? Do you know precisely how much stiffer the top becomes when you impart a "slight" dome to it? How would you measure that? How would you evaluate the results in a way that can facilitate a clear choice? In practical terms, the question is moot, unanswerable. There is no "tipping point", but shades of gray. You have to be very careful of assuming you may ultimately be able to master the "science" of something which is essentially a cultural artifact, that ultimately is to be evaluated subjectively.

The universal consensus is that the lower transversal needs to be slightly arched. It is a matter of opinion, however about the value of imparting a "dome" to the area below. I don't do that, so I cannot advocate or dismiss that technique. I'm not even sure how gluing the fans against a hollow form actually succeeds in doming the soundboard. Does it? Does it dome it more than just the residual dome resulting from the curved transversal? Does glueing together two elastic components while both are pushed against a curved surface impart a permanent curve into the results? How permanent? You would imagine it does. But...does it? Then, what results when the entire elastic assembly is subjected to 43 kilograms of string tension? What happens to your minuscule dome then?

Assuming it actually succeeds in doming the soundboard, you would imagine that the bridge would then have to be hollowed to conform to the curve--closely. Then you would also have to curve the bridge block used temporarily underneath the top to clamp the bridge to it while it's glued, in order not to disturb that careful dome. That means the bridge is now sitting higher than it would be on a flatter top. the fretboard inclination would have to account for that.

I'm too lazy to do all this, especially since the advantage of the extra work is inconclusive, or unprovable, and when too many world class guitars just aren't made that way. My philosophy is, also, that the simplest solution is more often the best solution.

But if you believe that the domed workboard gave you better results---go with it!!! Perhaps the dome thus imparted is interacting synergistically with some other aspect of your sequence and design that you may not be (and perhaps will never be) aware of. All you have, really is your belief. Or, you can fritter away your concentration imagining impossible scientific experiments that perhaps may illuminate the quandary. But I think that is an illusion. Those thought experiments (two perfectly cloned tops, one made one way, the other made the other way...which would be "better?") I can't image to be ultimately very productive.

Go with your belief. That is what is called intuition: following the path which you cannot prove will be successful before hand. And my experience is that your intuition gets better the more you exercise it. If you domed your last top and didn't "compensate" with the stiffness of the bracing--and the results were clearly positive--assume it was because of what you did differently, or at least know that you did no harm, so keep doing it and be content and turn to something else on the agenda. It is the habit of modern man to want to KNOW before proceeding. But you often cannot Know. And must proceed.

All I know is that my guitars became consistently successful--by the responses I get from clients--after making many of them--and relying on my intuition. Your initial success evidenced by the acceptance of your last guitar by a discerning musician, is the product of your trusting your instincts and then following them with persistence.

An imagined problem

2009-06-28T13:48:00.004-04:00

I recently bought Guitarmaking Tradition and Technology, as I will be building my first classical guitar once I've tooled up for the job. The book is great...love it to bits! Thank you so much. :~)

Perhaps you would clarify something to do with the build process that is nagging at me a bit? It is to do with joining the back and top to the sides. In your book you show the sides/lining being sanded with a large flat board, giving a flat surface. Yet the top and back are radiused, meaning they will contact the sides at an angle. The thing that is nagging at me is that this would give a rather small joining surface between the sides and the back/top. Perhaps the effect of the radius over the distance of the side thickness and lining that serves as the gluing surface is so small that it doesn't matter? Am I on the right track?

I hope you will indulge an old fool with his silly questions.
====================

Smart people are the ones that ask the questions. Silly old fools think they know it all already.

I understand why you find a problem that ought to exist, in your mind's eye. But in practical real-world terms, it simply does not exist as a problem. Guitars have been made for eons without the elaborate CAD/CAM domed sanding shells that the suppliers would just love to sell you to satisfy those imagined "common sense" problems. If every thing on the guitar was rigid as glass there might be a problem. But wood is elastic and the offset from flat of a 1/4-inch segment of a 15 or 16-inch chord of a very, very large circle is next to negligible and what there is flexes under pressure to come together and adhere permanently. So my advice is to worry about other things, and put that to rest.

Twelve-string setup

2009-03-03T13:17:00.002-05:00

I have a question for you about 12 strings guitar set up.
I do not have much experience in playing and setting up 12 strings guitars.

I am setting up a 12 strings guitar and I have found that is difficult to
press two strings, on the same row, that have different diameter with the
same pressure. So I find that if I press the fifth row of strings (0,039 - 0,018) I am able
to press the 0,039 string well but the 0,018 not so well and it rattles
because it is not pressed well. This happens also for the third, fourth an sixth rows (less in the sixth). This guitar has good action (1/16 & 3/32 at 12 fret).

1. Is it possible to reduce this difficulty installing higher frets (this
guitar has 0,04" tall frets).

2. Is it possible to reduce it setting each string row more apart?
(each row is more or less 1/16 apart at the nut and 3/32 apart at the
saddle). Which distance do you recommend?

3. Do you think that it is better to cut nut slots with different height in
the same row to gain more comfortable action at the first fret?

That's all.
I Hope you will find the time to answer me.

========================================================

The greatest clarity of sound on a 12-string is the not the result of fret height, or in a difference of slot-depth at the nut for each member of the string-pairs. In your case I see the following difficulties:

1- There is no getting around that a 12 string player has to develop more grip strength than a 6-string player. A beginning 12-string player will have clarity problems no matter what the string spacing or string set up is, until the player realizes that more muscle pressure is necessary to press both strings down firmly for a clear sound. It takes specific hand skills to play a 12-string expertly. So be assured that a weaker player will undoubtedly complain about clarity no matter how expertly made or set up the 12 string is. So as a builder or repair man, you must be ready for that dilemma and not blame yourself exclusively.

2- Your strings are indeed too closely spaced at the nut, if they are 1/16 inch (1.6 mm). That can also contribute to a lack of clarity if the strings clash together, the smaller string being overpowered by the larger. At the nut, the optimum spacing is an average of 3/32, with the trebles a tiny bit less and the basses a tiny bit more. At the bridge, the diameter of the bridge pins is a limiting factor, since it is not good practice to cut grooves into the saddle. However if your pins are very fat, you may make a clearance notch in the bridge pins to insure that the optimum spacing between the pairs is 1/8 inch.

3- Your action height is too low. The thinner string will be the first to be dampened when it strikes the frets. So what is the optimum height? Optimum is the highest action possible, given the limits of the players strength, that is, not so low that the strings jangle and rattle on the frets, yet not so high that the player can't press them all the way down. That's the dilemma: a beginning player will complain of difficult action even at a very low setting, which then makes the strings easily contact the frets; then complain about the lack of clarity. Expert 12-string players have a well-developed grip, but also have developed an instinctive ability to press the strings appropriately and efficiently no matter what the string height. But given the choice, they prefer a high action to a low because they are strong enough to overcome it, and it gives them a better tone and a wider dynamic range.

