Okay new acoustic guitar idea - Has it been tried???

[D30Man]

Okay I'm thinking the following specs:

Mahogany top
Spruce Back
Arched Spruce Sides
Micarta bracing
Maple bridge and fretboard ( for contrast to the top )
Who is with me????

We'd call it the reverse dreadnaught.

 

[fronobulax]

Okay I'm thinking the following specs:

Mahogany top
Spruce Back
Arched Spruce Sides
Micarta bracing
Maple bridge and fretboard ( for contrast to the top )
Who is with me????

We'd call it the reverse dreadnaught.

Micarta is not what I thought it was, at least if it is a possibility for bracing.

As for who is with you I'm going to say "not enough people to get 10 orders" but that's just because LTG never did agree when Guild offered to make a Special LTG Model.

 

[Rich Cohen]

I didn't know sides could be arched.

 

[awagner]

Spruce back and sides?

This guitar would only be available at Guitar Centers in the Upside-Down or Bizarro World.

 

[kostask]

There were all spruce guitars made by Lasido/Guitabec (the ancestor companies of what we now know at Godin). Thre were two models, the Norman Manik (square shouldered dread), and the Lys L-15 (slope shouldered dread). Both were reputed to have a very nice tone, but quite low volume. Boucher guitars (prinicple and designer Claude Boucher, designer if the Lys line of guitars) also made the "Spruce Goose" for a while, but I haven't heard of anything more on it.

 

[jeffcoop]

As for who is with you I'm going to say "not enough people to get 10 orders" but that's just because LTG never did agree when Guild offered to make a tSpecial LTG Model.

I'm still sad about that.

 

[D30Man]

There were all spruce guitars made by Lasido/Guitabec (the ancestor companies of what we now know at Godin). Thre were two models, the Norman Manik (square shouldered dread), and the Lys L-15 (slope shouldered dread). Both were reputed to have a very nice tone, but quite low volume. Boucher guitars (prinicple and designer Claude Boucher, designer if the Lys line of guitars) also made the "Spruce Goose" for a while, but I haven't heard of anything more on it.

Very interesting. My post was equal parts silliness and wanting to get a dialogue around this for this very reason. I think it is interesting that that there would be low volume when it is my understanding that the spruce top is doing most of the heavy lifting on a standard guitar with hog/maple/rw back and sides.

 

[D30Man]

I didn't know sides could be arched.

I don't imagine they could with any degree of success or at least without looking like an inflatable guitar.. However, they arch the backs and they arch the tops.. Why not the sides??

 

[D30Man]

Micarta is not what I thought it was, at least if it is a possibility for bracing.

As for who is with you I'm going to say "not enough people to get 10 orders" but that's just because LTG never did agree when Guild offered to make a Special LTG Model.

It is a resin coated material that is fairly strong and scratch resistant so possibly could be used to fabricate bracing??

 

[Stuball48]

Or you could call it "Naughtdread."

 

[Rayk]

Spruce back and sides?

This guitar would only be available at Guitar Centers in the Upside-Down or Bizarro World.

Lmao .

 

[Rayk]

It is a resin coated material that is fairly strong and scratch resistant so possibly could be used to fabricate bracing??

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micarta
As long as it’s carbon fiber bracing I’ll give it a strum , heck who am I kidding I’ll give it a strum no matter what’s made of unless it made from poo , in that case I’m out !

 

[kostask]

Sides are a structural element, and are there essentially to keep the back and top separated, in position, and to establish the volume of the guitar's interior. Arching them wouldn't really serve any realistic purpose. If solid wood, they would be very weak structurally, if laminated they would be stronger, but still don't make sense either structurally or make much of a difference acoustically. What either arched side construction would do is make the guitar a lot harder to play, especially if combined with an arched back. I have no evidence for this, but it would probably be a lot easier to ding up or crack the sides of a guitar built that way.

i think micarta braces may or may not work acoustically, but I don't know of anybody who has tried that. I do know of some avant-garde classical builders who are making tops with two very thin layers of wood (think thick veneer type thickness) with a lattice work/mesh inner layer made of kevlar (another name for carbon fiber) in an attempt to make the lightest tops possible. They seem to work well, but I am not that familiar with the classical guitar world so that I don't know what the prevailing opinion is regarding guitars made that way.

I may have been unclear regarding the Boucher guitars. The entire Boucher production is low volume, of all types guitars, not just the all spruce ones. Boucher guitars is like Huss & Dalton, or SCGC in terms of volume, as they are all hand built guitars, and they seem to be aiming at the higher end market, not a volume market. Within that context, they did build an all spruce guitar, at least earlier on. Their current guitar model line up doesn't include an all spruce guitar.

 

[Jammer54]

Will the sound hole be on the back? LOL Seriously, in a former life, I would have liked to have been a luthier. I saw this neck design and thought how cool. Too bad you have to play it, cuz the back neck is the real solo.

 

[fronobulax]

Will the sound hole be on the back? LOL Seriously, in a former life, I would have liked to have been a luthier. I saw this neck design and thought how cool. Too bad you have to play it, cuz the back neck is the real solo.

Given the way people obsess over the appearance of the top which they never see while playing I like this. The neck inlay work is just for me

 

[davismanLV]

I don't imagine they could with any degree of success or at least without looking like an inflatable guitar.. However, they arch the backs and they arch the tops.. Why not the sides??

For what purpose? I'm not sure what you'd gain and how difficult that would be?

 

[kostask]

Arched back and sides do sort of exist. They are called Ovations. Not spruce sides, of course, but the shallow bodied models do sort of have curved (i.e. arched) sides and back. Most players don't like to play them, at least when not standing up with a strap.

 

[D30Man]

For what purpose? I'm not sure what you'd gain and how difficult that would be?

I can't imagine you'd gain anything Tom. I bet it would be pretty difficult. Like I said, some of this was for silliness. However, we have seen builders / big brands add things to guitars that really didn't do anything for tone..

 

[calvoi]

Is it not that the top serves a difference purpose to the back sides? The top vibrate and moves while the back and sides reflect that movement. Hence generally wanting stiffer (hardwood) material for back and sides. I've not seen a rosewood topped guitar for example. I may be off the mark here though.

In resonators, especially wood bodies ones the whole body just reflects the sound and it is generally understood that having a stiff as possible body (within weight reasons) sounds best. Of course in this setting the top is replaced by a cone.

This suggests to me that back and sides in spruce would not perform that well? Or at best would give a very different sound, which could definitely be desirable? Perhaps?

 

[kostask]

The top generates the vast majority of the sound. The back and sides do add some coloration, or if you like, filter the sound of the top on the inside by having reflection characteristics of a certain type. That is the extent of what the sides and backs do. The backs and sides, by their dimensions can indirectly affect the top's resonance by influencing the air pressure variation inside the guitar's body when the top is vibrating (in effect, acting as sort of spring or dampener based on volume). The backs and sides are mostly there for structural reasons, but do have some effect, if somewhat minor compared to the top. Depending on who you ask, the top contributes 80-90% of the guitar's tone and volume. The rest is from the back, sides, saddle, nut, bridge, and a whole lot of other factors (in that order, basically). By top i mean the soundboard and the bracing, just for clarity.

I have never played an all spruce guitar. As I have said above, they have been made, and reports say that they sounded warm/soft, but the volume was low. It is not known how much of that was due to the spruce back and sides or how much was due to the overall design. Until some builder does again start making all spruce guitars, and people have had a better chance of examining that guitar, most of this will be an unknown.