"Ability to Resonate"

I've just received a technical paper from a Canadian supplier (one prepared particularly by a research scientist working for a Canadian organization which carries out scientific research for the Canadian forest industry) which compares, among other factors, a variable called the wood's ATR or Ability To Resonate. Interested?

"In the musical-instrument building industry, researchers have established the importance of Modulus of Elasticity (MOE) and wood density (Krzysik 1967, Ono 1983). They have developed the following equation for selecting suitable woods, by calculating the acoustical coefficient; also known as the ability to resonate (ATR):

ATR = Square root of (MOE/ wood density3)"

Furthermore, "The Ability to Resonate is calculated as the square-root of MOE/relative density cubed. The higher the value, the greater the ability to resonate." Essentially it is a function of the wood's elasticity relative to its density. Allow me to share the paper's findings, listing in order the ATR of common instrument soundboard conifers. In order of the species' ability to resonate:

Englemann Spruce picea englemannii    373

Western White Pine pinus monticola      400

White Spruce picea glauca                     404

Sitka Spruce picea sitchensis                  428

Western Red Cedar thuja plicata            463

These were all well above the rest of the tested species, including larches, pines, and cypress. But all were below one species: Rocky Mountain Fir abies lasiocarpa that topped all the rest and came in at a ringing 470. Curious, I looked and found Rocky Mountain Fir to be plentiful and available in log sizes that compared favorably to the other spruces. The list confirms my preference for WR Cedar for classic soundboards but makes me interested in finding out about sources of this plentiful material (prominent across Western US and Canada) that seems at present to be used essentially only for general construction, paper pulp and ...Christmas trees.

Another interesting finding was that samples with middling annual ring width (not too small or too wide) i.e. about 11 per inch showed the greatest ATR among the test samples. Also that wide ring width actually was no more resonant than the very narrow. The paper concludes with "The tonewood industry could benefit from trying other British Canadian species with relatively high ATR values."

I was privileged to have befriended an expert woodcutter in British Columbia that supplied coniferous softwood to musical instrument makers. I asked him if he had abies lasiocarpa in his area. He responded that it was "all over the place" but it was considered "junk wood" because it had a skunk smell and much of it displayed patches of green color. I asked him to send me several split soundboards from the material. He selected the little of it that was perfectly white. I dried it and used it. It was beautiful! It had fine, silky medullary rays and a splendid, whiter-than-white color. The several guitars I made from it were outstanding! I've been using the material ever since, but tragically, my friend died from a stroke, ending both my friendship and my supply of these tops. Anyone who can connect me to a future supply of abies lasiocarpa will receive my undying gratitude.

Minimum adequate structure

I recently received an interesting inquiry:
 I am a senior mechanical engineering major at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. Part of my group's senior project entails for us to build a carbon fiber top of a classical guitar and analyze the sound using spectrograms. I was wondering if you had any guidance as to how thick the carbon fiber top should be and why? It would be really helpful to us. I would be really grateful if you had the time to respond. One more question, do you know how to design a bracing system or pick a bracing system for the soundboard? We are struggling to find resources online.

There are almost as many schools of thought regarding bracing systems and patterns as there are luthiers. My approach is different from the great majority of builders. The more common view is that besides limiting the distortion of the tension-loaded soundboard, the particular pattern or scheme molds or “guides” the sound to some undefined ideal, and insist that the traditional “Martin” x-brace arrangement produces the iconic sound on steel string guitars and the “Torres” fan bracing system produces the iconic sound on nylon string Spanish or Classical guitars. Beyond that, most luthiers will add or subtract braces, or create braces that arch over other braces or play with the angles between them or their size and numbers in an effort to reach some sort of elusive or ill-defined sonic goal. The vast majority of builders are however, unschooled in even the most fundamental tenets of wave physics or acoustics, so they are flying blind or expecting to be winners in some sort of sonic lottery.  Others fall into the trap of chasing traditional myths, such as the belief that the soundboard produces all the sound of the instrument [it produces only a limited part] and that it can be divided into bass and treble halves, i.e. that the bass response can be manipulated by altering the braces under the bass strings and the treble response the braces under the treble strings. So the field of guitar making is largely populated by finish carpenters who think they can handily control and mold the resonances of an impossibly complex vibrating system.