So the 12 string is not an appropriate instrument for a weak or beginning 6-string guitarist. So don't let them blame you for their own lack of development. You learn to play the 12 string guitar AFTER you have become a competent 6-string player. If a weak beginner insists on playing with a very low action, they must accept a sizzly, jangly, unclear sound until they become strong enough to play with a raised action.

If Ramirez does it, shouldn't I ?

2009-02-12T09:55:00.003-05:00

I noticed that you don't use the ebony stripe that goes in the neck. You never even talked about it. I was advised to put one in my necks for stability. Should I use it? I don't have power tools, so it is a pain to insert an ebony (or rosewood) stripe in the neck. What do you think?

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I see these ebony center lamination on Ramirez' guitars, and think, "well, they should know." But no amount of reasoning can persuade me that it is useful for neck "stability". Mahogany is far more stable (lower in reactivity to environmental changes) than ebony. The mahogany neck, which is rather large and massive when compared to that of a thinner and narrower steel-string neck, is well up to the task of withstanding the modest tension forces imposed by nylon strings: barely 36 kg--and only half of that, since the neck bears one half of the stressed string, the soundbox bears the other half. So if "stability"is defined as low-reactivity to environmental changes, it just doesn't seem helpful to put a stripe of very-reactive ebony down the center of exceedingly-unreactive mahogany neck to "enhance" it's stability. If "stability" is defined as low deflection, the ebony strip--which is denser and stiffer than mahogany is over-kill. If deflection of the mahogany neckshaft were a problem, we would see action rising as a result of the neck curving or bending under stress. But I've never seen that on a nylon string guitar. Action rising as a result of string tension has always seemed to result from a stretching of the soundbox, and a rotation of the rigid neck at the neck-body junction, not a curving or bending of the neck shaft.

I can, however, read into the ebony center-strip an effort to perhaps harness or modify the acoustic response of the instrument. Trying to think here, like the very talented folks at Ramirez, I find it entirely reasonable to propose (not affirm) that stiffening the neck--not for structural reasons, but for acoustic reasons--reflects the strings' wave energy towards the far-more compliant soundbox. Or that damping the neck to modify the tone, hopefully in a positive manner. The neck's total mass, stiffness, and inertia is an important variable in the guitar's tone production. Adding an ebony strip down the middle creates a new variable, and for Ramirez' perhaps, for them, a reasonable justification for inserting an ebony center strip.

Why NOT glue?

2009-02-12T09:40:00.005-05:00

I'm readying myself for a classical guitar, and I've noticed in your book that you do not recommend gluing the sides into the headstock slots. This would seem to compromise stability between the neck and the body in the finished product. What are the pros and cons of this practice, and would I be making a serious mistake if I glued the joint?

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I'm not sure what you mean by "stability", but when you consider that everything converging on the neck joint is tightly glued, save for the sides in the slot, the system ends up being completely "stable" regardless of whether the sides are glued into the slot or not. Setting aside the basic woodworking no-no against gluing onto end-grain, there are good, practical reasons for not gluing the side into the slot. But the best solution depends on the quality of fit that you can achieve, of the side into slot.

The ideal would be that the slot/side clearance offered a glove-fit to the side. The seam would be tight and the side rattle-free. In that case, it would be a disaster if you then attempted to include glue into the slot along with the side. You'd have an instant to properly position the side into the slot before it became permanently locked as the side and the slot swelled by a tiny amount. Try it on scrap, you'll see. If it slides in with no wobble, it'll lock virtually instantly when you slide it in with glue. Another bad thing would be if any glue were to be squeezed out on the show side, it would be unsightly and difficult to completely remove.

I happen to be able to control my slot and side widths so I can achieve a glove fit--one which require no glue. Many experienced builders such as myself do not glue the slot in also, but they've also learned from bitter experience that if you do use glue, you need to cut a generous clearance-fit to avoid the hydraulic locking problem. But then a generous clearance can lead to a visible gap on the show side, which is structurally trivial but visually, very disconcerting. So the solution for builders who don't have the resources to consistently produce a glueless glove-fit between slot and side is to cut a rather wide slot for a wobbly fit; then during assembly, they slide a tapered veneer wedge, with glue, behind the side in the slot. This pushes the side against the slot wall on the show side. And everything is glued together so your "stability" worry is relieved.

But try gluing a side into a tight slot only at your peril! You may loose both your side and your neck in the process.

Is Adirondack REALLY superior to Sitka?

2009-01-28T22:36:00.021-05:00

What I am wondering is, do our ears really have the sensitivity to tell the difference between the tone of an Indian Rosewood back over a Brazilian Rosewood back?

To simplify, is a rosewood species equivalent, in general, when it comes to tone? Likewise, is mahogany species a mahogany tone. Now I understand that density can play and overall role in tone but are the variations in the same genus or even the same species significant enough to say that one is superior over the other? Are we paying for "appearances" when it comes to rosewoods (for example) or is there really an argument for unique tone?

Also, is a soundboard like Adirondack really superior to sitka? Can our ears really notice it? Is bearclaw sitka really superior to standard sitka? I played a dreadnaught with an adirondack top and indian rosewood back at it was indeed a canon compared to some other Sitka/Rosewood dreads I have played. Can that experience really be due to Adirondack spruce or am I falling prey to the "myths" and my ears are hearing what they think they should?

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It must have been that guy who writes the cutesy-pie ad copy for the Mandolin Brothers circulars. My guess is that the person that told you that Adirondack spruce is the "best" wood for steel-string tops, is likely to be someone selling an Adirondack spruce guitar, trying to seed a mythology about the material. Or someone impressed by one who was. Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.

Anyone making finger-wagging pronouncements about the inherent "superiority" of one species over an other, is to my sights, likely to be either a faker or a fool. I can tell, because when I began my long journey into this field, I was repeatedly mis-educated by their pat, self-confident pronouncements and many just like them. And usually, it was the more expensive varieties (imagine that!) that floated to the top of the pile. Common, low-cost species were beneath contempt. Their stratospheric cost and impossible rarity were proof of their magic. No further explanations were given as to what kind of scale these comparisons were being judged on. Just that mahogany was just okay, Indian rosewood was good, Brazilian the best, and so forth. To this day, forty years later I am still unlearning those sentimental myths.

There is no objective reference for beauty. Beauty does not emerge by your knowingly selecting one species and not another. A skilled, experienced, thoughtful maker can make a beautiful instrument from any species.

Beauty can emerge, but from the synthesis of a hundred values and senses acquired slowly, almost as a gift--as a reward for persistence.

Given that, which then is an efficient learning path for the luthier?

1- Give up your search--and don't fall for--quick tips that claim to achieve beauty. Disbelieve anyone claiming that "Mahogany will sound warm, Rosewood will sound clear." Run from them like the plague. If someone tells you if you do a certain thing on a guitar it will make it "sound better", ask how specifically they came to that conclusion, and what evidence they found persuasive. Then don't wait for an answer.

2- The greatest illusion of all: "tonal manipulation." Give up the illusion that anyone can teach you guitar "tap-tones"--however they're defined--and that you can objectively use them to make a guitar sound "better". They can't teach you: they don't make the sound "better." The system is too complex to be reduced to tap tones. Don't tune the parts to any note. Don't sand in any spot until its "right." Don't carve braces so they look like a cartoon of the Alps, thinking that will achieve beauty. Don't think that the secret to this certain guitar is that it's braces leap over and tunnel under each other. It isn't. The guitar's secrets are not obvious or easily revealed. The tantalyzing prospect of direct manipulative control over guitar tone is mythical, illusory.

3- What is a guitar, essentially? No, it's not a wave-transforming device. It's a cultural artifact. And what is the highest calling of a luthier, essentially? No, not some eccentric kind of inventor, forever plotting how to invent a better mousetrap. By my sights, the highest calling of a luthier is more properly a skilled duplicator of a high cultural value, whose purpose it is to try to elicit from a long-familiar cultural form a long-familiar sound--a sound prized by the culture's collective ear.

Different culture--different idealized form, different prized sound. The Chinese pi'pa sounds like to us like somebody slapping a rubber band against a cigar box. But it sounds like heaven to the Chinese. The master pi'pa luthier's calling is to get that nasal twang just right.

The guitar's sound is a largely a consequence of its form. What follows is that as you change its form, a different sound emerges. Cultures change its preferred, prized instrument sound---with its iconic instrument's attendant change in form--very slowly, like the movement of a glacier. Heed this advice, ego trippers with the delusion that the culture will beat a path to your hastily-contrived novelty guitar form.

4- What to actually strive for is not ineffable beauty. Therein lies madness. What to strive for are achievable, objective goals: accurate pitch, comfortable action and playability, precise neck geometry, clean workmanship, tight glue joints--the result of sharp planes and chisels; precise measurement and attention paid with brain in gear. If you apply this to the familiar, culturally-derived forms, the guitar's culture will reward you. Your guide, then, are the precedents and solutions set forth by and found within the work of the various extraordinary makers that came before--makers already prized by your culture who, by the sheer variety of successful solutions to the similar problems, teach that there are several good ways to make the same delicious pie.

If you do this you will likely be, as I was--surely and eventually--rewarded with the ability to make beautiful guitars consistently. No, I can't tell you how long it will take. It took me about 10 years when I noticed that I had reached a routine and mind-set that was working. Then another 10 years to learn to do it with acceptable efficiency and effortlessness. Then a 20 years voyage towards mastery. You may be able to do it sooner, I don't know. I'm a slow study.

And 5- Avoid the inevitable mystification of the craft. True, this here is a realm of deeply-ingrained iconic and historic cultural values--very strong medicine. But keep it under control. The mystique may have driven you into the craft--fine. But you soon best cast it away, because it is an impediment to attention to the doable, knowable. Others may think this is inspired, shamanic activity. You'll find that it is complex, demanding, often frustrating activity. But what it really is, is real-world problem solving. Given ample time, it is mastered by reason, attention, introspection and persistence. Then, mystically, the beauty begins to appear on its own.

Tap tones, anybody?

2008-12-19T20:41:00.006-05:00

You heard it here first: "Tap-tuning" has been oversold. Let's put it into perspective.

When I was learning I went through what you're going through: I had HEARD about something called tap tuning and was mystified and eager to learn about it. I presumed that it held THE secret for easily-replicable world-class results. I actually thought that the alchemy of guitarmaking was somehow locked inside this arcane act of wizardry called "tuning" the top, that it was something that only the select and most sensitive few knew about, and that they weren't going to tell me, so I would somehow have to learn it myself.

Builders, alas, often do things on guitars which they really don't know WHY their doing it, but they do it because they were taught to do what the teacher did, and they're afraid if they stopped doing it, the nice sounds they usually get will go away. So they keep doing it. Then, when you ask them why they do it, they are all too happy to MAKE UP vague, fanciful, jargon-laden accounts which will leave an impression that they know exactly why they're doing it in minute detail, and by implication demonstrate that they can somehow successfully manipulate all these invisible sonic phenomena on the guitar with ease. Luthiers usually won't stop you from believing that they are wizards. This is most painfully obvious in the realm of "tap tones."

Yes, you can tap a top to derive some rudimentary information about its anatomy. What you hear does give you some feedback clues which is useful and helpful. The "tuning" part is what is so misleading to beginners. At some point (most often toward the end of the process) many builders attempt to make some final changes in the anatomy of the soundbox, which the builder believes (I've selected this word carefully:) believes is exercising some control over the final results. Both, skillful experts and deluded fools, equally, scrape here and there, tap, press, reach inside, remove a little on the back braces, on the top braces, and then at some point say THERE. It's just right.

Then there are other builders, masterful experts and deluded fools alike that DON'T. They believe that they're making all the crucial decisions in the INITIAL stages of the construction: materials selection, materials dimensioning, design: that is all they need to achieve the desired results.

My good friend and colleague, Alan Chapman is confident that he has come to appreciate the difference of fine changes in bracing heights, soundboard thickness, patterns, and has come to BELIEVE that he can goose the sound quality of a certain note, or smooth out, or sweeten, or balance, or adjust the performance of distinct notes and distinct regions of the fingerboard by subtle changes in specific areas of the soundboard. With all respect to my dear friend, Alan, I believe that this is delusional. The soundboard is responsible for the production of a very limited part of the entire guitar sound spectrum. Yet his results are terrific. So I have to swallow a good portion of my skepticism when it comes to Alan's guitars. Yet, I know of other makers whos results are equally phenomenal that do NONE of that.

That is why I say now, like I said fifteen years ago in my book, that "tuning" is something that can't be taught. But its also true that luthiers evolve idiosyncratic actions that they believe lead their guitars towards better "tone." This means that over time, each maker devises a series of actions which conform to a refined mental model that they've derived of how the guitar functions. This happens as a result of making, thinking, worrying, fussing, cursing, tossing and turning, eating and sleeping guitars for years and years. The mental model becomes more and more refined, and more and more PERSONAL. Jimmy D'Aquisto lectured that he made oval soundholes in his acoustic guitars, so the sound would "squirt further" like water from a similarly-constricted hose nozzle. The audience snickered when he said that. But nobody in the audience was getting $22,000 per guitar like he was. Snicker at that.

