Official Luthiers Forum!

John Ressler showed his all OSB guitar at a recent Chicago group meeting. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend but am interested in hearing more.

Can you guys who were at the meeting, especially John, give more comments on the OSB guitar. Having spoken with Joe White after his return, I was impressed by his thoughts...and Joe always has honest thoughts! He described it "as a guitar he could proudly own"...and I've seen and heard the guitars he owns.

So let's hear it...how much OSB was used on the guitar...and which components were NOT OSB? Why would such crappy wood sound so good? (no offense, John...quite the contrary!)

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

I'd like to know that too!

I have always been a fan of stiff sides! Plywood is always thought bad of in these kinds of applications but I think it works for sides. I believe the ribs add a nuance to sound but also the floppiness may detract....IMHO!

Some guys build light, light, light and it works or them so there may be trade-offs in building heavier too.

I'm working on a jig that sonically tests soundboards quickly and it's extremely solid, now I'm thinking how this property may influence results. I would love to hear more about this guitar and maybe some sound clips too, if that's easily do-able.

I'm greatly attracted to these "off-beat" concepts, I think there's a lot to learn in them.

An added plus, instead of going to the tonewood store you go to the construction site!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Ok, I will bite since I held and strummed the now infamous Ressler OSB. I loved the guitar, but I am going to be honest here about the sound - which is just my opinion anyway. Hopefully more folks will join in to agree or disagree with me.

The first thing you notice, other than the incredible appearance of the material itself is the weight of the guitar. Most of the weight is in the neck so it's a little hard to balance on your lap. But the body is surprisingly light, although not as light as a conventional Dread. The trebles were muted, but not muted enough to problematically effect the separation of the notes of chords. The bass was nicely present but a little reserved. John Watkins commented that he thought the bass was nicely balanced. The guitar had a strong but mellow midrange, very balanced and very smooth. Overall the sound was a little muddy, with the highs lacking, like it had old strings. The volume was better than a lot of off the rack guitars but not boomy or loose, rather it was controlled. It would be great for campfire sing-alongs, no doubt about it.

I think all or almost all of the guitar was made from OSB. Maybe even the braces - John would you confirm that? John also commented that he used a lot of epoxy to provide a smooth finish. I wonder if the epoxy has much to do with the lack of trebles - maybe moreso than the material itself.

Thanks to John for sharing the OSB guitar with us. BTW, one of John's other guitars was so beautifully appointed and tastefully done, that it was my favorite flattop in the whole bunch.

Steve C.

Well not being a player I can't really comment on the sound, though it was quite competent. I think it was Kevin Mason who stated that it would probably record very well.
As far as the construction goes. The box was all OSB save for the x-brace which John wisely used spruce. All the other braces were OSB. I didn't look real close but I'm pretty sure the neck and tail blocks were OSB also. The neck was made of Timber Strand. This is very similar to OSB but uses much longer strands of wood instead of chips. With an ebony bridge, finger board rosette and headplate to finish it off. Oh, I said finish. John really knows how to do a finish on a guitar. That thing is smooth and shiney.

Steve

I played it late in the day. I thought is sounded nice and smooth. To me it had sort of an old martin dread sound to it. Sort of a thick heavy tone. I didn't think it was muddy at all, but the top was warm/smooth for sure. Its not the typical tone we hear out of the small body guitars most are building these days. The large body made the bottom end full. While it certainly was a great guitar in its own right, some of the lighter solid wood guitars had a bit more brilliance to the tone. I think often times the bright/brilliance in tone can come across harsh and raw or unrefined. So I prefer something a little warmer on top....especially for recording. Unfortunately in todays recordings, the accoustics are often stripped of tone below 750hz to make it sit light in the mix. It really kills the tone of an accoustic. The OSB would be great as the main track of something soft and subdued. Something like Piano, bass, accoustic and vocals would be fitting...as I think it would sit nice in that type of a mix. All in all, I think it was a great experiment in using design and material to get the most out of a guitar.

Joe

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Joe

Even the soundboard is OSB! Wow !! I would of never thought of using it for that! Interesting!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I found it to be warm as well. Nice bass, not boomy, it just blossomed up and decayed nicely. It was comfortable and very unique. I have to wonder if the heavy epoxy had a bit of damping effect as well. That guitar would record well with the fundamental focusing on the upper bass to lower mid range tone-wise. Treble could always be accomplished with a lighter pick, lighter strings or mic placement. I would enjoy using it on a real bare bones recording, no electric instruments, singer songwriter type stuff with some nice hand percussion toys .

I can't wait to hear the cedar closet liner topped version.
And yes, I would own this guitar, probably as stable as a composite acoustic?

