Have any of you built a bad guitar?

[BradHall]

Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer

My guitars are all relatively dead till the binding goes on.

They say there is a person for every guitar, and I have found that to be true.

Bruce posted earlier that the dead sounding box would come to life once the binding is on. I’ve given this a lot of thought and just don’t understand why that would be so.....but it is.
My muffled thud when tapping the top prior to binding has transformed to a very musical tone afterward. My discouragement has disappeared an I’m back on the road to completion. Glad I didn’t just toss it. As has been advised, keep moving forward.

[printer2]

Originally Posted by BradHall

Bruce posted earlier that the dead sounding box would come to life once the binding is on. I’ve given this a lot of thought and just don’t understand why that would be so.....but it is.
My muffled thud when tapping the top prior to binding has transformed to a very musical tone afterward. My discouragement has disappeared an I’m back on the road to completion. Glad I didn’t just toss it. As has been advised, keep moving forward.

Without the binding you have a very leaky box. Or to look at it another way, it is miss-tuned. So rather than having a resonance peak where we want it to be to reinforce the bass the air is pumped out of the gaps around the body rather than out the sound hole. It is like a pop bottle that you blow across the top and you get a tone. Knock a hole in the bottle (may not be the easiest of things) and then blow across it and you will not get the tone.

[BradHall]

I did consider that, but before I route the binding channel the top is pretty tight to the sides. I use hide glue and fill the kerfing strips and the edges of the sides.
After clamping it seems pretty tight. I don’t doubt your explanation. Just hard to grasp.