Official Luthiers Forum!

Mitch I found a picture from a toot that I wanted to do, but chickened out......, about tap tuning.

Here is where I hold the top - the same place that my pal Pat described:



Holding it as above I tap the front AND have a bright light shining into the back of the top so that I can see what is happening bracing wise where I am tapping:



Benedetto's very fine book also describes, in a way that I could understand, finding the nodes and where to hold the top/back or any piece of wood that you want to see how well it pings.

A lot of very good advice here Mitch and I agree on thinning down the mass of your braces.
In my opinion,there's no need for the popsicle brace if you are going to bolt down your fb. extension because the mortise
will give you a lot of support under the extension. Your X looks sooooo much better than your first attempt.
You're progressing nicely..

_________________
Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Hesh! That's exactly what I'm looking for. It doesn't even matter if it holds out in the end, but it gives me a place to start. The fact that it also happens to appeal to my instincts and no BS detectors are going off, makes me a happy camper. Thanks!

BTW... My son and I have started talking about what we wanted to build and rather than building a prototype of the guitar i eventually want to build, we decided to make a copy of an old Yamaha i have that's smaller in the body. But the thing you'll apreciate is that he said he want's to "paint it black", so i took him to a site where i knew there was a black guitar... That 8 year old's eyes lit up and i swear he was drooling over your guitar. He's got a goal now!

Rob

Thanks Rob....

Your son has excellent taste but I would expect nothing less from a young man with a great Pop such as you!

BTW this is exactly why I put this post here in this thread - to give you guys something that would get you started in a somewhat structured manner in which you could learn to make your own observations.

I am NO expert by any means. What I do does seem to work for me and the results are constant as well for better or worse. What is really important in my way of thinking is that since voicing a top is so very difficult to explain, at least for me, and there are all kinds of pitfalls where I may be fooling myself providing one method shines a light so-to-speak where others can attempt to replicate, verify, or disprove results.

Again the reason why it was not unlike pulling teeth to get your questions answered is that many of us, me included, just don't know the answers and what we think that we might have some understanding of we, or at least I am unsure of myself.

It's that old do no harm thing.....

Good luck and let us know how it goes for you?

Mitch,
That bracing job is nearly as clean as Hesh's shop....and that is very clean indeed,
my friend.

It looks great as far as location and scalloping and all, but the proof is in how the
top and bracing resonate together.

Even though we all have our set of things that we listen for when we shape our
bracing and voice our tops and tap them in the process, a good rule of thumb is to
shoot for a nice full tone when it is tapped and a good indication of sustain.

The whole voicing process involves a lot of intuition and experienced reference by
the builder to what he's heard and felt in the past as far as the properties of the free
and the guitar it becomes part of go. Listen closely as you tap that top while suspending
it from different areas and note the very subtle changes that occur as you remove
material and its mass from particular parts of the different braces and you'll begin to
develop a keen sense of what's happening and the foundation for reference for future
efforts.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars