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Hi all,
I've been lurking and absorbing a great deal of info here on this forum, and must say I've been quite impressed by the knowledge and insightfulness of a great number of the contributers. I've built a handful of guitars (acoustic and electric) and have now come to the inevitable: the building and assembly techniques are pretty well set, and so now I would like to figure out how to make my instruments consistently sound like I want them to.

To this end I have a half dozen disposable spruce tops (engleman and sitka) and lots of bracewood on the way to try and teach myself a thing or two about voicing the soundboard of an acoustic guitar. T'were it your charge to direct an aspiring luthier on how to make best use of this wooden resource, what would you say?

Welcome to the OLF Lex, you're gonna find all your answers here, we've got seasoned veterans who can also answer this particular question.

Have fun!

Serge

I have seen the videos and found them quite thought provoking, though I would have liked to have seen what was written on the board.

But seriously, I am quite interested in everyone's opinions on how you would use 6 disposable soundboards to further your luthierieical knowledge. Also I am interested to know if luthierieical is a real word, and if so, could it work as an adverb? I'll make an assumption and say, well, luthieriecally yours,

lex

yup, ^ that sounds about right.

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Shouldn't the tops all be the same thickness?

Hey Lex, are you the same lexluthier on the woodworking.com forums? I think I've seen you around there. I'm "nay" on that forum.

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nay

My blogs
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I have a stash of expendable tops too. They're all Martin rejects and exhibit
a range of stiffness and grain density, which has been of value in itself. My
plan is to build at least one "throwaway" guitar with an access port, using a
martin reject neck from ebay, cheap b&s wood, and shave braces until I've
gone too far. My "too far" might be indicated by either muddy tone and/or
bellying of the top over time. I think it would be valuable to know just how
far "too far" is.

It will have no binding and a very minimal finish, with a bolt-on neck and the
fb extension unlglued. Maybe even go so far as to re-top it at some point
for other explorations, which might be easier if the top is glued with hide
glue.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

[quote]Hey Lex, are you the same lexluthier on the woodworking.com forums? [/quote]

Nope, not me.

Hey Lex - Welcome to the OLF!
cool handle by the way
Im surprised nobody has used the monicker
Martin Luthier King

Cheers
Charliewood

[QUOTE=verhoevenc]
Secondly, if I were you I'd check out the Ervin Somogyi forum topics, they
uploaded a 4 hour lecture by him on voicing
Chris[/QUOTE]

I went looking for these and I can not find them anywhere any one know where I can watch them?

David, did you check in the Ervin Somgyi forum when you enter the forum? In there, you have a thread called Ervin Somogyi- the video or the film, i believe, will check and come back with the right information...

You're right, they're gone! You might have to check with Lance on this, sorry!

Hi Lex

Well Hesh started on some of my thoughts, but I would like to add some more detail of what I'd do (not surprising to me Hesh that we tend to think the same )

First thing I would do is determine which one of these tops is the most flexible at say a given thickness (say 0.120", about right for spruce) Than I would figure out a way to measure just how stiff it is, there are lots of posts in the archives to rift through in order to make some stiffness testing jigs.

Than I would thickness all the other tops to the exact same thickness and than measure their stiffness as well.

Mark all these in a journal of some sort, you’ll want to use them as references.

Than I would spend a good amount of time flexing each top so that my brain would become familiar with what is stiff and what is more flexible.

So that's the first thing I would do. It would even be better if all of the pieces were the same species.

Than I would do the same with several different brace pieces.

You want to be able to select the stiffest pieces at the thinnest possible thickness to get the top to be the lightest you can make it, yet still remain stiff.

Once you've spent some time being able to figure out just how thin you can make a particular top (this will take considerably more than 6 tops mind you) you'll really be better able to select the right top and thickness it appropriately as well as the same for the bracing.

So after this, I would than decide 1 body shape. Than I would brace all 6 tops with all the same style of bracing pattern with all the braces being relatively the same stiffness.

