Numero Quatro

[Will Reyer]

Last post I mentioned a "soft maple neck" - duh - it should have read "soft maple fingerboard". Maybe it actually sounds coherent now?

Today it snowed before dawn, then sleet, rain, and slush. Did the weekly cleaning of the pellet stoves in house and shop. Fabbed a new gas cap gasket for my old chain saw. Still need to get the new one running. Didn't use them last winter as the snow was too deep. Had mice nested in the engine of my log splitter.

Took a break to whittle away at the neck for the ladder-braced #4 guitar. I rough in the profile at frets one and nine, rasp from one toward the headstock, and from nine toward the tenon at the body, plane in between to rough form, still incomplete.

I'm out of fret stock. I think what I bought local, now out of business, was the equivalent of Stew-Mac 0148. Going to just buy a whole tube.

[Will Reyer]

Completed neck, installed frets, dressed same. Installed tuning machines, bolted neck to body. Need to fab bridge, saddle, nut next.

Shop is pretty cold for gluing and finishing without stoking up the pellet stove on full race most of the day first.

I like the way the teak strips make the red oak center stripe look orange against the yellow poplar neck. Next time if I actually plan for extra material, it would be cool to again leave off the heel cap and extend the same oak & teak stripe down the back of the body, too.

[Will Reyer]

Finally warmed up in the Frozen North. Went from below freezing for two months (with below zero mornings) to, finally, 60 degrees here today. So I got out to the shop and glued on the soft maple bridge and cut out my Native Timbre logo from a scrap of formica and surface-applied it to the headstock. Put it at the top of my screwdriver headstock on #3 but it's in the way of clamping on tuners and capos, so for #4 put it near the nut out of the way. Need to fab nut and saddle from my Corian sink cutout next, and dial it in. Getting anxious to hear the sound of the ladder bracing. Like one of my old bosses used to say, "All's we lack is finishin' up."

All of which points up that if the logo were inlaid, like real luthier practice, I wouldn't have that problem. John Link graciously gave me billets for a cedar top so the plan for the next two guitars is to build full-depth Orchestra Models, necessitating stepping up my game to include radiused fingerboards, rosettes, two-piece soundboards and backs, like actual luthiers do.

Got a piece of rough-sawn pine that ought to make a practice top for guitar #5, maybe use oak on hand for sides and back, ladder-brace that one. If I can work out how to do all the upgrades on that one, then I'll use John's cedar for the soundboard of #6, and do sides/back from a piece of quarter-sawn sycamore I got from LL Johnson Lumber, with maybe walnut or teak bindings.

[Dave Bagwill]

I like the way you do things, Will. This is another good project.

[Will Reyer]

Got the Corian nut and saddle dialed in on #4, so it's complete. This one is ladder-braced, whereas #3 is similar materials and form but “X” braced. Do they sound the same? Well, not quite, but very similar. None of the four I've built with plywood tops sounds like my Santa Cruz, nor did I expect them to.

I like the sound of all three of the (semi) conventional acoustic guitars I've built. This one sounds more like #3 than it does #2, but then #4 and #3 have 1/8” birch plywood tops while #2 has a thicker, underlayment plywood top and a more “woody” sound.

Am I disappointed? Not in the slightest. They're playable guitars, and they sound not only satisfactory to me, but good, but then, my range of hearing isn't complete. 3 trucks back when I had Old 97, Pam asked me what was that noise when I pushed the brake? What noise? I couldn't hear the wear bars in the front disc brakes.

I plan on stepping up my game next with a 2-piece sound board and back, full-depth sides, a radiused fingerboard, sound hole rosette, etc. But I'm doing that as a logical step in personal improvement and complexity, not because I think this guitar or the other 2 lack a useful quality of sound. Plywood doesn't sound like spruce, but it makes playable guitars. I'd also like to go the other way and get more minimal yet, like a neck attached with one screw, no bindings, plywood top etc. What's the least it takes to make acceptable noise?

I've got two expert mentors in proximity, Kjell, here locally, who's a luthier for Elderly Instruments and a splendid builder in his own right, and the forum's John Link, west of me, who, for his second build made the most spectacular and exquisitely intonated 12 string guitar I've ever seen or played. I bother them for advice and council, and they give me excellent constructive criticism.

New guitars are said to take a while to “play in”. Whether or not this applys to plywood soundboards, maybe not so much. I play fingerstyle and the two highest treble strings sounded brighter and crisper to me on #4 than the lower strings when I first tuned it up, but I took it to Kjell, an excellent player, and when he put a flat pick to it, it sounded delightful throughout the range of sound.

I think Herman might agree with me that if you don't include a sound file, then you probably made a guitar-shaped object 'd arte or a finely-lacquered cabinet. To my thinking a guitar 1) ought to produce useful sound, 2) be ergonomic to play, and 3) being pretty isn't a necessary requirement. I say this as a guy with two degrees in Fine Arts, but I worked with mechanical engineers doing machine design long enough to understand their approach to design requirements.

Also, having said that, I'm not sure my partial deafness permits me to be much of an authority on sound. And, my sound equipment is a maybe $4 stalk mic that came with a now ancient and long gone computer, and a $20 MP3 and Wave Editor monoral recording software, hardly a sophisticated setup.

But I'll sure build another ladder-braced guitar again – maybe for the next one.

[Dave Bagwill]

I like your attitude and approach, Will!!

[John Link]

Sounds like a blues guitar to me. I look forward to what you get with a solid wood top. Interesting to hear if and what the difference might be.

I think "playing in" applies to anything made from wood. Maccaferri guitars have laminated sides and backs. Many modern builders laminate the sides, Dave Bagwill, for instance.

Of course, we could always debate the role of glue and which glues are more resonant that others. Is epoxy to plywood glue as Brazilian Rosewood is to Hog?