Official Luthiers Forum!

I trashed the glueup of the back, after I spent countles hours trying to get a perfect joint with my crappy 9.5" wooden plane :< And I today i cracked a side while simply handling it. I cut the cracked bit away and left with only 1 inch of extra length for the bend. What a pita :<

Hesh, sorry for hijacking the thread It will turn into a "latest goof" thread soon

_________________
Build log

These are not mine but here are some tops we used in the Kent Everett voicing class this past weekend in Colorado.

Besides some comments on Robbie's very good question as to the rationale behind not inletting some of the X-legs I noticed something about the early 30's braced Martin that I have never noticed before. It appears that the bridge plate may not be big enough to provide full coverage under the entire bridge. Maybe they used a P bridge on this one. Any thoughts on this too?

Great looking top folks - lets see some more?

Bridgeplates on early 30's Martin's generally were 1" deep which is the same as the depth of a pyramid bridge. When they introduced the belly bridge sometime around 1931, the bridgeplate size was not changed. In studying the evolution of the bridgeplate, it did get bigger as the years went by, probably due to a perception that the small plate was contributing to top distortions and/or failures that led to costly warranty work. It was part of an overeaction and IMHO, a misunderstanding by some of the forces at work with regard to the impact of string tension. The bracing got heavier and the bridgeplates got bigger until you wound up with the infamous overbraced, overbuilt Martins of the 70's with the huge rosewood bridgeplate.

Martin eventually did recognize that this was having an adverse effect on the tone of their instruments and gradually starting reversing these practices sometime in the early 80's, IIRC. They are now making some of the best instruments around, particularly, the "Authentic" series which closely approximate the techniques of the Golden Era.

I know Kevin Gallagher used to work at Martin and maybe a few others on the forum. Maybe he'll chime in and provide some further insight.

_________________
Jimmy Caldwell
http://www.caldwellguitars.com

Great thread guys.
It’s always good to see such a variety!
Since I actually have a picture of my latest with me, I thought I’d post it.

It is closed now and I’m finishing it up through the next few weeks.
With the buttresses and all, it has a few new things for me so I’m looking forward to stringing it up to see how it turned out! Some of the changes I made were inspired by posts like this one.
Thanks again guys!


Wade

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Hey Wade....that's pretty cool looking! What kind of woods in that one?

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Here's my latest a deep body OM. It isn't quite finished here but this is close to the final product.

_________________
"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

I always love seeing my buddy Wade's creations in as much as he has a real artist's eye and comes up with some pretty exciting designs.

Kim's top is not only very cool looking, super clean, but it is his first too. This is pretty unusual to see this caliber of work, craftsmanship, and creativity while NOT over bracing on a first. Good going Kim!

Overall the quality of all of the tops we have seen so far is incredible!!!!! And no two are the same either. There are going to be a lot of naked cats in the world.... (sorry Don my friend no offense intended)

All these tops bared and no one had to throw any beads. Is this a great place or what

I think I saw an under-aged top in that last batch that Robbie posted. Just a bad rap on the guitar community!

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Wade, that is awesome!

_________________
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