Heel contours--structural considerations

2008-09-01T13:33:00.007-04:00

I decided that I wanted to individualize my guitars in several ways, and one of the areas I changed was the heel of the neck. I went to a more rounded shape, with less material at the base of the neck shaft, but larger in section [similar to Mike Doolin does on his necks].

The last 3 or 4 guitars that I used this shape on, seem to exibit an excessive action height increase after being strung up and played for several weeks. I have had to re-set the necks on 3 of them, which also required shiming of the fingerboard tongue over the soundboard to prevent a downward pitch at the 14th fret. The action itself has been restored by doing these resets, and they have needed just a tweek of the truss rod to fine tune it.
Could the lack of material under the neck shaft, where the heel block meets the shaft, be the culprit? I know that a new instrument needs time to 'settle' under tension, and the action height might rise a bit, but these occasions have been excessive; triming the saddle height would have resulted in a total loss of the saddle over the bridge!

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I don't know much about Mike Doolin, but a visit to his site shows fairly ordinary heel shapes, at least as far as the pictures there show. They look a lot like old Guild guitars and like my old partner, Michael Millard of Froggy Bottom Guitars, makes them. There are countless thousand of successful guitars made with that wide and narrow kind of heel shape. That would lead me to dismiss the notion that your heel size, mass or contour is the culprit.

Without knowing what the rest of your internal structure looks like, it would be hard to diagnose your problem. But I believe that the precise heel contour is of little importance to the rate at which the guitar distorts under tension. That is because the largest force vector of the neck acting on the body points straight into the body, just under the fingerboard. The remaining, smaller force vector is rotational--the force pulling the tip of the heel out of the guitar. So heels can be surprisingly small, even (as in some low-end Taylors) nonexistent. If my considered perception is true, then the major concentration of forces is dumped onto the soundboard, just under the fingerboard tab, in the region between the front of the box and the soundhole. That area is receiving massive compression from equal forces originating from both ends of the stretched string--from the nut and from the bridge. Those forces meet in that location. if that area yields, the box will bend, causing the string action to rise. So to counter those forces, I would pay attention to whether your structure is adequate under the fingerboard tab (including, of course, the stiffness of the fingerboard tab itself). Over-structuring that area, unfortunately, is a common ham-fisted response of many builders who recognize this problem. So the trick is finding the "minimum adequate structure"--not placing a box girder there, as some seem to want to do.

Keep in mind that I may be completely off base here, because I don't have your guitar in front of me for a valid evaluation. Your guitar design's propensity for neck rotation can be due to any of a number of other shortcomings, such as inadequate soundhole bracing (is your soundhole beginning to look like a potato chip?) or even an insufficiently arched back. Yes, the back's rigidity has an important role in the soundbox's over integrity. The entire soundbox can bend longitudinally under stress, and its rigidity is in part determined by the rigidity of the back. That rigidity is imparted by the size and arch of the back braces.

So any successful diagnosis of the architectural efficacy of your guitar design has to consider the entire guitar "holistically." It is short-sighted to assume that all your problems stem from just your heel profile.

Classic guitar soundboard arching

2008-08-16T14:34:00.005-04:00

I have a beginners question regarding the arching of the classical soundboard as detailed in your book. The soundboard appears to be arched across the lower bout because of the arching of the lower cross strut, but there is no arching of the soundboard along the centre line from the lower end to sound hole.
I also read Roy Courtnall's book, "Making Master Guitars" where the solera is domed inward across the lower bout and along the centre line from the bottom of the lower bout up to the soundhole implying an arch across and along the soundboard.
The workboard shim you describe has a narrow section of cork all around the edge of the lower bout to accommodate and hold the arched soundboard but because the shim has cork at the bottom end of the lower bout, it implies to me that the doming is both across and down the soundboard in your method. The shim doesn't appear to be used in the soundboard arching process but is used later in the assembly process. Have I missed something important in the process? Is the soundboard arched across the lower bout only or across and along the centreline of the lower bout?

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The raised lip of the workboard shim simply raises the guitar off the flat workboard to clear the portion of the soundboard that has been arched by the lower transversal face brace. We don't want the brace to be squashed when the back is roped on. The more traditional solera is dished for the same purpose. You cannot assume or accept the "implication" that the workboard or the solera have anything to do with actually shaping the soundboard. How could it?

Having said that, I acknowledge two "schools" of thought here. One school affirms that the guitar is improved in some undetermined way by imparting a dome into the soundboard--by clamping the fan braces against the domed solera while they are being glued to the soundboard--and then curving the base of the bridge (requiring a bridge gluing-block to be arched to match). This would extend the size and extent of the dome, than doing otherwise.

The other school of thought--the one I favor--calls for simply arching the lower transverse brace and then gluing all the fan braces flat and not arching the bridge's down-face. We believe that the string's tension is going to eventually drag all those elastic elements into a final configuration of its' own. The first school, I suppose, would affirm that purposely doming the top would impart greater stiffness and resistance to the soundboard. But to the extent that the same result could not be achieved by simply increasing the cross-section of those top elements, they don't ascribe any other distinct advantage to the greater complication.

So I go with the simpler solution. And besides, great guitars can be achieved using either method. So why choose the more complicated option?

Finishing Interiors and Tuning Braces

2008-06-01T18:22:00.003-04:00

What is your opinion about finishing the inside of the guitar body? On pianos, both sides of the soundboard are sealed with sanding sealer and lacquer thus keeping swelling from moisture to a minimum. I am inclined to do the same on the guitar body. I have heard different opinions about this subject. Mostly the theory goes: It hasn't been done in the past so why do it now. Not a very convincing argument.

Another point of interest to me as a piano tuner is tuning the tone bars to a specific frequency. We modern piano tuners almost always tune to a "tempered scale." As you probably know, this means that, except for "A440" the notes are very lightly flattened so as to be able to play the piano in any key. When I restring a piano, I check its crown and also tap it while listening for the sound of a rich kettle drum (since no strings are attached at that moment.) If I were to tune the braces to a certain pitch, I would be producing an instrument which would sound good in only one key or pitch instead of any key. So when I read about tuning the tone bars with my peterson strobe tuner, I found it interesting but not a sound musical concept. One should listen for a resonant vibration from the soundboard instead of a certain pitch so as to be able to play beautifully in any key.

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As to finishing the interior of guitars, the reason why mostly the theory goes "if it hasn't been done in the past so why do it now" is because there is no DATA for finishing the interior of guitars. Few do it, virtually nobody did it, and so there is no convincing data to persuade makers to add yet another procedure to their lengthy list--given that very few of the great patriarchs of the craft ever did it, and if you did it there would be no way to clearly determine if that it was indeed protective in some significant way--or to assuage the fear that it negatively affected the guitar in some way.

