Gopher wood guitars

[johbren]

There is a g800 for sale on my local cragslist. I've never heard of them. Anybody know about them?

[ManyMartinMan]

It’s probably a good guitar but it’s hard to find a case that is 2 cubits by 4 cubits by 1.5 cubits .............

[oliverkollar]

Originally Posted by ManyMartinMan

It’s probably a good guitar but it’s hard to find a case that is 2 cubits by 4 cubits by 1.5 cubits .............

YES!!!

Brilliant answer!

Sorry OP....never heard of the g800 either.

[gabriel_bc]

Originally Posted by ManyMartinMan

It’s probably a good guitar but it’s hard to find a case that is 2 cubits by 4 cubits by 1.5 cubits .............

I hear the finish is pitch ... and it comes with a 40 day, 40 night warranty.

[TokyoNeko]

They're a Korean brand with manufacturing in China.

For those who regard devices like ToneRite as snake oil, their "Sound Pillar" is something else.

http://gopherwoodguitar.com/520vs620/sp/index.html

[charlieD]

Just wondering if the inspiration for the "Sound Pillar" is the sound post that is found in violin-family instruments and even some archtop guitars. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_post). The Gopherwood Sound Pillar looks like a techno update of the solid dowel sound post, which has been called the "soul" of the violin.

Recently, I had my mother's century-old violin restored by the Bay Area's foremost violin shop, Ifshin Violins. They spent quite some time ensuring the structural integrity and positioning of the sound post, which they said was the most crucial part of a violin's setup. Maybe a sound post in a guitar is not so far-fetched an idea--provided the builder designs and voices it that way.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by charlieD

Just wondering if the inspiration for the "Sound Pillar" is the sound post that is found in violin-family instruments and even some archtop guitars. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_post). The Gopherwood Sound Pillar looks like a techno update of the solid dowel sound post, which has been called the "soul" of the violin.

Recently, I had my mother's century-old violin restored by the Bay Area's foremost violin shop, Ifshin Violins. They spent quite some time ensuring the structural integrity and positioning of the sound post, which they said was the most crucial part of a violin's setup. Maybe a sound post in a guitar is not so far-fetched an idea--provided the builder designs and voices it that way.

Soundposts in guitars are an idea that keeps getting reinvented over and over again, mostly by hobbyist guitar builders on their third or fourth guitar build. But they don't work in acoustic guitars because acoustic guitars don't work in the same mechanical way as violins. (Those experimenting guitar builders rarely build a second guitar with a soundpost...)

With violins, the primary method of driving the strings is to bow them, which provides a stream of essentially continuous energy through the strings, imparted to the top by the bridge, and through the soundpost to the back.

The problem with trying to get the same coupling effect by using a soundpost in a guitar is that energy is imparted to the guitar top only intermittently, either via a pick or by the fingers. So there isn't the continuous flow of energy that using a bow provides, which is necessary to overcome the resistance that a dowel of wood linking the top and back is going to offer.

Keep the energy flow continuous, and that resistance is overcome, and the soundpost becomes a conduit for vibration from the top to the back. But if the energy transmitted is intermittent, as it is on an acoustic guitar, the only result is that the soundpost actually stifles and inhibits vibration, not covey it from the top to the back as hoped.

Short version: linking guitar tops to the back with a soundpost is an idea that keeps getting repeated all the time, but hasn't worked the way these guitar builders have hoped for yet. It's a nonstarter.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[jojobean39]

Originally Posted by TokyoNeko

They're a Korean brand with manufacturing in China.

For those who regard devices like ToneRite as snake oil, their "Sound Pillar" is something else.

http://gopherwoodguitar.com/520vs620/sp/index.html

[emoji23]

I just looked up the ToneRite and this SoundPillar. Man, there really must be one born every minute, huh?

[73171]

A gopher wood guitar? You could play this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaSUyYSQie8

[Steve DeRosa]

When I play out I gopher my carbon-fiber guitars...

[colder]

Originally Posted by ManyMartinMan

It’s probably a good guitar but it’s hard to find a case that is 2 cubits by 4 cubits by 1.5 cubits .............

[colder]

Originally Posted by charlieD

Just wondering if the inspiration for the "Sound Pillar" is the sound post that is found in violin-family instruments and even some archtop guitars. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_post). The Gopherwood Sound Pillar looks like a techno update of the solid dowel sound post, which has been called the "soul" of the violin.

Recently, I had my mother's century-old violin restored by the Bay Area's foremost violin shop, Ifshin Violins. They spent quite some time ensuring the structural integrity and positioning of the sound post, which they said was the most crucial part of a violin's setup. Maybe a sound post in a guitar is not so far-fetched an idea--provided the builder designs and voices it that way.

Yeah, it's a very interesting idea I think, and it's such a proven part of the design of violins that it's probably worth a building experimenting with.