The importance of resin versus carbon fiber

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by David Eastwood

One of the things I’ve loved about being part of the ‘alternative materials’ community these last five years or so is that, by and large, we all focus on the guitars themselves and not the minutiae of their construction.

Well-respected luthiers will continue to say that the builder is the single most important factor in a wooden guitar’s construction, and that, outside of certain specifics, the actual woods used are rather less significant than most realize. Despite that, the fixation on species continues, along with the associated confirmation bias and ocular auditioning.

I seriously hope we don’t degenerate into arguing about resin to laminate ratios, prepreg vs raw, and so on. That way lies madness.

It might be of academic interest, but if the guitar moves me and inspires me to play it, I really do not care how it’s made.

I’m a high performance sailboat racer that races boats with both hull structures and masts built of carbon fiber. If a composite builder does not pay attention to what I called out, you will end up with boats and rigs breaking in half in the middle of the ocean and guitars that sound flat as a board. A famous French ocean racer had his carbon fiber racing sailboat literally break in half and sink in less than 10 minutes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean two years ago in the Vendee Globe solo non-stop round the world sailing race. He had just enough time to get into his survival gear and life raft and was rescued by another competitor that diverted course to him. They believe the failure was due to a layup/cure issue during the boat’s construction.

I think some want to romantically consider luthiery whether in wood or carbon to be an art and all about the builder but IMO it is much more a science and the builder’s attention to detail. Building in wood is just as much a science as building in carbon fiber. Go get your hands on Ervin Somogyi’s books on wood guitar construction and give them a read for proof of that. His guitars are works of art and sound like it too but his approach is very scientific.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by SprintBob

I’m a high performance sailboat racer that races boats with both hull structures and masts built of carbon fiber. If a composite builder does not pay attention to what I called out, you will end up with boats and rigs breaking in half in the middle of the ocean and guitars that sound flat as a board. A famous French ocean racer had his carbon fiber racing sailboat literally break in half and sink in less than 10 minutes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean two years ago in the Vendee Globe solo non-stop round the world sailing race. He had just enough time to get into his survival gear and life raft and was rescued by another competitor that diverted course to him. They believe the failure was due to a layup/cure issue during the boat’s construction.

I think some want to romantically consider luthiery whether in wood or carbon to be an art and all about the builder but IMO it is much more a science and the builder’s attention to detail. Building in wood is just as much a science as building in carbon fiber. Go get your hands on Ervin Somogyi’s books on wood guitar construction and give them a read for proof of that. His guitars are works of art and sound like it too but his approach is very scientific.

I think you might be misunderstanding me - either that, or I didn't explain myself well. I’m certainly not questioning your credentials.

I agree that the material science is crucially important to the CF luthier - as is choice of wood and construction detail to the traditional counterpart.

I think many players have a tendency to fixate on those details and ascribe attributes to them which become generalizations or even 'truth', which, in turn rarely stand up to close scrutiny. "All maple guitars are bright" is a typical example.

All I was trying to say was that we should not fall into the same traps for composite instruments.