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Old 06-19-2019, 05:26 AM
Mark Hatcher's Avatar
Mark Hatcher Mark Hatcher is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Green Mountains
Posts: 4,862
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lonzo View Post
Holey moley... and that bearclaw (on) top...
good info and great pics as well !
Thanks Lonzo,

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemoman View Post
All of your soundports look awesome, Mark.

Put me in the camp that a plain hole in the side looks too unfinished. It's really one of my pet peeves--a soundport needs to be bound in my opinion, to make the guitar look cohesive and finished. Even just a purfling line like your first example makes a big difference in upgrading the appearance.

Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Nemoman, I get how a bound sound port can look more finished. I confess that I sometimes like unbound ones as well. They can add a pattern to the side without calling a lot of attention to themselves.
Creating a rule that sound ports should be bound can really get in the way of some more complex sound port patterns. I'll have some samples of those that hopefully make my point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Erithon View Post
+1
And I imagine it helps to protect the exposed end grains and, much like a rosette, to prevent splitting at the end grain by providing a perpendicular stop-gap.


Mark, is this something a lot of builders do or a practice fairly unique to Hatcher guitars? I've played a number of guitars with ports, but yours are the only ones that I can remember having interior laminates (not that I was really looking so I may have missed such details).
Do you reinforce the area to prevent cracks when cutting the hole, or is your goal to buttress the soundport region because a port somehow weakens it?
I use laminates for support mostly to help prevent cracks from developing. The way I build guitars I use the transverse brace to support the upper bout against the upward pull of the neck caused by the string tension. This tension makes the upper bout want to spread and the top wants to push down in the area of the fret board extension. This type of upper body distortion can lead to the need for future neck resets. In any case, because I use the transverse brace to help with these issues more of the force is spread out to the upper bout sides for support. In other words. The ends of my transverse braces push down on the upper bout sides more than the typical scooped type transverse brace.

So that happens right on top of where a sound port usually lands. The laminates are a safe guard. They certainly also help guard against cracks developing if that area if bumped or banged.

I usually don't add laminates to laminated sides as I consider them strong enough and crack resistant enough already.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil K Walk View Post
I think the reason for putting in veneers was to prevent the possibility that drilling into the side would create a key crack? I have to admit that decoratively it looks nicer to have a cross section with a little variation in it.
Thanks for commenting Neil, I don't worry too much about cracking while drilling because I usually just drill a pilot hole large enough to get a rotary tool in there and enlarge it to size.

I agree that I like the variation of a little purfling line inside the sound port.
This is a little detail for the intimate guitar. And who are we trying to please here anyway?

When I make a guitar I design three guitars:

1) The performance guitar to be seen and heard from around 12 feet or more. This is the guitar for the audience.

2) The social guitar to be seen and heard from maybe 2ft to 12ft. This is for friends and fellow players.

3) The intimate guitar to be seen and heard under 2ft. This is for the player, lovers, and our babies.

Mark
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Mark Hatcher
www.hatcherguitars.com


“Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”. Andrew Fletcher