Acoustic Guitar Construction

Loving the Davy graham tune, nice woody open tone too. Nineteen year old playing the shed guitar can play too!

The books might seem expensive but as far as guitar building, they are just another tool to get you where you want to be. plenty of us have dropped big money on a drum sander, dust collector, or a hand plane or three. Why should the book be looked at any differently? I don't own Trevor's books, but I am happy with the sound my guitars produce. If I were unhappy, I would buy them. I might still buy them. I also have my eye on a new plane though, so it will be a toss up!

The books are expensive, but having bought numerous "specialty" books in the past that are merely a spiral bound collection of notes, these are "real" books, professionally published - I am pleasantly surprised.
I started reading them, and I have to say, these books are a 'baptism by fire'. My brain hurts trying to understand the first hundred pages, and I'm embarrassed to say I've forgotten almost all of my basic physics and calculus. I am tempted to jump past the theory, but since it is the foundation for the rest of the books, I'm dutifully turning my brain back on and slogging through. It probably isn't necessary, but when my highschool kids understand it better than I do, it's time to get back on my game.
I have perused some of the later material, and I can't wait to get to the "easy" stuff. I've been preparing to make guitars for almost a year now, and I think these books will help me start well. Since I enjoy the process (setting up a home shop, building tools and fixtures) I'm in no particular hurry, but am excited about trying out many of the cutting edge techniques and ideas that drew me to this hobby in the first place.
Hopefully I'll get some more reading done over the holidays!
Blessings to All.

It's pleasing to hear that those who have invested are enjoying the books and finding them good value. I think it is important to differentiate between value and price. They're not inexpensive to produce, as low volume books tend to be, and shouldn't really be compared to the latest Harry Potter prices, a different publishing game altogether. Also, check out the cost of shipping 4.1 kg (9 lbs) across the world.

John Link wrote:We don't really know if Trevor Gore builds his guitars according to the ideas found in the book in the first place. And if he does, we can ask how well he implements those ideas.

Yep, still doing it the same way.

John Link wrote:Nor do we know if Gore is revealing everything he uses in the book.

All the basic concepts I use to build guitars are there. Is it "everything I use"? Well, no, that's an impossibility. The books could easily have been twice as long, but the size and cost would get totally impractical. Initially, it was intended to be one volume, so it grew to twice the size.

For example, in the books I cover three neck joint designs - "traditional" bolt-on, double tenon bolt-on-bolt-off for SS and double tenon bolt-on-bolt-off for classical. But I also do tilt necks (user adjustable neck angle) more complex rosettes, radial purfling etc. (just as examples), but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Here are a couple more rosettes: and a tilt neck...(also radial purfling and another rosette) Then there's magnetic arm rests, wedge bodies, sound reinforcement and on it goes, with new ideas all the time. The books are focused around getting the acoustics right, the structure right and the playability/musicality right, which really no other book covers in any sort of rigour. High levels of ornamentation are left pretty much to the reader but a point I'd make is that everything in the above pictures was made with the same tool set as listed in the books (routers, basically).

Regarding the sound of the guitars, I was with Rick when we did that recording and honestly, it's a truly shocking representation of both guitars! No one I know ever has any difficulty telling a "live" guitar from a recorded guitar, no matter how well recorded and on what equipment the sound is reproduced. It only goes to show how lacking recording technology still is! One thing I will point out though, is that at ~31 secs Rick looks up and stares at the camera. What he was doing was checking the VU levels, as they'd just gone into the red and after that he backed off with his right hand. Rick wanted to make the recording to demonstrate the difference in volume, which was significant, but of course, that is the last thing that comes across on any recording!

There are some poignant stories around some of the other recordings, too, especially young Tom on the Shed guitar, but I'll leave those for another day.

I was taking a few lessons from Brian Burns, after you had blown through town; his story went that he had another student in the shop, and you took your guitar out and he played it and paid you $xxxx dollars right there on the spot, saying it was the best steel string he'd ever heard. Brian said it was also.

