Official Luthiers Forum!

Now we can build air guitars.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/scientists-develop-transparent-wood-that-is-stronger-and-lighter-than-glass-1.5902739?fbclid=IwAR0T9YaSoIu-W_pVBDY7Xry264uphiCrT6BPZJDXU_PYYhEluSdsQ7yF7LE

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

"It is not clear why anyone would want to live in a transparent house, but for people who do, it would be OK to throw stones…"

Sounds like why the chicken crossed the road

Ed M

I'm sure I posted a similar story on this material back in 2018, but I cannot find it...

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

And you thought finding the grain on ebony was difficult . . .

It might make an interesting remake of Mason Williams glass guitar - one that would actually play and sound like a guitar.
8th page down:
http://www.masonwilliams-online.com/mwguitarbio05.pdf

Bad enough trying to find a pick without having to hunt for the guitar as well.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Curious...

Wow, cool!

Pat

_________________
Pat

I remember the thread.

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I wonder what’s involved in the “infused the wood with a tough transparent epoxy designed for marine use” process?

I have a UV lamp and can do the rest of the process.

Hmm.....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Found the thread, and the link.... which descended into a bunch of puns instead of reasonable discussion of the material.


https://www.instructables.com/Transparent-Wood/

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It doesn't look like this thread faired much better. I guess you shouldn't expect too much from a group of people who look for wood that is colorful and has interesting grain patterns.
The procedure basically uses commercial wood bleach on steroids. I once accidently overbleached a spot on a plank and it dissolved parts of the wood and left a matrix of white fibers. That wasn't the outcome I was hoping for .
It would be interesting know how it's properties compare to glass, plastics, and plexiglass type materials. Epoxy resin is a petroleum based product, so there doesn't seem to be any advantage over using plastics in that regard.

It’d sure be fun to make a see through guitar...

The key is that, after they bleached the wood out they:
"... infused the wood with a tough transparent epoxy designed for marine use, which filled in the spaces and pores in the wood and then hardened. This made the white wood transparent. "

The epoxy also forced all of the air out. Wood, and especially softwood, is mostly air by volume. It's like a bundle of soda straws, stiff but also light due to the structure. The infused wood has to be somewhere near as dense as a sheet of plastic, such as plexiglass, of the same thickness, and probably is only marginally stiffer. I can't see how it would make a decent material for a guitar top; it would surely end up being a lot heavier than almost any wood top that was stiff enough to work. Weight is the enemy in a top, in general.

I also can't see how it would be any less expensive than something like plexi. If you want a transparent guitar, get some plexi or something similar and have at.

Would probably sound like a Ransong.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

To build a transparent top you might be able to use a light weight glass cloth and a clear resin. Glass cloth will wet out and "disappear" better than the wood samples shown. You could make the back and sides from plexiglass similar to the Mason Williams guitar.
I've heard a Rainsong guitar. It didn't sound too bad, and had some added virtues for the person who owned it - she lived on a sailboat.

I've played a Rainsong too and I agree, not too bad, I've heard a lot worse wood guitars. Plus it's pretty much waterproof too.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

With CF or fiberglass the fibers are a lot stronger than the cellulose in wood, and you try to maximize the amount of fiber, using a minimum amount of resin to hold it together. In this stuff the proportions would be reversed; it's probably stronger than plain epoxy, but maybe not by much.

Focusing on the strength of the wood in a guitar top is something of a red herring anyway. Stiffness is more of a factor than strength; any wood top that is stiff enough to resist deformation for a reasonable length of time should be strong enough. 'Sandwich' or 'honeycomb' tops use veneer thickness skins of spruce or cedar, with Nomex or foam plastic as a filler, to produce a top plate that can weigh 40% less than a solid wood top, with similar stiffness, but still be strong enough to hold up reasonably well. From what I've seen, the main issues with those would be that it's easy to punch through the thin surface, and glue line failures that could compromise integrity are hard to detect.