What I don't understand about the Carbon fiber Guitar world....

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by EvanB

What a gorgeous guitar! The pictures are great. Thanks for bringing that here.

Thanks, Evan! Now we'll await the almost zero replies that'll be posted to my comment ...

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Thanks, Evan! Now we'll await the almost zero replies that'll be posted to my comment ...

Hey - I thought being ignored was my specialty

[Aspiring]

Spruce, it is a nice instrument. I owned a usa made Elite that was my first acoustic purchased in 92 and sold last year

Never tried the Adamas but heard good things.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

I've oftened wondered what combinations with wood could bring. Composite technology is very cool.

One of my other hobbies is sailing. The boats in this picture
https://images.app.goo.gl/uWhsj8kDfqxqQXoP8

Very much look like wood but are actually built with a red cedar core that is laminated between s glass carbon and kevlar all laid up with epoxy.

The builder chose the cedar core due to its properties vs foam and nomex or similar traditional composite boat building materials.

It would be interesting to see how a similar structure would do as a soundboard

Cool skiffie Aspiring, Australian design? Do you play with the I-14 guys in the PNW?

I've raced A-Class catamarans since 2001, all carbon in the platform, rig, and foils. We started foiling 5 years ago, scary fun. Here's a pic of my latest boat with me sailing it in Key Largo just before a regatta.



The Swift looks like a handful with three sails, good fun! We also have a Weta trimaran. My wife sailed a Sunfish for awhile and hated it, we sold it and got the Weta. We sailed the Columbia River Gorge Regatta a few years ago doublehanding the boat. What a spectacular venue that was, windy as advertised.

Sorry for the thread hijack!

[Aspiring]

Nice! I haven't tried foiling yet myself.

I used to play with the I-14 folks for sure. I actually sail a Musto Performance Skiff although life has managed to get firmly in the way in the past five years or so.

The designer of the Swift lives here in the PNW. I had the privilege of having my boat right beside his on the dock so we sailed together many times and had many shared regattas between the classes.

I also have a Corsair 28R trimaran which with kids has been more my focus for the current time.

The gorge is an amazing venue for sure. I am at least now set up with travelling carbon guitars that can go with me for the non sailing time.

Originally Posted by SprintBob

Cool skiffie Aspiring, Australian design? Do you play with the I-14 guys in the PNW?

I've raced A-Class catamarans since 2001, all carbon in the platform, rig, and foils. We started foiling 5 years ago, scary fun. Here's a pic of my latest boat with me sailing it in Key Largo just before a regatta.



The Swift looks like a handful with three sails, good fun! We also have a Weta trimaran. My wife sailed a Sunfish for awhile and hated it, we sold it and got the Weta. We sailed the Columbia River Gorge Regatta a few years ago doublehanding the boat. What a spectacular venue that was, windy as advertised.

Sorry for the thread hijack!

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by eatswodo

Hey - I thought being ignored was my specialty

Thanks, I feel better already!

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by Aspiring

Nice! I haven't tried foiling yet myself.

I used to play with the I-14 folks for sure. I actually sail a Musto Performance Skiff although life has managed to get firmly in the way in the past five years or so.

The designer of the Swift lives here in the PNW. I had the privilege of having my boat right beside his on the dock so we sailed together many times and had many shared regattas between the classes.

I also have a Corsair 28R trimaran which with kids has been more my focus for the current time.

The gorge is an amazing venue for sure. I am at least now set up with travelling carbon guitars that can go with me for the non sailing time.

We be twin llamas from different mamas! We share carbon guitars, carbon high performance small boats, and Corsair trimarans (we also own a Sprint 750).

[Captain Jim]

Originally Posted by SprintBob

We be twin llamas from different mamas! We share carbon guitars, carbon high performance small boats, and Corsair trimarans (we also own a Sprint 750).

We had a Corsair F27 back in the day...





My boat guitar at that time was an Ovation.

[Aspiring]

I have run into a lot of people that seem to have some combination of guitars with new materials, people who sail tris and skiffs and other less mainstream boats motorcycles bicycles and a couple other hobbies that are more about the Journey than the destination.

My boat guitars are now a Furch Little Jane, Klos travel guitar or my Emerald X7 depending on anticipated weather conditions and how much space I have in the boat!

The Adamas at least in the earlier versions does indeed seem to use a thin carbon skin over a wood core so it does appear like a reasonable way for a soundboard. I knew those boat repair skills would come in handy for building guitars.

Sprint we also have an Edwinson in common brother Llama.

[SprintBob]

I’ve taken my my Rainsongs many places. My former P-12 spent 10 hours in a cargo hold on a flight from Charlotte to Rome and the same coming home. It also did two plane trips to St. Martin and lived on a boat for a couple of weeks each time. The most frequent harsh duty I put them through is being in the car on a hot day.

It’s awesome to have guitars that can travel so well yet tonally have no compromises.

Captain Jim, did you cruise your F-27 only or did you participate in any of the Corsair regattas (in Florida)? Corsair had some regattas in the the Florida panhandle from the late’s 90’s to about 7 years ago that at one point were attracting 50-60 boats.

