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Anyone worked with Carbon Fibre?
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Author:  Thecamelstory [ Mon Mar 19, 2012 4:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Anyone worked with Carbon Fibre?
Excuse the spelling, I'm British!
For my extremely ambitious first ever whole electric guitar build I am considering making the whole thing of Carbon Fibre(fiber). (wet lay up with room temp curing epoxy). I want to build a super light instrument that doesn't suffer with the problems associated with wood such as warping etc. have been doing a lot of research and have developed a design that will essentially be a one piece guitar where both neck and body are hollow but will be engineered in such a way that the neck will be super rigid and will have no flex whatsoever, even when strung. Therefore no truss. Mostly for aesthetics and ease of building, I will still use wood for the fingerboard shaped to build in radius and relief as the carbon top of the neck will be perfectly flat.
Anyone worked with CF or other composite materials? Will its rigidity cause the tone to be too bright or lack warmth? Anyway to avoid this? Any unexpected problems encountered with composites? Should I consider designing out a little rigidity to aid setup (perhaps with a truss) or for tonal reasons.
Any info appreciated before I start spending big cash on materials.
Author:  Mattia Valente [ Mon Mar 19, 2012 5:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Anyone worked with Carbon Fibre?
Honestly, the majority of electric tone comes from the electronics.

Also consider 'hybrid' designs such as Parker's fly - hardly a heavy guitar by any stretch of the imagination.

This vid of a CF cello being made is also quite interesting (if you ignore the terrible, terrible music):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_gI3chGtww

Also check out Blackbird guitars (monocoque CF acoustics), CA guitars and Rainsong for acoustics, and there are quite a few small builders doing all-CF electrics. All tend to tout the 'superior acoustic properties' of composites - sound clips certainly lead me to believe that a pretty dang nice can be made from CF, but I like working with wood too much to give it up ;)

EDIT: might want to read the relevant forum sections here as well: http://macnichol.com/forum
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