Quote:
Originally Posted by LPMark
R Siminoff states in the "Luthiers Handbook" that for acoustic instruments with a FIXED bridge that "little or no power comes from the lateral vibration".
Lateral vibration causes the greatest string excursion and is the limiting factor of how low the action can be and appears to be affected by resonance of the entire system.
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I think you are misunderstanding Roger S; something that is not hard to do.
Most of the power that the string transfers to the top comes from the string's transverse motion--motion perpendicular to the string. That motion can be anywhere in the 360º around the string, and is not just in one plane at a time--the string gyrates around its resting line as well as displacing side to side. If you look only at the motion that is parallel to the top, which I'd assume is what Roger is calling "lateral," it transfers little movement or power to the top. However, that lateral transverse movement, because it is parallel to the fretboard, has nothing to do with limiting action height. What limits action height is the transverse movement perpendicular to the top and fretboard, and that is exactly the movement that provides most of the acoustic power. So there is no free lunch available here. You could make the top move less--until eventually it becomes like a solid-body electric guitar--and by losing the top's resonant motion reduce string excursion and get the action a very little bit lower; but this would come at the cost of losing acoustic power and tone.