Stuart Mossman was the only serious builder I know of who finished the interior of his guitars. But he's dead, gone and all but forgotten; his instruments were quite good, but not memorable or highly prized now. And the finished insides of his guitars looked peculiar, besides. In the absence of clear evidence or a track record established by someone else that to do this is somehow good, no established build will do it. But maybe a newcomer such as yourself will to try it, utilizing the logic from another trade.

But I guarantee you. If your guitar comes out with a disappointing sound, you'll be nagged by the idea that maybe the extra finish "deadened" it. If it comes out sounding great, you may wonder how much better it might have been if you hadn't finished the interior. Or you may not. You might be able to present it as evidence that it doesn't hurt the sound much to do so. But you couldn't persuade folks that if it never cracks, it was the extra finish that guaranteed it--and not that it would have never cracked anyway. A lot of guitars never crack.

2- You're asking the wrong guy about "tuning" braces. I've advocated for years that all this "tuning" stuff for guitars was delusional nonsense, if not outright hogwash. I came to that conclusion after fathoming from my apprenticeship with a guitar acoustician that the guitar is an fantastically complex vibrational system, far more complex than any of the bowed instruments, certainly far more complex than all these folks talking about soundboard tuning--appear to grasp.

When you see the tests, like I have, those that show incontrovertibly that, for example, the headstock is the most acoustically active part of the guitar at some frequencies, and see over what an amazingly wide spectrum of frequencies the soundboard is simply silent, it drives you to conclude that all this preoccupation of tuning a certain brace or another to one note or another is just not worth the trouble.

The guitar is essentially a series of linked oscillators, or springs. Maddeningly, they all feed back into each other recursively. The strings are springs. The saddle bone is springy. The bridge is springy, the soundboard is springy, the neck is springy, and when you pluck a string, it sets all the springs dancing. And then the jostling guitar feeds energy back into the strings altering their behavior in turn. So as tantalyzing as the prospect may be, I don't believe tuning one brace to one note or another--or changing its angle by a few degrees is going to assure me the keys to world-class consistency. It will simpy generate more questions, more mysteries. And no conclusions.

Some of the confusion emerges, I suspect, from the fact that these cultural artifacts that motivate and compel us so, are called "instruments". It makes one think of an oscilloscope or a frequency generator, or some such precision scientific apparatus. The guitar is not some sort of energy-transforming device that someone invented that can be effectively tinkered with to make it more "effective" or to "optimize" it. Optimize it to achieve...what precisely? It is a cultural artifact, originally devised to satisfy the aesthetic preferences of a particular ethnic group at a particular time in history. It has been modified over the centuries to fit the evolving vagaries of culture, fashion and taste, not to somehow optimize it in some objective scientific/acoustic sense. There is no objective acoustic goal for tinkerers to reach. And if you find some kind an objective goal, you'll soon see that it, too, is a moving target.

So I've shed all that baggage, and have come to see the guitar not in terms of an acoustical problem, rather more as an architectural problem, an ergonomic problem..and an aesthetic problem. My experience is borne out daily that when these factors are well resolved and reconciled--something which is very achievable--well, the result is a product that satisfies, sometimes even enchants, skilled and discriminating players--and listeners besides.

On Scalloped Braces

2008-05-17T11:45:00.001-04:00

Everyone seems to make such a big deal about them, but what are your thoughts on scalloped braces?

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I don't know what justification is advanced by builders who scallop their braces: I don't. Maybe you should ask them. I suppose they would reply, "Martin used them on guitars made during the 20s and 30s, and since those guitars reputedly sounded so good, presumably it must have been the scalloped braces." Sounds like lore, doesn't it?

Few people know that actually, those early guitars were originally braced for gut strings, and when decades later people swapped steel strings onto them, their tops eventually collapsed from the extra tension. But boy, they sure sounded great before they collapsed!!

The peculiar scallop shape, it seems apparent to me, must have originated as a result of an early voicing technique where (in the days when luthiers worked in factories, and were not just machine operators) builders reached inside through the soundhole with finger planes and removed material judiciously from the braces, in stages--and progressively listen to the changes after restringing, and stopped when they felt the compliance was "right."

There's nothing magic about the scallop shape itself, just that it was the result of the process of using finger planes to remove material through the soundhole. At least that's my best guess. But as it happens, that peculiar shape decades latered engendered enough lore and mystery to subsequently drive aspiring luthiers crazy trying to decipher its significance. I have been asked that same question by many of them.

Large, stiff, disappointing guitars are today "strutted" by technicians who reach inside through soundholes with finger planes to remove material from their "struts" to improve the sound. The result usually is to "hot rod" the guitar by making it sound somewhat louder and a bit deeper-voiced...while potentially hastening it's demise. The guitar survives only if the braces were way too large to start with or if the the strutting was done with great restraint. It takes an experienced eye to sense how much is too much.

The string's signal is nothing more than minute and rapid changes in tension (dynamic stress) amidst the constant background string tension (static stress). So the problem is to construct the top in a way that adequately supports the static stress without hindering the dynamic stress. It's the guitarmaker's dilemma: that the soundboard is really a trade off between structure and tone. If the brace heights are left high, the soundboard will resist the 200 lbs of steel-string tension with no problem at all, but with a price to pay insofar as the acoustical range that results: invariably a tight sound or a limited tonal response. Reducing the brace heights increases the compliance of the top to a wider range of signals coming from the strings and a more satisfactory acoustical response, but with a price to pay in its architecture. The builder is truly expert when he derives a sense of structure sufficient to dimension the top thickness and brace heights to achieve an optimum--say, minimally adequate structure.

So, the secret is not in the peculiar contour of the braces, it's in the acquired skill of the builder that senses the minimal structural requirements of the instrument and responds correctly when removing material. Note that Martin now again offers "scalloped braces"--as a marketing ploy, I suspect, because no one in the factory is graduating braces. They are likely to be using thicker, stiffer tops to hedge their bets, and make it a point to insist that low tension strings be used.

Some People Say...

2008-05-17T11:13:00.000-04:00

A headstock thickness of 0,5", is that still safe for an acoustic steel string guitar (for strength and sound)? Or would it be advisable to add a veneer on the back of the headstock? Some people say the headstock dampens the sound when it's too flexible. Do you think that will be an issue in this case?

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Don't ask me. I haven't tested that assertion. Ask those people what evidence they have to support that assertion, or at least how they came to that conclusion. Also, how flexible, precisely, is "too flexible." Talk is cheap.

On the Significance of Soundbox Specie

2008-05-03T10:12:00.000-04:00

I am curious what impact the different body woods has on the sound of the guitar. I have read that with mahogany one can expect a "warmer" sound. (less bright... less projection?) What I had in mind initially was something in Indian rosewood with a spruce top. (I simply have not had the pleasure to play a classical guitar made of anything else.)

