Official Luthiers Forum!

Soon,
Kevin has asked me to use it on one of my guitars and see what I think and how it works out.... then he will probably allow me to indulge the OLF with a group buy.
I will keep you guys posted.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

The latest guitar I'm building has doubled sides at the top with a 1" tall solid liner of rosewood PLUS Fox-style reverse kerfing PLUS a strip of .022" x 3/8" wide CF laminated on top of the reverse kerfing all the way around the inside of the guitar including over the neck and butt blocks. Then when I bind, I'm going to use a strip of the same CF as purfling inside the binding. The rim of the guitar will be incredibly stiff independent of the top. This one will be pushing this theory farther than any guitar I've made yet, and we'll just have to see how it is. So far, every guitar that has gone a step stiffer in the sides has sounded better to me in the direction I want to take this series of instruments.

I do not believe there is no difference when you get the top glued on, and I do believe that a stiff rim makes for a more projective guitar.

I'll take some pictures this weekend of the sides assembly.

i look forward to seeing those pictures rick. when you say that you do not believe there is no difference when you get the top glued on, do you have any ideas to support this? im trying to form my own opinion on this and there are alot of great ideas out there. just curious what you think.

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sweat the small stuff.

Most guitars slowly deform over the years due to the 160 to 180 lbs. of string tension. This is why steel string guitars "of a certain age" need neck resets. The backs flatten, the sides distort, the tops belly and dip...and the rims at the back and top joints change shape.   

I am also influenced by the ideas of Jose Ramirez (who did the doubled side strip at the top joint on his upper end guitars), by Greg Smallman whose very rigid sides are a part of his volume formula, and also Paul McGill who has sort of combined Smallman-like rigidity with more Madrid-like bracing. I think that classical builders have had to work harder to achieve tone and volume in concert settings as amplification has been slow in coming to the classical guitar. I see modern classical guitars as being more advanced structurally than most steel string guitars because either the steel string luthiers are chasing the 1930s Martin ideal (even on guitars which don't look particularly like Martins) or they're putting in pickups.   

I just got the graphite on top of the Fox-style reverse kerfing this evening, and this set of sides is incredibly rigid without weighing a ridiculous amount. I'll take pictures when I get the back on, get the pillars onto the sides, and get the flying buttresses into it. A couple of pictures will tell the whole story at that point. This one is in Cambodian rosewood...nice stuff. I may keep it for a while at least. I'll have it at H'burg.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner] I just got the graphite on top of the Fox-style reverse
kerfing this evening, and this set of sides is incredibly rigid without
weighing a ridiculous amount. I'll take pictures when I get the back on, get
the pillars onto the sides, and get the flying buttresses into it. A couple of
pictures will tell the whole story at that point. This one is in Cambodian
rosewood...nice stuff. I may keep it for a while at least. I'll have it at H'burg.
[/QUOTE]

I look forward to this one! pics are gold!

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Zac

Anchorage Alaska

Finshed my 1st! See #1 here