Fit and Finish

[printer2]

Originally Posted by John Arnold

My experience is that any inspection that is this magnified will show flaws in most guitars.

Hope John does not mind me paraphrasing him from a thread where he commented about a flaw in a Martin. Have expectations grown to the extent that any little flaw is a reason to pass by one guitar in favor of the perfect specimen? Almost like picking fruits and vegetables at the store? Are people's expectations such that our hand crafted guitars need to attain the perfect factory fit and finish? Or do people understand perfection does not come easy when a CNC is not involved? Do the people we (well at least me) look up to in the Custom Shop bat 1000 every time?

I just jointed and glued a top together that had been thicknessed and cut to shape with a rosette that I noticed I had a flaw in. A bit of a gap between the purfling and the spruce. I put it together with hide glue so I heated the back of the top to soften the glue up so I could remove the rosette. Did it while the HG was still relatively fresh and not set in its ways. In the process the Tightbond separated in an area between the plates. Managed to get the top together again, much easier clamping together when the plates do not have an hourglass shape to them.

In this case I thought the flaw was bad enough where I would not be happy with it in the finished guitar. But at what point do we say it is good enough?

[fazool]

I don't think there is one simple answer. It all depends on how visible and prominently located an imperfection is. Perhaps a 1/64" gap is tolerable in the from binding, whereas a 1/32" gap is tolerable in the back binding, etc.

[redir]

Years ago when I did repairs for local music stores one of the gents working there referred to the less then stellar factory built guitars that were overbuilt with cheap materials but looked absolutely spotless as, polished turds. I mean these things really did look pretty good.

Whats even worse is when the fit and finish of the inside of the guitar is what will sway the opinion of one over the other.

But guitars are interesting objects. They can be taken on many different levels. They are in and of themselves a sort of sculpture, a three dimensional object created in wood. They are also in and of themselves musical instruments and when in the hands of a musician a tool used to create art through sound.

So it really all comes down to the luthier and their client. Is he/she a sculptor or a maker of musical instruments or perhaps both? In either case or at the lowest denominator the finish is only there to protect the instrument but it has to at least look good too.

[mirwa]

IMO, Hand done, should always be better than assembly line done (finish/fit).
Steve

[martingitdave]

I like astonishingly pretty guitars. I love great sounding guitars. If I find an astonishingly pretty and great sounding guitar, I usually can't afford it. Teasing of course. For my tastes, the 800 and 900 series Taylor guitars are some of the loveliest production guitars available. The 816ce I owned was the lovely and wonderful sounding. My Martins have been the best sounding dreadnoughts. The Collings D3A was the prettiest dreadnought I've owned. I keep the 2 or 3 that sound the best and get the most use. For example, my new D28 Marquis sounds wonderful, but has some uneven grain in the red spruce top. The EIR is pretty, but the grain is not perfectly straight on the lower bout. Some might have passed it over for that reason. Good. I got it. The 858e Taylor 12 string I own has the most beautiful quarter sawn Sitka top with silking that I've seen. The EIR is perfectly straight. It also sounds like a million bucks. I got lucky with that one.


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[dekutree64]

There's room for everyone.

Some customers demand cosmetic perfection inside and out, and some builders provide that (and charge accordingly).

For me, some things require perfection, such as fretwork, but others like binding can have a few little gaps and I don't really care. I'm more concerned with how it sounds and feels than how it looks. And I prefer an artistic design with small flaws over a plain jane design executed flawlessly.

As far as finish goes, I consider perfect gloss to be past the point of maximum beauty and feel. Yes it requires more time and skill (at least to do it super thin), but it has a grippy feel to it, highlights every little scratch and fingerprint, and (to me) lacks soul. I'm still searching for my ideal finish, but getting close at this point with a variety of French polished shellac. Pores mostly filled but still visible as shallow indentations. Soundboard scraped and then polished to the point that the micro-texture is filled but the large scale corduroy texture remains. Everything polished until shiny, but not excessively so. Images are visible but blurry in the reflection, and it's thin enough that glue joints show as very fine indentations in the reflection. This is especially nice on inlays, since it shows the individual pieces rather than looking no different than a decal. It does highlight flaws in workmanship, but usually filling gaps with hide glue blends in nicely with the overall look. The feel is smooth and warm. Not grippy like gloss and not scritchy like satin.

My current sort-of problem is that it doesn't seem to work on all woods. For example, I have a sinker redwood top that demands high gloss before the micro-texture will disappear. And curly mahogany requires a complete pore fill to stop looking overly coarse, and then it doesn't have any texture to break up the gloss. But that may be ok. Treat each wood as it wants to be treated, instead of trying to make them all look the same.