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I could give you the easy, pat response that luthiers usually give their customers when answering the common question, "what is the impact of different body woods?" --with the well-worn, and ultimately meaningless words: rosewood is "clear", mahogany is "warm" and "bright," maple is "dry" and attribute more or less of one or the other quality to the specific species selected for the back and sides. But I won't do that to you, mainly because it is useless and misleading. If given ten seconds to respond, I should answer: "the sound doesn't come from the wood, it comes from the strings."

35 years making guitars has brought me to the conclusion that the guitar can physically respond to only a distinct subset or portion of the the total string's sound spectrum, creating it's own "version" of that spectrum. The guitar's effect, so to speak, on the string's sound--and thus, what we actually can hear-- is determined by among other things, it's size; it's string length; the way it is constructed; the massiveness or resilience of its neck; the thickness and hardness of the walls of its soundbox, the placement and cross sectional shape of its braces; the size and shape of its bridge, and on and on. There are so many factors impacting on the performance of the guitar--some which the luthier is aware of and can control by choice; some which are not controllable by the luthier because they are hard-wired into the guitar's culturally-determined form; and some which are beyond the perception and comprehension of the luthier. Each of these factors affects the sound, some dramatically, some slightly. The specie-name of the wood used on the back and sides plates fall into the "virtually none at all" category. The actual sample of the given specie chosen rises to the just-perceptible category. Surprising?

In other words, I could say that Indian Rosewood results in a "brighter" sound than Mahogany, but there are extremely soft samples of Indian and extremely hard samples of Mahogany that would contradict this statement--the variations between samples of the same specie are dramatic. So it may be smug and easy to talk of the "warmth of mahogany" or the "punch of rosewood" but really, they are ultimately meaningless statements.

Besides, what sound am I eliciting in your mind when I say that Indian Rosewood results in a "clearer" sound than Mahogany? Does my statement that Mahogany results in a "warmer" sound than Indian really communicate accurately to you the sound difference that I perceive in my ear? Given all the myriad known and unknown factors in any given guitar that result in it's distinctive tone, am I safe to say that the "warmer" sound that I'm perceiving is a direct result of the wood specie? Or some other solitary factor or combination of factors?

So to conclude this overlong message, I find it /not/ helpful at all to preoccupy myself or my clients about what the sound difference between two hypothetical guitars might be, one rosewood, one mahogany. That's because the perception of tone is a personal experience and not something that can be talked about, or written about. It must be experienced, it can't be described.

One thing is clear: it costs me about $20 dollars to purchase the mahogany used on a guitar, and $100 to purchase the Indian rosewood used on another; and $800 to purchase the Brazillian rosewood on yet another. And that difference will be reflected in the value of the guitar, you can be sure of that! The fact is, the cost difference biases people's perception of the guitar's sound "quality" in many people's minds (or ears). One must be very careful of falling into that trap. The perception that the Brazilian rosewood guitar is per se "better" than the Mahogany guitar, evidenced by the difference in cost, is incorrect. The Brazilian rosewood guitar is more valuable because its materials are rarer, and to some eyes, more beautiful in appearance. But one is not "better" than the other--indeed, they may be simply different, or you may not be able to perceive the difference at all. And if they are different in sound, surely there would be no way to safely say that the difference is because the specie name of the back and sides is different.

On Avoiding "Acoustical Problems" with Bridges

2008-05-03T09:14:00.000-04:00

I'm a beginner builder of steel string guitars. I've used you wonderful book as instruction to build 3 guitars so far. I've noticed on many mass-produced as well as popular small-builder product lines, that one of the distinguishing things is the shape of the head plate and the bridge. I've done a good bit of searching the internet to find information on the pros and cons of bridge shapes/designs. I'd like to design a head and bridge that would be unique to my guitars in the future, once I get a little more experience.

Are there any general guidelines for bridge shapes to avoid acoustical problems? I notice some are very eccentric while othes (like Martin-style shapes) are very simple and straightforward. Can you advise me or point me to any infromation on this subject?

..........................................

Keep in mind that guitarmaking is an art, and not a science. Your question is like, if I change that blue area in my painting, will there be a "visual problem"?

People who like to put batman-shaped bridges on their guitar do so because after they did, they found that no acoustical "problems" resulted, so they kept doing it. It certainly is not that they calculated the precise bridge's form to produce some kind of anticipated sound. I guarantee you that no one has that power. It's more probable that the motivation was simply to make the guitar stand out.

It stands to reason, however, that if the bridge footprint is too small, there may be insufficient gluing area relative to the stress--and the bridge will be prone to eventually flying off. If it is too large, there will probably be a change, most likely a deadening, of the tone. But since you are breaking away from the traditional proportions, no one will know if that shape results in an acoustical "problem"--or has no discernible effect whatsoever--until you actually do it. Or whether it's favorable or not.

I'm reminded of someone bringing me a cheap ukelele and asked me to do something to "wake it up." It was indeed, rather reticent in its sound. I examined it, and the bridge seemed oversized. It was decidedly different from the smaller bridges that you ordinarily see on those instruments. So I took the risk and carved off some length on both sides of the bridge. Voila! The instruments sound now clearly opened up and became much more complex. The owner looked at me as if I were a wizard. And as my partner Harry always says, "never refuse an undeserved compliment."

Conversely, I also recall a Mexican Bajo Sexto that came into the shop. It had an enormous, grotesque, bat-wing bridge that covered fully a quarter of the real estate of the soundboard. Yet it had a mammoth sound, precisely the one coveted by Tex-Mex fanatics. I dared not suggest that I could improve the sound by carving material off its bridge.

So clearly, there is no magic key to world-class consistency in instrument making. The designs handed down to us by history and tradition are the sum product of the efforts of hundreds of very thoughtful and committed makers in the past who have progressively, and slowly, refined that instrument's form. So the form itself is actually the DNA for the standard sound of that instrument. If you go too far afield in your tinkering with the traditional model, you'll end up creating something...far afield. And you run the risk of it sounding "peculiar" to the listener. And be broke.

On the other hand, your tinkering may create a new paradigm, a change so drastically superior to what came before, that everybody will flatter you by stealing it. This is what happened to Antonio de Torres in Spain at about the time of our CIvil War, when he created the modern classical guitar. But be warned: this has only occurred once or twice in modern times, Torres being one and arguably, Martin's foreman taking a stab at an x-brace being the other. But it is not at all a scientific process, not a process of somehow knowing what the sound waves are going to do and then deftly harnessing them to some desired end.

Its a try it and see process, and anyone who claims that power of acoustical omniscience is either a faker or a fool. Or an X-man. Or Roger Siminoff.

