Official Luthiers Forum!

I think, obviously, sound comes first, but if you're going to put those hours into building a guitar, you may as well get the design right, and make it look attractive, right?

I don't mean blinging it to high heaven (which I tend not to find that great. Not stopping me from building one like that for a friend, though), but still, getting the proprotions right, the look right, and getting to use varied and beautiful woods is half the joy.

For an interesting related discussion of this, read Ervin Somogyi's article "The State of the Contemporary Guitar" which is accessable through his website.

[QUOTE=John Kinnaird]
The fact that steel string guitars frequently do not have the volume of a classical may be testiment to the fact that most of them are overly braced and poorly engineered to get the max from their potential. I personally think scalloped bracing is to blame and that once we get beyond copying what is essentially a poor correction technique for overbracing, we will be freed up to explore stronger and less restrictive bracing schemes.[/QUOTE]

I couldn't have said it better!


If you want punch from your steel string dump the scallops, parabolic it.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

My interest in making guitars grew out of my love of playing & listening to
them, and so tone and playability are my primary concerns. This in no way
means I'm indifferent to cosmetics: just saying the guitar should be worthy
of its fine plumage.

Colin I think you are right about parabolic bracing. I cannot think of name of the maker in England who gets great tone out of his guitars (everyone knows him) but he describes his braces as porpoise shaped. That is essentially parabolic. Another successful advocate of dumping the scallops in favor of another marine animal.

Could some explain the difference betwee parabolic and straight tapered braces for me? A pic would be good, I'm having a little trouble picturing what everyone is talking about.

I biult 2 identical guitars once, one with scalloped braces and one where the braces were straight tapers. Wanted to see what the difference in sound would be. Unfortunately one of them was lost to a fit of anger when something didn't go right. So I never got to hear the results.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

oops yawl were not talking profile the same thing applies in longitudinal taper the taper is a declining ellipse and not a continuous straight line



straight is trapaziod, parabolic is like an airfoilMichaelP38637.5241550926

[QUOTE=John Kinnaird] Colin I think you are right about parabolic bracing. I cannot think of name of the maker in England who gets great tone out of his guitars (everyone knows him) but he describes his braces as porpoise shaped. That is essentially parabolic. Another successful advocate of dumping the scallops in favor of another marine animal.
[/QUOTE]

That'll be the great George Lowden.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Yea Dave
   That's the man. Nobody ever accused me of name dropping since I never can remember the names I'm supposed to drop.

Thanks Michael! I thought that was what everyone was talking about, just wanted to make sure I was on the same page. So often anymore, I am not.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

[QUOTE=Dave White] [QUOTE=John Kinnaird] Colin I think you are right about parabolic bracing. I cannot think of name of the maker in England who gets great tone out of his guitars (everyone knows him) but he describes his braces as porpoise shaped. That is essentially parabolic. Another successful advocate of dumping the scallops in favor of another marine animal.
[/QUOTE]

That'll be the great George Lowden.[/QUOTE]

Beat me to it Dave. He's the greatest builder ever to put chisel to wood, and I include myself in that!

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

No argue from me on that one Colin.