I have a question: the use of cf rods between the headblock and some sideblocks. I'll attach a picture. theory being that you can do away with the utb, freeing up the upper bout, especially with a cantilevered neck,

Is there upper bout sound that can be/should be gotten?

The pic is one of Rick Turner's instruments.

Thanks.
Dave

Dave Bagwill wrote:I was taking a few lessons from Brian Burns, after you had blown through town; his story went that he had another student in the shop, and you took your guitar out and he played it and paid you $xxxx dollars right there on the spot, saying it was the best steel string he'd ever heard. Brian said it was also.

I have a question: the use of cf rods between the headblock and some sideblocks. I'll attach a picture. theory being that you can do away with the utb, freeing up the upper bout, especially with a cantilevered neck,

Is there upper bout sound that can be/should be gotten?

Structurally or acoustically, I don't understand the gap between the side blocks and the top kerfing. I find it hard to believe it will dampen the sound any more than the kerfing already joined to the sides; and structurally, tying into the kerfing makes a lot of sense.

I also wonder about the need for so much CF tubing. the neck joint attachment is under tension on the bottom/back of the guitar, and the top part of the neck block is under compression... wouldn't one pair of CF tubes with the size of block used easily transfer the loads?

I use CF almost everyday at work, and I just don't see the need in this application. I haven't run any analysis on the system, but I would think that a nice wooden rod (or laminate) would do the job just as well, be more aesthetically appealing (it's "wood", like the rest of the guitar) and any weight issues could be mitigated by fine tuning the side blocks.

Personally, I'm fascinated with cantilevered necks and offset sound holes, so I'm not sure how to aesthetically incorporate such compression members... but I'll try to work my way through the books before I bang my head against the wall too much.

Dave Bagwill wrote:I was taking a few lessons from Brian Burns, after you had blown through town; his story went that he had another student in the shop, and you took your guitar out and he played it and paid you $xxxx dollars right there on the spot, saying it was the best steel string he'd ever heard. Brian said it was also.

Yep, that's pretty much how it was, but he had to check with his wife before he put the $$$ down! It was a WRC/EIR guitar, just like the one shown in many of the construction pics in the book.

The course I ran at Brian's place (the two there were the first two) I've run many times subsequently. On average, I sell ~1 guitar to a student every time I run the course with typically ~6-8 people per course. These guys (well, they're mostly guys) have usually built a number of guitars prior to attending the course (and some are pro luthiers), so it's interesting to think why they might want to buy a guitar when they can build one themselves. Here's some of the answers:

1) I want a "reference" guitar to know when I'm getting close.
2) I don't hear guitars like this very often and I've learnt not to let them "escape".
3) Now I know what it takes to build nice guitars, I know I'll never be able to invest the time and effort, therefore better to buy. (This guy, a one time pro player, actually bought two guitars, a classical and a steel string)
4) My superannuation fund needs a guitar. (i.e. a collector/investor)

Dave Bagwill wrote:Is there upper bout sound that can be/should be gotten?

There's not much goes on acoustically in the upper bout. Smallman pretty well proved that on his classicals, where the upper bout is 3/4" marine ply beneath the top veneer. However, numerous builders tunnel through their transverse bracing to take their longitudinals into the top of the upper bout, so there are plenty of ways of doing things. But think about this:

The sound radiation you get from a guitar is proportional to a/m, where a is the effective area of the top and m its effect mass. It was Prof. Jurgen Meyer, iirc, who came up with that one. m rises faster than a as you increase area because you have to put in more material to keep the deflections under control (deflections increase as the cube of the span). So what you find is that most guitars are too big for their own good. You're better off getting larger excursions from a smaller, lower mass area that is easier to drive and that will give you more volume. If you're after tone, there are many ways of addressing that before I'd go seeking things in the upper bout.