On Solid Maple Soundboards

2008-04-30T10:10:00.000-04:00

I recently saw a photograph of a very beautiful Taylor 6-string. Instead of a spruce top, this guitar had a book-end top made of quilted maple. I have always been under the impression that straight grain wood like spruce or cedar was not only structurally a necessity, but also that it gave a superior tone above other choices. Taylor, being the quality brand that it is, would certainly not make such a basic mistake to overlook the importance of these considerations. Does it mean that my understanding has been wrong altogether? And what type of tone can one expect of an instrument with such type of top? (Could it be that Taylor is merely breaking the mold and becoming innovative - like Ovation has done?)

I personally like a crisp and clear tone in a guitar - almost twangy. I have thought of cutting a saddle and a nut out of aluminum. My logic just tells me that it might give me the type of tone and clarity that I am looking for. What would your view be on this?

Many thanks for all the hours of pleasure you have given me through your book - and also your willingness to respond to my questions.

Cape Town
South Africa

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The guitar is above all other things a cultural artifact: its form is derived in great measure as a result of historic and cultural processes, from a legacy of dedicated woodworking craftsmen emulating the aesthetic preferences of their day--rather than a legacy of acoustical engineers and scientists pondering over the years how to increase its acoustical efficiency. But in modern times, another process has stepped in to dictate its development: corporate marketing.

In the guitar's cultural continuum, the guitar emerged with certain materials being prized over others. These decisions, again, were based not on acoustical or engineering principles, but on far more mundane considerations: what materials were available to builders, what materials bent the best, or were less reactive, or carved the easiest, or finished easiest, and so forth.

Now every element in the guitars form and structure has an impact, be it trivial or be it significant, on its perceived tone when played. Thus a guitar made with a perfectly straight-grained spruce top will indeed sound differently than a guitar made with a solid slab of jumbled-up-grain curly maple. So, I'm willing to bet, placed side by side and played, there will be a perceived difference. My contention is that a guitar with a quilted maple top falls outside the guitar's traditional continuum. Indeed, I'll be willing to bet that the actual decision of putting a quilted maple top on an acoustical guitar was based on a marketing rule called "product differentiation in the marketplace," and not, "how can we make the sound of this guitar louder, richer, more complex?"

Regardless, you might actually like, even prefer, the sound of the Taylor with its solid maple top. So, if you don't mind corporate marketing's impact on the guitar's historic form, then buy it. But if you think the guitar's historic form has special value, then pass it by. When is a rose a rose?

I haven't heard that quilted maple top guitar, but I would be surprised if the sound quality was not inferior in certain regards. During the 1940s, when Martin made solid mahogany tops on their acoustic guitars--during the period that Spruce was at a premium for the war effort--those guitars which I've played sounded sweet but weak. Yet some other folks--mostly inexpert players--valued them highly. So I would think the same dynamic is in force here: the stiffness to weight ratio of split spruce (it's "efficiency") is greater than any other wood, bar none. That translates to a smaller inertial load being placed on the string signal at the bridge, i.e., less damping. The consequence of less "efficient," wood like maple is that only the stronger, more energetic frequency components of the string signal will succeed in driving the denser, higher-damping top, and that many of the lower-energy signals coming from the vibrating strings will stop there and remain bound up in the string--never to be heard. But just dropping out a fraction of the string signal doesn't only change it's timbre, it changes its loudness. When you drop the sliders in an audio EQ unit, the sound source changes in character (maybe even creates an unusual new sound) and so consequently, the loudness is also reduced as you do so. Ergo, the effect is an unusual--perhaps distinctive--softer sound.

Tap Tones Ad Infitum

2008-04-28T08:05:00.000-04:00

I just read your book (very excitedly I might add). I was wondering if it would be practical/possible/useful to post a high quality recording of sound boards in various stages of stiffness and 'just right-ness'? Being an engineer by trade, I'd love to do an objective spectral analysis as a sound board gets progressively thinner, but it turns out that the ears are probably the best spectral analyzer you can get. I take great pleasure in making things with my hands and I take great pleasure in using a guitar (at my ability, I really hesitate to say 'play'). I also love the challenge of making well fitting joinery... I am very seriously considering an attempt at making a guitar based on your book.
Of course, I assume that I would really need to mentally commit to making at least 5 or 6 before it starts coming out right, but hey... I've wasted far more money on wood in the past for projects which aren't even close in the challenge and potential reward factors. (I would need to think about what to do with all these extra guitars!!!)

Thanks (and looking forward to a video?)

Thank you for your interesting message and suggestions.

Your "recording-the-tap-tones" suggestion refers to a soundboard graduation scheme ("quenching the fundamental") that I learned from my original teachers over forty years ago and dutifully included in my Guitarmaking book when I and Jon wrote it in 1985. That was twenty three years ago. I no longer follow that graduation scheme. Clearly my priorities and techniques have evolved over twenty three years.

Your suggestion is a consequence of the fact that the text, unfortunately, can lead the reader to expect upon tapping to hear a clear distinction in the top's response before it is "just right" and at the point that it is "just right." Alas, that is not the case. Over time, I discovered that this was a traditional hallucination passed on from teacher to student over the years. We were all listening to phantoms. The underlying assumption is, that for the guitar to sound "just right," the soundboard must be "just right," i.e., that the soundboard is supreme in determining the correct spectrum of the guitar's response. My subsequent experience and studies in instrument acoustics have since shown me that it is not. But that "traditional hallucination" persists, and pervades the ongoing discussion, like noise.

Sorry to disappoint, but I have come to believe that but the difference between the sound of an ordinary guitar and an extraordinary guitar isn't discerned at a "magic moment" that happens when you're thicknessing the soundboard, or the braces for that matter. That notion reduces the guitar to an oversimplification of its dauntingly complex acoustical architecture.

More accurately, the guitar is a three-dimensional array of linked oscillators--springs attached to springs attached to springs, recursively. The loose ends of the springs are then brought back together to form multiple loops. The string is a spring, the saddle is a spring, the bridge is a spring, the sides and the back and its braces are springs; the neck is a spring, as is the fingerboard and the headstock. They are all coupled to each other, each spring with its own distinctive stiffness and length. Oh, and the air enclosed within the body is yet another spring.

When you pluck the first spring--the string--it's movement drives the entire array to jumping and dancing, attached as it is to both ends. Then, the guitar turns around--because it is vibrating--and in turn, drives the vibrating string, itself in a feedback situation. The driver drives the driven, then the driven drives the driver.

When you plane the soundboard down (or reduce the size of a brace) you are essentially decreasing the stiffness of just one of the springs in the array. Even if it was a "crucial" spring that had to be "the right" stiffness in order to optimize the whole...what would be your reference? What end result is being assured? A "beautiful" sound? What is the reference for beauty? There is no reference for beauty.