My having been mentored by an acoustics scientist has freed me from much of that baggage. Accordingly, my approach has been a stark departure from the norm. My approach is to work within the traditional forms while striving to achieve what I call minimum adequate structure. What that implies is that the guitar is not the creator of the sound, that the true source of all of its musicality is the string's harmonic series. Thus Mario Macaferri's dictum, the string is the heart of the guitar. Indeed,  the guitar actually gets in the way, clouding and diminishing the string’s perfect signal—because it is essentially a cultural artifact, not an optimized energy transformer. The result of this fact is that it is a crude and inefficient energy transformer, succeeding in transforming only a small fraction of the string’s kinetic energy into acoustic energy. The major portion of the string’s kinetic energy is frittered away by the guitar as heat. So the luthier’s dilemma is how to take this fetishized cultural artifact—which due to its traditional form and structure, is inherently a poor acoustic  machine—and create out of it a usable, hopefully desirable, tool for musical expression.

The way I reconcile this dilemma is to try to get as much of the guitar out and away from the strings, that is, to make its impediment to the strings' signal as minimal as possible. I’ve reduced as much mass and structure from the traditional model as is possible, while focusing primarily on the architectural requirements imposed on the structure by string tension. This is what I call minimum adequate structure. If the structure is excessive, the beauty is muffled, limited, impaired. If the structure is inadequate, the guitar will slowly fold under tension and become unplayable.
So my guitars, then, emerge as the inevitable product of my unique approach. You’d have to hear and play them to know what that means exactly. This is admittedly a long answer to your request for bracing information. If you’re using carbon fiber instead of spruce you have to be aware of 1) the different stiffnesses/mass ratios of the two materials 2) the amount of tension stress which is being dumped onto the soundboard and 3) that little detail that luthiers usually ignore, that the distortion of a plate under load increases as a cube of its span. Obviously, the width of the soundboard plate and the actual load at the bridge are crucial factors that must be taken into account if you’re optimizing the system.

Fingerboard Oil, ad infinitum

Here’s what I can advise about fingerboard oil. (Spoiler alert: there is no indisputably “best” fingerboard oil!)

What’s the point of fingerboard oil? Given, it’s to coat the fingerboard surface to slow or impede moisture loss or gain. This is desirable because it slows the fingerboard from shrinking or swelling on the guitar. And since we usually chose hard, glassy woods such as ebony as ideal for fingerboards—ebony being notoriously reactive to ambient humidity changes—sealing is important. Literally anything oily: motor oil, Crisco, 3-in-1, lard, will do the job. But they stink. So there are additional criteria.

If sealing was the sole criteria, lacquering the fingerboard surface would be ideal. Lacquer wouldn’t display the problems that oiling presents, as I detail below. But it makes little sense to lacquer a surface meant to be abraded constantly by the fingers and by the strings. Experience shows that lacquered fingerboard surfaces become flaked and pitted within a year or two of hard use. So, although many Latin-American luthiers lacquer their fingerboards on their folk instruments, it’s generally considered bad practice. You probably have seen what happens to lacquered maple fingerboards on old Tellies and Strats. Coatings become easily uncoated. The only good thing going for lacquer is that it doesn’t attract and hold dust and crud like the other alternatives do.

So what’s left? Oil or wax. First, wax. My finishing-chemist friend says that a light coat of any clear furniture wax, like Carnauba, would be ideal. He says that you’ll need to replenish it periodically as it wears off, but new wax actually redissolves the old, and if applied moderately, won’t build up: it’ll always have just one coat of wax, after buffing. And after it’s buffed and dry—and this is a good thing—like lacquer, it doesn’t attract and hold any dust or dirt. So wax has no downside, it seems—just that I haven’t heard of many luthiers waxing their fingerboards, although I’ve heard that some old timers used wax. But I’m not in the habit of using it, myself.

