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Building light, as opposed to overbuilt, heavy, or any other related negative adjective, seems to be what everybody's doing. At various times in the archives I've seen the idea of building light presented as something related to top thickness, back thickness, bracing style, brace size and shape, brace materials, etc.. Sometimes one variable, sometimes a combination of the above. I know some hot-rodders out there (Dan Lashbrook, for one) are fanatical about cutting what they consider extra weight on a guitar...to the point of shaving metal off the tuners.

So what's building light, really? And is it always a good thing? If you can shave 2 ounces here and there by using smaller kerfing, a smaller neck block, etc., when do you stop?

Any thoughts would be appreciated...

Andrew Wright
Managua, Nicaragua

Personally I view light building in two parts:
1st. The selection of woods for bracing,kerfing,tail and neck blocks.
2nd. The thickness of the materials.

I like to drill partial holes on the neck block and then plugging the holes with a plug (what else!) to keep the same gluing area. Getting tall X-braces (all braces for that matter!)and then getting them thinned triangularly so I can keep the same height but reduce the weight without compromising the strength.

Another method is to use cardboard kerfs instead of wood....it is much, MUCH lighter...

Cardboard you may say. What the heck!!?? If you don't think cardboard would make a good material for kerfing you are absolutely right!! That was a JOKE!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

The wood the back and sides are made of is the biggest contributor to the final weight, nothing else comes close. I would think the head and tail blocks would be second, and bolt-on hardware is probably up there too.
I am building two 000's - one out of black limba, which is about the weight of mahogany and one out of maria preta which makes rosewood seem light. They have identical blocks, linings, bracing etc. but the difference in weight is amazing. If you picked them up blindfolded you would think one was a parlor and the other a dred. And I actually thinned the back and sides of the maria preta one more because they were so stiff.
Anything you do to the braces removes so little weight I doubt anyone could notice it just picking up the guitar.

                Paul Harrell

Paul, I don't think the concern about "building Light" has much to do with how heavy the guitar is
I think its has more to do with how the woods behave and their ability to vibrate in order to produce sound. You need a strongly braced top so it can endure the string tension but not ad so much weight that it would be a burden on the top! thus the reason why the braces are tall but not thick.peterm38761.9281828704

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

[QUOTE=peterm] Paul, I don't think the concern about "building Light" has much to do with how heavy the guitar is [/QUOTE]

Overall weight IS a factor but as someone has already said the back and sides are where more overall weight can be saved. Torres understood that a "light body is much easier to set in motion than a heavy body". A top actually requires very little bracing [if] you leave the top a bit thicker in the right places. An unbraced top will [almost] support the pull of the strings. I am also a proponent of tall thin braces.

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Tim McKnight is right. A lightly constructed guitar will also be lighter in weight. Strings will even last longer. For classicals, there is a growing trend toward heavier guitars, it is becoming more acceptable to isolate the top via overbuilding the shell.

Building light, to me, means to build a guitar "on the edge," where you're treading a thin line between longevity and sound. Making a guitar with just barely enough structural integrity to survive.

I always use Torres as an example, since many of his guitars from the mid 1800s still survive, and he build very light. Much lighter than we would normally have the cajones for.



jfrench38761.9446180556

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

When to stop is a learned thing and failure is the great teacher

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Tim: surely the question is whether a little bit of extra thickness of the top doesn't weigh as much or more than the bracing that you can then 'leave out'; there's also the cubing of strength with doubling of thickness (or something like that) to take into account, so the two might balance each other out some.

It is a two sided thing (at least). You want the guitar to be as light as possible to be efficient, but some weight is the right places is also part of what colors the sound. Overall weight is also secondary to distribution of weight; the weight of, say, the neck block is going to have less impact on the instrument's efficiency in producing sound than the weight of the bridge.   On a guitar top, the most obvious way to make the top stiffer without adding a lot of weight is to make the braces higher. The stiffness and weight here, and the distribution of both, will be major parameters in determining the guitar's sound. Which is better depends on you ideals; you can make the loudest, hottest guitar race car by reducing weight everywhere, but you may not like the sound.

