2 piece or 3 piece back???

[jmintzer]

Originally posted by Mike A.



Sounds familiar, James. Don't you think? Wonder where I heard that before........

I'm not bigger than knowing when I'm wrong, but when it comes to that Martin thing, which brace are they talking about? The main X-brace? The tone bars? The two fan braces? Or are they talking about the back? A couple weeks ago, I had an hour and a half to sit in on some Martin training. That's where he mentioned the "no difference" in bracing from the 28 series up to the 42 series. That difference in size of bracing you're referring to is coincidentally the difference between a D-series and an HD-series. Furthermore, the HD's have scalloped braces, like the current 16 series. The same thing is found on the HD28VR stuff as well. Sure, the H stands for Herringbone edge work, but it mainly denotes the scalloped bracing.

Actuall, according to the D F Martin website, the D-28 and the HD-28 have the same size bracing (5/16"). The difference is that the HD (28 & 35) have 'scalloped bracing' much like the vintage series guitars (which also have a 'forward shift'). The D-35 has the 1/4" bracing (scalloped in the HD-35). (BTW, I mis-typed before and stated the D-35 has 3/4" bracing, when, if fact, its 1/4").

James

[JW]

Good desciption Derek! JW

[NdaBoonies]

Originally posted by muzz76:

Fourth, back and side wood and the species density. How reflective the material is. Maple being very dense as a general rule would bounce the sound faster than Rosewood which is much less so.

I noticed a little table of relative densities in a link provided a while back, in another thread...
maple is less dense than rosewood... but not by much!! Maybe the maple is harder?

Check it out at:
http://www.cocobolo.net/hardwood_density.htm

[Jim]

The only reason for a three piece back that seems to make any sense to me is to accomodate the reality that good tone wood is getting harder to buy and more expensive every day and so companies that use a lot of wood in manufacturing their guitars are having to use small bits and pieces and make the most of what they can get. I'm sure there will come a day when we or our kids will see 4 piece backs (and tops even) and then we can all start wondering about how 4 piece backs compare to 3 piece backs and "the holy grail 2 piece backs from way back in the dinosaur days". It's already happened with strats where everyone wishes for the good old days of two piece bodies and not the current production of 3 to 9 piece bodies.

[muzz76]

NdaBoonies,

Interesting link. I had always correlated 'density' with the major factor in the reflective quality of the back/sides. I stand corrected on my terminology. The list seems about right for what bit I know about what different woods weigh so maybe 'hardness' is more applicable.

Derek