The Acoustic Guitar Forum

Go Back   The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > Build and Repair

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #16  
Old 03-06-2021, 10:00 AM
terryj47 terryj47 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Santa Clarita, CA USA
Posts: 421
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by hubcapsc View Post
I'm pretty sure he's suggesting that the billet of wood you'd start out
with would be that thick and it would be cnc-milled down to a normal
top with normal bracing - except the braces would be the same piece of
wood as the top instead of glued to the top.

-Mike
Yes. The downside is the braces would not have the strength as traditional braces because the grain direction would be the same direction as the top. They would probably have to be thicker.
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 03-06-2021, 11:43 AM
rule18 rule18 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2021
Location: Orange County, NY
Posts: 1,414
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa View Post
As I recall, back in the '80s/90s Yamaha made a top-of-the-line L-5CES style carved-top jazzbox using this method. If you're not familiar with the process by which fine archtops are made, it involves carving and graduating the thickness of a 1-2" thick slab of wood, so that the final result is substantially thinner at all points (not to mention substantially lighter) - and although I've never personally played one, I understand the Yamaha archtop was fully competitive with its more-illustrious counterparts from Gibson and Guild...
Interesting... I've never owned (or researched) an Archtop.
__________________
{ o}===::: Craig
________________________
2003 Gibson J45
2021 Furch Yellow Gc-CR MC FOR SALE
2023 Hatcher Greta
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 03-07-2021, 07:41 PM
John Arnold John Arnold is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,082
Default

The Martin X brace pattern has no braces that are close to parallel with the grain in the top. With all the attention paid to have perfect grain alignment in bracewood, it makes no sense to carve braces that are so far removed from being structurally adequate. Another consideration is stability. The cross grain arrangement of the bracing keeps the top from changing width with varying humidity.
The reference to integral violin bass bars is a different story. In that case, the bass bar is essentially parallel with the grain in the top.
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 03-08-2021, 09:52 AM
Alan Carruth Alan Carruth is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 4,180
Default

The bass bar in the violin seems to have started out as an area that was left thick along the joint line; partly to help the joint stay tight, and partly to brace the top against the down force of the bridge. Over time they found (probably by accident) that it worked better to carve the whole top thin and glue in a separate piece. Even later (again, most likely accidentally) they found that it worked even better to put it off center. The only problem with it was that it made the sound 'brighter'.

Meanwhile, on a parallel track, other folks were propping up the stop by wedging in a little stick between the top and the back. It helped structurally when it was centered, but worked much better acoustically if it was off center a bit. It made the sound louder, but more 'bassy'.

Apparently, so far as I know, somewhere around 1550 somebody said to themselves:"If the bar makes it more 'trebly', and the post brings up the bass, what would happen if we used both of them at the same time?" What happened was that the modern violin was born. We don't know who did this.

Around 1600 Preatorius wrote a book entitled 'Syntagma Musicum', in which he documented everything he could find about all of the instruments in wide use in Europe at the time. He went so far as to include carefully scaled wood cuts of them, with rulers, so you could know just exactly what he was talking about.

When he came to describe the history of the development of the violin, however, he just said: "Everybody already knows that, so I won't waste the space". Sometimes the hardest things to find out are the ones that 'everybody knows'.

The use of integral bass bars on cheap fiddles is solely a cost saving measure. Fitting a gluing in bass bars is time consuming, and many of those old fiddles were built on a piece work basis.
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old 03-31-2021, 01:10 PM
Rukulele Rukulele is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: US of A
Posts: 36
Default

https://youtu.be/czi5aQ2UB40
Just saw this video reviewing a guitar exactly like what the op describes.
Reply With Quote
  #21  
Old 03-31-2021, 07:00 PM
printer2 printer2 is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Middle of Canada
Posts: 5,096
Default

In the vid, "Not overly bright, not overly loud." To be expected.
__________________
Fred
Reply With Quote
  #22  
Old 04-02-2021, 11:59 AM
viento viento is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: northern Germany (Dutch border) + south of Spain
Posts: 568
Default

Interesting built and astonishingly sounding good.
__________________
Thanks!




Martin D28 (1973)
12-string cutaway ...finished ;-)
Hoyer 12-string (1965)
Yamaha FG-340 (1970)
Yamaha FG-512 (ca. 1980)
D.Maurer 8-string baritone (2013-2014)
and 4 electric axes
Reply With Quote
Reply

  The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > Build and Repair

Thread Tools





All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:27 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright ©2000 - 2022, The Acoustic Guitar Forum
vB Ad Management by =RedTyger=