Oil, which is considered a penetrating finish, is far more commonly used than wax. Besides sealing the surface—albeit it, temporarily—the advantage of oil is that it does not flake off or get pitted. But on very hard, tightly-pored fingerboard woods such as rosewood or ebony, very little actually penetrates, so it eventually wears off and needs to be replaced at intervals. This is particularly true in areas of the fingerboard that are played on. But on areas that are not often played on, the stuff just sits there and builds up. 

As far as oils for wood finishing is concerned, here is what my finishing-chemist friend says: there are basically two kinds of oil: drying and non-drying. The non-drying don’t undergo a chemical reaction (i.e., oxidation). The most common non-drying oils are lemon oil, orange oil and mineral oil. These oils have a very slow evaporation rate and remain on the surface in a microscopically thin semi-liquid state for days – even weeks – after application. So they’ll wear away where the surface gets used a lot and build up and attract dust and dirt where you don’t play. But many guitarmakers like them, and recommend that their customers periodically (i.e., on every string change) replenish the playing surface with these non-drying oils—and less often, scrub the buildup off with spirits of turpentine and follow with a new coat of their favorite non-drying oil. Some people like to do that because they think they’re coddling their beloved.

Drying oils such as tung oil or linseed oil actually undergo a chemical change as they dry and attempt to bond chemically with the surface. As they become hard through oxidation, they become difficult to remove and over time the accumulation of layers of dried oil forms a shell over the surface. So they build up and they don’t come off, looking rather badly after a long while. So I stay away from them.

Alas, there is no consensus among “experts". My teacher, Michael Gurian, clearly an expert in his field, used his own blend of Cocoanut and Eucalyptus oil. All I could get out of him to justify it was that it smelled nice and always stayed a little oily because they are non-drying, so it would actually lubricate your fingers as you played and your fingers wouldn’t squeak on the wound strings while playing.  He used to supply it commercially, but he doesn’t anymore. My stash of Gurian Fingerboard Oil is long used up, sadly.

Most current commercial fingerboard oil preparations usually say they include something called “lemon oil”. You’d think that it came from lemons. In most cases, you’d be wrong. My finishing-chemist friend revealed to me that “lemon oil” on the market is artificially-lemon-scented-whatever-oil-they’re-trying-to-get-rid-of, drying or non-drying. So you take your chances. REAL lemon-oil preparations are a good candidate, and like most non-drying oils, they will temporarily seal the wood surfaces, making the wood look nice and smell nice. So you wouldn’t be WRONG to use  them—assuming you can confirm that it actually comes from lemons so it’s lemon oil and not “lemon oil”, AND that they don't contain any silicone oil.  Before applying any oil to your fingerboard you have to know that it doesn’t include any silicones or silicone oil of any sort. “Contains no silicones” is what you’re looking for on the label. Silicones are very bad to have on your guitar. So most commercial “furniture polishes” are verboten because typically they do have silicones (i.e. Lemon Pledge and the sort). Silicones “migrate”: they spread from the fingerboard to your fingers and eventually cover the entire guitar—making any future regluing or finish repairs problematic. My warranty is void if I find any evidence on my guitars of silicone polish or any fingerboard treatment that has the typical slick, silicone look.

Finally, after using up my last jar of Gurian Eucalyptus/cocoanut fingerboard oil, I’ve settled on a commercial preparation that is essentially light mineral oil, thinned out a bit with mineral spirits. Some commercial “lemon oil” preparations are actually lemon-scented mineral oil. Read the label. Look up the company’s website. Ask questions. Finally, Baby oil, which is essentially mineral oil will serve as an excellent fingerboard oil. If its too thick to handle and apply, thin it out with  a bit of mineral spirits.