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jw ( o)===:::

Assuming that the top was voiced prior to "pore filling" with epoxy I wonder if John might be able to describe differences he heard as he shaved and sanded away at the braces...and more importantly, what effect the epoxy may have had on the finished product.

Also...what were the thicknesses of the top, back and sides?

Finally...what epoxy was used?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Are there pictures somewhere of this?

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Check out this thread from the Chicago Meeting http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=17795

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Thanks, JJ. That's, um... beautiful. No really, it is actually very cool. No front or inside shots available?

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

OK, OK I get the message. Here are the details (I'm attaching a few photos. I don't have anything to record it with - maybe Ed can record it for me when I visit him)

First - Why??? Answer - why not? I am a very curious person. Every guitar I have built has been with different material (this was guitar #15 or so) because I aim to learn from each build. I was inspired by one of my employees who joked that I probably wouldn't dream of building a guitar from OSB - we'll that is all it took. I laughed quite a bit while building it because it seemed so absurd, but I was quite surprised when I heard it for the first time - then I wished I had spent more time with it, taking notes etc.

The guitar is from 2 materials actually. Top, back and sides are from 1/4 OSB sheet sanded to 1/8". The neck is from a Weyerhauser material called Timberstrand, which is used for stair treads. It looks similar, but is made from long wood strands instead of flakes for greater strength. I also made all of the braces from Timberstrand, with the exception of the X-brace which is Sitka Spruce, and the bridgeplate which is maple.

The headplate, bridge and rosette is ebony, the inlay is actually OSB (soaked it in CA before cutting it), the binding is tortoise, bone nut and saddle.

I bent the sides on a Fox style bender, just like any other wood. I was amazed how it held its shape. I coated the inside with a coat of Z poxy (including the underside of top) before closing the box.

I gave it a couple of coats of Z poxy before routing for the binding. It chipped out a lot, but I didn't use any purfling and just filled the voids with Z poxy. You can imagine all of the pores - I put on (and saned back somewhat) 8 coats of Z poxy, full strength, then shot it with Nitrocellulose.

As you can imagine it is very stable!!

For comparison, I built a guitar from Southern Yellow Pine prior to this one. It sounds horrible (very muddy), so my expectations were pretty low for this one. I expected to play it at a campfire, then throw it into the fire for effect at the end - but I had to keep it!! It is amazing the response it has had when I take it places. Usually no one notices what I consider to be my really good guitars and only wants to play this one - so thanks guys for noticing the other one!

Here are some photos - if I can get a recording of it - I'll post it some time

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John Ressler

Here are a few photos of the Southern Yellow Pine guitar. Looks nice - but sounds bad. Mahogany neck and spruce top. The headplate was the natural knot that appeared when I resawed the piece. It is exactly how it came out of the saw - no altering.

I'm currently working on a Birch Bark guitar - that is more challenging.

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John Ressler

John, that is really, really cool. Great job.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Thanks John...I commend you for your tenacity in seeking answers...really cool.

So, what can you conclude about the voicing...did the epoxy add to or detract from the tone once you completed the tweaking the bracing?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Any thoughts on why the pine guitar does not sound good? Design? Execution? Material? Just wondering how a guitar made from the spruce/pine family could sound that poor.

Joe

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Joe

JJ - unfortunately I didn't take this project real serious until the end, so I didn't take notes or photos of the bracing. What I do remember though is that I was surprised that it had any tap tone at all. It wasn't great, but it did ring a bit- so I more or less finished up the bracing the best I knew how, and put a coat of Z poxy on it. I also remember after the box was closed, that I thinned the edges of the lower bout by sanding it until I had a bit of a ring to it when thumping the bridge area. This seemed to help free it up a bit. It had a pretty good vibration to the top at that point. I feel pretty confident that the coat of Z poxy inside and the layers of Z poxy on top contributed to the sound of it. When you think about it, OSB already has a lot of glue, so it was pretty stiff before it was braced. I don't have any good explanations for why I did what I did - it was more or less intuitive, without high expectations.

The pine guitar - I contribute the dead sound of it to the softness of the pine back and sides. It just seems to absorb the vibrations - pretty dead. Although you might think of S. Yellow Pine as pretty hard, it was really like butter when it was thinned to .100. This guitar has no Z poxy inside - just raw wood. I'm thinking that if I had coated it, it might have stiffened it up enough to help out the sound. When I braced the top, I thought it sounded pretty good and was pretty optomistic that it would sound pretty good. But it just seems like the box just doesn't pump much air. The design is a standard dreadnought, which I have made several prior to this one, so I don't think the design was an issue.

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John Ressler

John buddy your guitars are VERY cool!

Its also great to see something different here too. Way-to-go!

Hesh - I'll bring it to Ann Arbor in Sept. I would love to have it in a mix of other guitars and do a blind sound test and see who can guess which one is the OSB guitar!

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John Ressler