Official Luthiers Forum!

Does anyone have experience building with carbon fiber or know where I can get some information on it.

What info are you looking for? I have built large scale RC aircraft frames with carbon fiber and used carbon fiber round bar and square bar as stiffeners in some lutherie. I have not attempted a body from a CF matrix because I like wood That said most any CF distributer can answer just about any question you may have if one of us here can't. Just Google Carbon fiber distributor and you will find tons of useful links

In this case, search can help you.

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"...you have to get over your strict adherence to your largely imagined notion of absolute perfection..."

I have a few questions (Carbon Fiber)

1) If building a uni-body design (DOES THERE NEED TO BE EXTRA FIBER AT THE NECK JOINT).
2) CF has many directional patterns, can you use one pattern for a guitar or do I need to combine several to build a solid structure.
3) Most CF builders don't use a truss rod. As players and builders what do you think about having a truss rod or not having one in terms of action, not strength.

So we are talking electric body/neck. How are you planing to joint the neck?

As far as the truss rod is concered even with CF neck regardless of the fiber matrix make-up the string tension will bull a bow. The apex of the bow will be approx at the pont half way between the the nut and the neck joint. so the trick is either to make the neck shaft strong enough to resist the bow to the point of desired relief or provide a means of controling the bow.

I want to make an acoustic guitar and I want to have the neck and body be one mold, that is how current CF builders do it. Most necks these companies make are hollow inside, with the fretboard being attached after the body/neck is molded together.

JB, it sounds like you're asking about building an all carbon fiber guitar, similar to Rainsong. Is that correct?

In that case I will tell you that you will need some mass and buttress bracing at the neck joint and bracing to prevent the tension on the neck for rotating towards the sound hole and deforming the top. A lot of loading calculations will need to be done to know how much mass is needed. This same reason is why the neck on a wood acoustic is supported by a relatively massive neck bloc that is tied into the rim and back and sides. Also the bracing of the back and top see this load and are designed to support this load. Just like on a wood acoustic this load is constant and over time will take a toll on the structure of the rim. With wood guitars the neck assembly is designed to be removed and rest as the guitar changes shape for this constant load. If you plan on making a neck that is integrally part of the body then you will not be able to do this and you must provide structure that will permanently over come this loading. Even with CF as the material I suspect you will have issues preventing the rotation of the neck and rim from the constant string tension without a neck block and buttress bracing.

Good luck with that.

Thanks for all your help Michael and yes I want to build a guitar similar to CA, Rainsong, Blackbird.

That will be an interesting project without a doubt. I have played a Rainsong several hours. It sounded nice in many respects but to my ear lacked over all tonal color. I keep playing a friend of mines' to see if I notice the tone changing with play-in and age. At this point I can't say I have. but of course that is subjective. I suspect much like a laminated top that the sound changes very little with play-in and age. but that is just a logic based assumption.

Interesting. I've heard the same thing said of CF violin bows.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

JB, I would be interested to hear how it goes if you decide to do this.

I have been thinking about this a bit and bought some fiberglass materials to experiment with. There are some famous examples of mixing wood and composites that didn't go so well (Ovation, and Stratacoustic come to mind).

I think it would be nice to have at least two guitars. One would be a nice sounding delicate wood guitar for home or studio. The other would be a carbon fiber so you could have one to take on vacation or camping or to the beach.

I've also spent some time with a Rainsong and I must say it sounded better than I expected but I agree it is a bit 'dry' sounding to me, i.e. lacking tonal complexity. It would be a wonderful guitar for trips to the boonies, beach and so on. Perhaps a CF guitar carefully made by a luthier could sound better than the factory versions in much the same way that handmade wood guitars are often much better sounding than the factory equivalents. You might want to check out some of Nick Dolby's work for ideas; he usually hangs out at the MIMF.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Jason-
Have you done a lot of work with carbon fiber or other composites (fiberglass,kevlar, etc) before?

Carbon is pretty nasty stuff to work with, IMO. And it is quite expensive to boot.
Also, the resins that the commercial builders use may not be available to you or may be tricky to work with.

I'm not trying to discourage you, but I've done quite a bit of work with glass and epoxy, as well as a bit with Kevlar and CF as well, and there is certainly a 'learning curve' before you get comfortable with the materials, Up to that point most people tend to waste quite a bit of material.

Wood (for me) is a much,much nicer medium to work with.

If you already have a vacuum system and some of the other stuff you will need, that will be a help.

If you'd like to have a CF guitar, then buy one- it will be cheaper and you can 'test drive' the instrument.
If I were trying to build a CF composite guitar, I think the odds would be pretty slim that my first effort (or tenth, for that matter) would be as good as one from a factory.
If you want to build a CF guitar, then go for it!

Cheers
John