Besides, the soundboard is only able to resonate a portion of the guitar's entire sound spectrum, due to it's physical size. It is silent when the string couples to it any sound with a wave length of greater than 22 inches (the soundboard's average size). But the guitar's sound spectrum includes sounds with wavelengths of up to and over 16 feet. Indeed, the guitar cannot resonate any string frequency with a wave length of over 40 inches (the entire guitar's average size). So how does it reproduce the rest of the spectrum? Not by radiation, that is, not by sound pressure waves rising from its vibrating surfaces.

It produces sound pressures at those wave lengths by a distinct acoustical process called "point-source," which relies on the existence of a soundbox with elastic walls, a soundhole and a partially trapped volume of air inside. Its a secondary mechanism that produces all the sounds that the guitar is too small to produce by radiation. So fussing about a stroke more or less of a plane or chisel on some part of the guitar is really a very low-priority endeavor, given the scheme of things. It's very very complicated. Control is just an illusion.

In the end, the guitar doesn't create the beauty, the musician does. The best the maker can do is provide a precise, responsive and durable tool that removes as many impediments to the artists to do their art--as possible. An honorable endeavor in and of itself. Now these are objective goals that can be mastered with persistence and an evolved intuitive sense. But you'll drive yourself nuts searching for the magic stroke that will create art. The least I can do to undo my having misled you is to come clean in this way.

Can the X-brace Be Improved?

2008-04-27T12:41:00.000-04:00

Would you agree that the "half-lap" joint on the x-brace is a weak spot, both structurally and sonically? I was thinking of making an X-brace of two pieces of curved wood rather like two letter C's back-to back, they would have a flat spot where they meet for gluing, and possibly pinning together with little hardwood dowels. (I’d like to send you a small diagram) I think this would give the x-brace strength and continuity, have you ever done anything like this?

I think you're asking the wrong person: I'm not an armchair guitar tinkerer. I'm not inclined to "improve" the guitar by imagining what may be flaws in it's traditional design and then imagining ways to remedy it. My approach is optimize the givens, not change them. But as the saying goes,"I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not going to take the meat off your plate." So you're welcome by me to go ahead and try your scheme and see for yourself.

But you make two assumptions: that the current x brace scheme needs more "strength" and that "continuity" is somehow a goal. Yet some vintage x-braced Martins I've seen dating back to the twenties have carried the string tension load for almost ninety years without distortion. And have you considered it possible that one stiff x brace and one weak x brace is precisely what makes a steel string guitar sound the way it does?

On Bending Cocobolo

2008-04-27T11:07:00.000-04:00

Hello Master Cumpiano, greetings from Romania.

First, I will tell you, for me classical guitar is a pleasure.
I have a friend who already build 80 classical guitars. He tried now with cocobolo. But we have some problems with cocobolo. At the bending process of sides; a crack appears at one sides. I read at the others guitars makers web pages that cocobolo have a lot of oils and resins, and water can't soft the sides before bending process. If you can advise us about working with cocobolo will be very glad.

Another questions is the fresh cocobolo bend easily? (he retain a lot of water at begin, with time pass the water goes out and the wood became harder and stiffer, and I think he became more difficult to bend). If I wet the sides in warm water is useful or not? A higher temperature from bending machine is useful to bending easily or not? It is true after the drying process is almost complete the cocobolo doesn't absorb water?

I have allready read about gluing with titebond work real good. The ultimate titebond is better for gluing (Titebond Glue III Ultimate 16 oz )?

I use cocobolo frequently and yes, it is more difficult to bend due to it's oil, and it's stiffness. And occasionally it does break. That is always a danger, no one can protect you 100% from that. But the way to reduce the danger is to be consistent:

1- the temperature of the surface of your mold must be 300-325 degrees Fahrenheit (149-163 C). I don't know what temperature your light bulbs are producing. But the surface has to be 300-325 degrees F. At that temperature, the oils will come out on the surface and darken, but they can be scraped off afterwards.

2- the sides must be reduced to a consistent thickness of .080 inches. That's 2.03 mm. You need a measuring caliper instrument and an abrasive planer. And 2.03 mm is the best thickness: 2.28, or .090 inches, is too thick, it will easily break. The problem is what is the thinnest you can reduce the sides, while retaining their integrity? .080 is the thickness that works for me.

3- I would stay away from "fresh" wood, in any case. Bending fresh wood makes sense only for furniture. But when we're dealing with such thin sheets of wood, it might be easier to bend-- but when it ages, it will be all rippled and twisted. But use only well-seasoned cocobolo that is not crazy-grained, but instead straight and uniform in figure and texture.

4- Apply pressure to the wood in the mould very slowly, let the wood heat up as the pressure is applied. Leave it in the mold for 30-60 seconds before shutting off the power or turning off the gas. Don't leave it in the mold with the heat on for much longer, the wood may begin to darken. The oils on the surface will darken but that can be scraped off Let it stay tight in the mold with the heat off overnight before removing it. It will keep its shape longer. If it changes shape a little bit while it waits to be assembled, I use a hot pipe to touch it up back to the template before assembling it.

5- The difference between Titebond Original and Titebond III Ultimate is not important for guitarmakers. Titebond original is excellent and good enough. Titebond III has advantages that don't concern guitarmakers: its waterproof, you can glue it safely when the room is as cold as 11 degrees C, you can keep the joint open longer before closing it with the glue applied. All those are unnecesary for us. You can go with the Original. Unless you want to use the guitar under water!

On Pinless Steel-String Bridges

2008-04-27T10:09:00.000-04:00

I am working on designs for a new guitar and would like to try a pinless bridge. I like the simplicity of string changes and the clean look. In your experience does this type of bridge have a marked affect on the tone of the guitar, and also is a bridge plate still necessary?

I'd definitely avoid putting a pinless bridge on a steel string guitar.

Pins anchor the strings to the bridge and soundboard and not to just to the bridge. Ball ends pulling up against the bridge patch and pins hooking into holes in the top result in a more secure mechanical connection between strings and soundboard. Having the strings end at the bridge dumps the entire load 100% onto just the bridge's small glue seam. I've just seen too many Ovation Balladeer bridges peel off their soundboards to try messing with an old, well-working tradition.

Indeed, if I were required to use a pinless bridge, I would doubtlessly use a bridge patch. Few people realize that the bridge patch also functions to stiffen the soundboard under the bridge so it's harder for the soundboard to just peel off the bridge under stress. The bridge patch protects the integrity of the bridge's glue seam besides providing a hard bearing surface for the ball ends.

But it won't stop the glue seam from failing because too much load is being directly dumped onto too small a gluing area. The bridge would probably not just peel off, it very well may pop off. But if you must use a pinless bridge, increase the size of the glueing area by increasing the size of the bridge over that of the standard pinned bridge AND make sure to include a sizeable bridge patch.