Another thing is the balance of the instrument. A light body, 14 fret guitar with a double action truss rod and heavy tuners will feel neck heavy to the player compared to a heavier bodied guitar with light tuners and lighter truss rod.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

As jfrench points out . some are building heavy, as in rigid sides and back to firmly anchor the soundboard edges and retain more of the soundboards energy on top, rather then have it obsorbed by thinner back and sides.

As a piano tech. ,it makes good sense to me , but there again , a piano doesn't have a soundbox. They do , however , have an incredibly thick laminated rim

Smallman makes his very heavy.

I would be really interested to know if anyone here is able to tell us how a heavier built steel string performs compared to a lighter build.

Regards to all!   KiwiCraig

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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Sorry ,,,, I didn't make myself clear. What I meant was ,One heavy back and sides , verses One thin back and sides . But! with the same soundboard specs. What's the difference in their performance?

KiwiCraig

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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It seems one could also build a heavy guitar 'lightly' meaning the B&S and truss rod and tuners could make the guitar weigh more and be 'heavy' but the bracing could be very 'light', not in grams or ounces but in their design and shape, just enough to keep the guitar from imploding, a goal that one could not know they reached, as long as the guitar stayed together.

As has been suggested many times, I suppose it is dance between all the parts and partners in design that gives that magical 'unknown till first strum' tone that we all strive for.

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Thank You and Best To All

It's an interesting topic...there are a number of well-known builders who are moving toward the school of thought that believes that guitars have been traditionally are way over-built and that by bracing smaller and reducing some of the instrument's weight, you can get better sound. As some have mentioned, this is, in theory saying that there is a balance to be struck between longevity and sound, that is less hefty than what has been done in the past.
It is also interesting to note that some builders practically use timbers inside their guitars for braces, and yet have excellent results.

There are many ways to end up in the same place.

There are also those in the camp of using science to build with. The heavy-hitters in that arena are Alan Carruth and Dr. David Hurd. Tney can get great results that way, and yet those who build based on intuition and more sensory methods also can get great results.

Somehow, we've turned the building of something as simple as a guitar into some lofty, mystical, virtually impossible to achieve, concept.
In reality, it's just a guitar.

There are millions of them - some cheap ones that sound and play great, and some expensive ones that should sound and play a lot better than they do for the money.

All this talk of building light, or building the sides really stiff, yadda yadda, it's all good in theory, but since there's no theoretical "correct" way to do it, all these notions are merely different means to the same ends.

One can take anything to an extreme and use their ideas as marketing tools to try to sell more guitars. Some drill holes in their braces, others have different methods of attaching necks, still others try to reduce the weight of their tuners (that one I don't get....but I won't editorialize on it further), while some won't deviate a millimeter (fraction of an inch) from the plans as drawn by C.F.Martin.
Does any of this really matter?

It's just a guitar.


   Don Williams38762.6904282407

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"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."

Isn't that the thing hanging from the ceiling that helps you see in the dark?

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"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."

Don, i kind of like what you just wrote!

Serge

[QUOTE=Don Williams]

Somehow, we've turned the building of something as simple as a guitar into some lofty, mystical, virtually impossible to achieve, concept.
In reality, it's just a guitar.

Does any of this really matter?

It's just a guitar.


   [/QUOTE]

Of course it matters. For those of us who haven't built hundreds of guitars and are looking for a reference point, there are some general guidelines that will save us rookies lots of time and pain from re-inventing the wheel. While there is no black and white, there is some pretty dark gray and some light ivory. If a builder I trust and respect tells me "a lighter top adds more volume and a heavier neck adds more sustain", I'm likely to use that as a frame of reference when I start building. Building a guitar isn't a "lofty, mystical, virtually impossible to achieve, concept", but it does have hundreds of variables. The fewer variables you can reduce the process to, the easier it will be for us less seasoned guys to build a great sounding guitar.

Cheers!

John

Thanks John , I'm really with you on that one !

AND... I would really like to know the performance difference between a heavier back and sides verses lighter back and sides . Both with similar soundboards ????

Anyones views ????


Regards KiwiCraig

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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As far as the box and not the soundboard, you can have both. Rick Turner builds light rims and then stiffens them up with a laminate strip around the sides under the kerfing. I'm sure they are much stiffer with a minimum of weight gain.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA