3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitars

Tops only
ruby@magpage.com
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Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 8:03 am
Location: Chestertown Maryland

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by ruby@magpage.com »

Check this out:

http://www.guitaradventures.com/taylor- ... itar-story

6 piece top and 5 piece back.

So what is "mediocre wood"? The point is this: The guitar manufacturer matters as much as the quality of wood used to create the guitar.

Ed
Ed M
Danl8
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Location: Chadds Ford, PA

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by Danl8 »

Interesting story. IMHO, there is genuinely mediocre wood...I have some -- looks like Euro spruce, but vibrates like rubber. The Taylor pallet guitar back pictures brought back memories of how expensive a resaw blade can be when those little holes are filled with steel instead of inlaid aluminum.
ColestineGuitar
Posts: 135
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:30 pm

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by ColestineGuitar »

Hey, good topic! I'm thinking of a piece of reclaimed redwood I have in the shop now. It was a large beam, but this piece had a split down the middle, leaving only 6-7 inches of width. It has excellent, tight grain, and I know I can get a good number of slices out of it. Three piece tops, here I come!

By the way, your top looks great to me. It's not obvious where you might have glued, and I will second the comment about character.
Slowest builder on the forum. These things take time. Apparently.
bftobin
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Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2014 12:27 pm

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by bftobin »

You can even mix materials. I saw a guitar top that was WRC in the center and spruce on either side.
Sergei De Jonge I believe. And there's always Howard Klepper's 'Harlequin' guitar.

Brent
Danl8
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Location: Chadds Ford, PA

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by Danl8 »

bftobin wrote:You can even mix materials. I saw a guitar top that was WRC in the center and spruce on either side.
Sergei De Jonge I believe. And there's always Howard Klepper's 'Harlequin' guitar.

Brent
Thanks for the Klepper reference. Interesting stuff. Mixed materials have been used for hundreds of years. Check out images on a google search for 'baroque guitar'.


-d.
Diane Kauffmds
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Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

bftobin wrote:You can even mix materials. I saw a guitar top that was WRC in the center and spruce on either side.
Sergei De Jonge I believe. And there's always Howard Klepper's 'Harlequin' guitar.

Brent
It sounds intriguing and it would look very nice if the materials were chosen carefully.

But, I wonder if this would pose trouble down the road if the materials had a different rate of shrinkage. I'm thinking of the cracks that develop from plastic pickguards on wood, since each material dries out at a different rate. Could this occur if different species of woods were used?

I see a lot of cracks on either side of fretboard extentions on old guitar tops. If different woods were used on the top, I'd be inclined to add some sort of preventive measure, to provide long term stabilization to the joints.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
Mike Baker
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Joined: Mon Jul 02, 2018 12:21 pm

Re: 3 and 4 piece tops for classical and steel string guitar

Post by Mike Baker »

Very interesting thread.
I have been contemplating a three or four piece back for some time now.
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