We’re going to sell the Sprint next year and hoping to buy either a Cruze 970 or the new 880. I’m going to Pensacola tomorrow to take a sail on a new 880.

Sorry again for the thread hijack but one of the reasons I have a carbon guitar is to be able to take it on a boat.

[Captain Jim]

SprintBob, we did race our Corsair on occasion, but never did the national races in Florida. It was mostly cruising for us (well, faster than "leaner" cruising ). If you ever participated on the old F-boat Forum (via e-mail), I was a moderator there. I did some photography for Corsair when they were in southern California, and wrote a few things for their magazine. One of the toughest situations as a moderator there was having to put Mike Leneman and Ian Farrier on moderation after those two had a flame war. A lot of testosterone there.

Plenty of good memories of our experience with that boat, including anchored out on pleasant nights, playing guitar while sitting on the nets and leaned back against the cabin... and looking at the stars.

Carbon Fiber guitars weren't on my radar back then. I recall a sailing buddy telling me (when Composite Acoustics was in Louisiana) that I had to try one of these amazing guitars made from carbon fiber. "Carbon fiber? On a guitar?? I don't think so." Never thought I'd own a powercruiser either. Tastes can change when you have an open mind.

[sam.spoons]

Back on topic, briefly I have an Emerald X7 (version 2) having spent years looking for a parlour sized guitar that I liked the sound of. I nearly bought a Taylor GS mini but held off then came across the X7. It is my goto guitar for nearly everything these days* and is the first guitar to have supplanted my Brian Eastwood in that role for more than a few weeks since I got the Eastwood in 1981.

Lookswise I wanted, and got, plain black carbon weave which I love. Soundwise it sounds more 'HiFi' than my wooden guitars, different but not inferior. The other parlours I tried always sounded too mid range focused for my taste and there X7 is more balanced.

* Except Gypsy Jazz, obviously the Aylward is an entirely different beast, though the X7 does great, if a little clean sounding, gypsy rhythm.

WRT Boats, I have sailed since I was 11 and have owned and raced several boats and windsurfers, currently I own two boats, a Spice (a twin wire 'pretend' skiff) and a Blaze which I race most weeks.

I love the look of the Swift Solo, gorgeous boat. And I envy the A Class, one of my teenage dreams (behave you lot) was to own and sail a Unicorn. I'm probably past my sell by date WRT foiling A Class at 67, I'm glad to still be sailing competitively.

[Explorer]

Originally Posted by SpruceTop

Wonder No More ... Likely Not What You Had In Mind But Back To The Future Anyway ...

2020 Adamas I 2087GT-8 Custom Reverse Blue Burst

Top Wood: Ultra-thin Carbon Fiber

Just to note: The Adamas I 2087 has, I believe, not what most think of as a carbon fiber top, but instead a sandwich of a birch core with carbon fiber skins on both sides. That construction acts as a torsion box, with a lot of strength and stiffness coupled with reduced weight.

That is in comparison to the Rainsong and Emerald method of just adding more material to the outside of their soundboard.

Given that Composite Acoustics really nailed the sound of wood on their Legacy line, using bracing instead of changes or additions to the composite lay-up, there are still many areas to be explored in the CF arena.

Me personally, a while ago I replaced my Rainsong 12-string with an Adamas. That guitar continues to scratch that particular itch.

[Aspiring]

[

Originally Posted by Explorer

Just to note: The Adamas I 2087 has, I believe, not what most think of as a carbon fiber top, but instead a sandwich of a birch core with carbon fiber skins on both sides. That construction acts as a torsion box, with a lot of strength and stiffness coupled with reduced weight.

Right, that's what I was alluding to for the Swift solo. It uses cedar core with glass layers on either side.

However the boat takes it one step further by using s glass as the top layer which is transparent allowing the very functional wood core to show through.

It sounds like that could be a way to have a top where you are showing the wood and it is actually functional to have the wood there as opposed to just cosmetic.

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by Explorer

Just to note: The Adamas I 2087 has, I believe, not what most think of as a carbon fiber top, but instead a sandwich of a birch core with carbon fiber skins on both sides. That construction acts as a torsion box, with a lot of strength and stiffness coupled with reduced weight.

That is in comparison to the Rainsong and Emerald method of just adding more material to the outside of their soundboard.

Given that Composite Acoustics really nailed the sound of wood on their Legacy line, using bracing instead of changes or additions to the composite lay-up, there are still many areas to be explored in the CF arena.

Me personally, a while ago I replaced my Rainsong 12-string with an Adamas. That guitar continues to scratch that particular itch.

Exactly on the above! Also, for those not familiar with Adamas design, the top on different models can have a different wooden bracing pattern. For example, my new Adamas I 2087-8 has Adamas Fan bracing which gives the overall tone a very balanced quality. My long-gone Adamas 2080 NWT had an LX Scalloped X-bracing which gave it a very loud and bass-resonant dreadnought-like quality.