[Bowie]

Your work will represent you as a builder. So, it's up to you to implement QC that meets a standard that you're happy putting your name on.
I don't build guitars but I repair and build high end recording gear and microphones and I'm pretty neurotic about the little things. It's a torturous way to work, but the payoff is that it's earned me great loyalty from my customers.

You'll always make mistakes here and there though, and I've learned to not beat myself up too much over it. That's just defeating. Learn, improve, but don't dwell on it.

[iim7V7IM7]

Small signs that a builder's hand was there during the process of construction of a guitar or variations in wood figure reinforcing that is a natural material have never bothered me in a fine guitar...

[ChuckS]

A builder once explained to me his view of 'aesthetic perfection' vs. 'flawlessness'. It made perfect sense for what drove his design and execution, and it makes perfect sense for the buyers that appreciate his work; his 'aesthetic perfection'.

I can appreciate guitar's from builders with differing views, as long as there is no compromise in tone, playability, or structural performance. I do inspect my guitars for fit and finish, but no longer expect or even desire what I used to define as 'flawlessness'. A guitar with a visual 'character' can be a good thing.

[Bruce Sexauer]

There is no such thing as flawless. The search for unflawed perfection is a flaw itself.

For me, the criteria more important is the level of imperfection. I seek an evenness of flaw. Raising one's flaw consistancy level from 98% to 99% (arbitrary figures) is a worthy life goal IMO.

Subtle evidence of the hand is much of the charm/beauty of what we do.

Broken or incomplete is another thing altogether. Bad joinery is unacceptable in a musical instrument.

Etcetera.

[Silly Moustache]

Surely -the facility for perfection has changed since i started looking at guitars - back in the late '60s.

In those days, the handmade guitars, John Bailey etc., were a rare and highly desired object but were obviously hand-made by close inspection of variances in finish.

Buying a new piece by foreign high volume makers like Gibson, Guild and Martin went with advice to compare two or three before buying (IF there was an opportunity)!

With makers like Collings entering the market the bar has risen markedly.

I remember taking my first Collings to my luthier pal back in 1999. He examined it extremely closely inside and out and with a frown on his face he resignedly looked at me and said - "it is perfect - I've never seen perfect before!"

Another well known British luthier, I'll spare his embarrassment produced quite a few instruments, and after examining Collings guitars at a NAMM declared that he sought out Bill C, and declared that he was going home to Britain to scrap his stock and start again. (He told me that himself!)

This is not just a praise for Collings, and some might find them clinical or soulless, but I suspect that they have made many other makers review their fit and finish standards, with those that haven't being more obvious than ever.

[redir]

This BTW is why a lot of very well respected luthiers send their guitars off to be finished by someone who knows what they are doing. In some cases they get a lot of guff for doing that, they shouldn't. Finishing a guitar and building one are two very different things and each takes years and years of iterations do become a master at.

I personally won't send one off to be finished unless of course requested to do so. As much as I hate finishing for the most part, I like the fact that I get get better and better at it. But I would never ever think lessor of anyone who chooses to have their work finished by an expert.

[Alan Carruth]

Apprentices make mistakes and don't know it.
Journeymen make mistakes and hide them.
Masters make mistakes but they're part of their style.

The closer a thing is to perfection, the more the small imperfections stand out.

Factories live by fit and finish: things that don't fit take time to correct, and time is their most expensive input. That's why they invest in tooling that renders each operation perfectly repeatable. The down side of that is that they can't take the differences in the wood they work with into account, and have to build to some sort of average. This works pretty well most of the time, but seldom gets the best out of any given set of wood.

Hand makers can alter things to maximize tone for any set of wood to the extent that they understand how, and know what's considered 'good' in the particular case. The down side is that they have to rely on skill instead of tooling to get precision. In reducing the risk of ending up with a bad sounding guitar, they run a greater risk of making one that has fit and finish issues.

If I ever make one that is 'perfect' I'll probably quit, since there won't be any place to go after that. As far as I can tell, there's no danger of that happening any time soon, although the things I now consider as 'flaws' are better than my best work used to be.

[charles Tauber]

Very well and succinctly put, Alan.

[LouieAtienza]

For me, I just try to build to the best of my ability... however lacking it may be at this point. I think most of us always strive to do better with our next instrument, chasing perfection though it is unachievable. It doesn't stop us from trying.

I think there is more than a subtle difference between " to the best of my ability" and "good enough for government work" or "can't see it from my shop..."