Now what I’d do is try and remove material to make 6 distinctly different tones when you tap the plate. When you’re satisfied with the 6 different tones put the tops aside, take a lot of notes and a lot of pictures.

Than I would make up the rest of the body, with simple woods. I would also make up a typical neck with fretboard and frets attached. Than I would install the top and the neck and a bridge, no binding or finish and play the heck out of that guitar, record as much as I could and take more notes on the overall tone/sound of the guitar. Once I felt I had the description of this guitar down, I’d remove the top and install another one with the same bridge etc….till I did all 6 tops.

Than I would feel considerably more confident with how to shape the braces to get the sound I want.

This of course would take an extreme amount of time, but If I truly wanted to break into this elite world of professional guitar maker, that is what I would do.

Having said all this, I’m pretty pleased with the overall sound of my guitars to date, and like many, they are all getting better sounding with each new guitar I make. I’m sure once I reach say 20-30 guitars, I’ll have a better understanding of what it takes to get a particular sound, but even than I’m sure that I will still have a lot more to learn.

So, that’s what I would do if I had the time to devote to this fine craft. As it is right now, I think I will continue to listen to what the veterans of this craft have to say and read everything and anything I can in order to become better versed and educated in order to help me make the best sounding, playing and looking guitars that I am able.
Rod True39097.0393402778

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Make a body, do what the other folks say, bolt-on no-glue neck, put the tops on, take notes. Maybe even make an access port in the tail (f'r isntance) so you can see what happens when you change bracing while it's strung up. Then test to destruction, replace top, repeat.

I keep meaning to do this one of these days, but first I gotta get the bandsaw up and running, so I can get me some really, really cheap back/sides sawn up.

If I could find a couple of pairs of tops that were very similar in strength and weight characteristics, I'd make two or three identical pairs, each pair representing a significant variation in bracing and voicing via thickness variations. Then I'd keep one top of each as an example (not my idea, I got it from Ervin Somogyi's video's), and build the second from each pair into a complete guitar, making each guitar as identical as possible. I'd like to think I'd find some significant differences between these guitars that I could directly relate to the bracing and voicing of the tops. Erwin suggests you then have several voiced tops that you use to compare to future builds.

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

Hey,

Any chance you are the same Lex Luthier AKA M_A_T_T from PG??

I think a lot of the suggestions are good. Starting to compile notes on stiffness, weight, and so forth is a good idea for your reference. Getting a feel for making braces, shaping and how the soundboards loosen up will be good. I think Mattia's suggestion is a great idea. Making a test guitar with some access for possible reshaping. Could be a great tool for learning(especially in conjunction with your other notes). This could allow you to bring in a bridge or maybe different bridges to the test. I kinda think of the bridge and soundboard as a unit. If you are the same fella from PG that was making the violins. I am sure you will have a lot of fun with acoustics.

Peace,Rich

Thank you all for some very good ideas and insights.

I have come to realize that the point of this excersize is for me to inject some scientific method into my own interpretation of this craft - to put terms like 'warm' and 'bright' into some sort of predictable and either quantitative or qualitative light, and use the voicing of the guitar as the most efficient (and potentially valuable) vehicle to that end.

I have visions of bracing the guitar at tension via some sort of rigid guitar-shaped clamping device with a mounted pair of mics to reliably record the results of a sliver here, a sliver there, but what I think I still lack is a good understanding of which slivers to take, what those slivers should look like, why I should be taking them in the first place, and what I need to be be looking for when I take them. Given my currrent knowledge, I might as well be throwing darts at a dartboard to try to figure out why sometimes hitting a 15 is better than a bullseye.

Fortunately the universe has conspired on my behalf - I have found the time and money to attend Ervin Somogyi's voicing class in a couple of weeks which from initial observations should provide the perfect forum to get me on the right path.

[quote]Any chance you are the same Lex Luthier AKA M_A_T_T from PG?? [/quote]

Nope, not me. Apparently I have chosen a rather popular handle.