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While emailing a client yesterday we were discussing the affects of stiff top vs. floppy tops in relation to tone. I told him of a horror story from several years back. For those of you that have built donation guitars for a deserving blossoming musician I thought you might get a laugh out of it. I think I posted this story a long time back so forgive me if I am repeating.

The story goes:

Several years ago I built a guitar and donated to a underprovided teen recommended to me by my priest. The kid actually help in the construction of the guitar. Once completed, he played it for about an hour at my shop. Then he said to me, "Is there anyway to add a bit more bass to the sound?" I told him sure and I grabbed my finger plane and showed him how I would shave the bass side braces a bit to added a bit more bass response. Several months later I saw him at church and he said "Oh Michael, I have messed up my guitar so bad. After a couple months of playing the guitar, I thought I had you add too much bass. So I decided add a bit of treble to overcome the bass by thinning the treble side braces like you did on the bass side. But the bass just got worse. What did I do wrong?" Well of course what had happened was two fold. First as a guitar matured it opens up a bit on the bass and mid-tone response, and second when the kid thinned the treble braces trying to add treble response he only deepened the bass response by making the top looser.

The story ends by building him a new top and installing it. He still has the guitar and plays it daily. He told me he learned two lessons. One was that for every action there is not always an equal and opposite reaction, at least not the way he thought it would happen and the other is a little knowledge is dangerous and too little knowledge is disastrous.
MichaelP38888.4743518519

great story!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

[QUOTE=MichaelP]
He told me he learned two lessons. One was that for every action there is not always an equal and opposite reaction, at least not the way he thought it would happen and the other is a little knowledge is dangerous and too little knowledge is disastrous.
[/QUOTE]

Great story Michael!

As for the lessons learned -- that's the guidance I plod along with everytime I go into the shop

Great wisdom to be shared, Thanks Michael!

Great story Michael. Thanks for sharing it.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

       That reminds me of a story when I was watching my little niece. I was showing her how to do some drawing on the computer, which she loved, and I turned on the desk lamp with a pull chain. She was only about 4.

     And when I asked her to turn off the lamp she proceeded to push it around with her fingers and I could not figure out what she was doing. After this went on for a while, I irritatedly asked, "what are you doing" and she said, "I'm trying to turn off the light".

    She thought because you pulled the chain to turn the lamp on, you pushed the chain back in to turn it off. Kids!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

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

My wife has been in management with The largest national discount retailer of nearly 30 years now. We use to go to the year-end meetings in Ark. each year. One of the major Exes with the company always told a story about leadership using a rope as an example. "It is easy to get the rope to go where you want it if you lead it, (while he pulled the rope across the stage) but it is near impossibele to get it to go where you want it if all you do is push." MichaelP38888.6192361111

Michael,

I've gotta tip my hat to you for re-topping that guitar! I bet the kid treasured it even more after that.

Great story or learning a valuable lesson .Even more valuable was the fact that you donated your time and a guitar to a child in need.