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I was just wondering if any of you fine luthiers have seen the Simpson armrest bevel? And what your impressions are in terms of looks and it's effect on the performance of the soundboard? I have a customer asking if I can do a bevel similar to this and I want to be armed with information. Also I should mention I have never attempted an armrest before. But did find some very helpful information in the archives. How great is this Forum!!
here is a link of some pics of the bevel.

http://www.dreamguitars.com/simpson/options.htm

Looks nice; takes away a lot of real estate from the top.

You might want to do a bevel on a spec guitar before undertaking one for a client. Binding and purfling them neatly is difficult.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I am not sure I would credit that style of arm rest to Simpson or not as many builders have been building this style of arm rest for at least a decade or better. As far as affect on the sound board, small bracing changes are part of the design requirements and voicing would be done with these changes in affect. I am sure there is some affect on the main resonant mode as e there is loss of area in the air chamber but I suspect it to be minimal.

Paging Alan!!!!!!

Meaning no offense to armrest aficionados, I think it looks terrible. Just like a 1964 Lotus formula I car or a 1975 De Rosa racing bicycle, a guitar has an elegant functional simplicity. Why clutter a beautiful instrument up with stuff like this?
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I'm with you Terence,
that particular armrest is way to large and visually overpowers the rest of the guitar.
It just doesn't look balanced to me.

Peter

If I was asked, I would say no.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

I know Jason hangs out here a bit. He could probably give you some info on how it affects the sound on his instruments. My preference is a smaller bevel design that does not cut into the top so much.

As others have said I would do at least one test instruments before you try a bevel on a customers guitar. I have done several armrest and ribrest bevels and they are tricky. Also you may want to look into some other armrest designs. Grit Laskin is of course the originator of the bevel (or he at least holds a copy right on the idea). Kevin Ryan has also done some really nice designs. Not to mention all the great designs we have seen on the forum over the years.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Personally, I love the design of it and how it looks. I'm not well-versed enough to discuss how it would affect tone, etc. But I like it.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Just to clear one thing up - Grit Laskin has a copyright on the names Armrest and Ribrest, as they pertain to a guitar. There is no copyright or patent onthe design itself. Like many others have mentioned, protecting your intellectual property is very costly.

Something that wide is too overbearing on the guitars shape IMO ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks for clearing that up Tony.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

I like Jason's design and don't believe that its width affects tone in an negative way. It has avery cool combination of the Ryan approach as it smoothly morphs into the bevel out of the binding at the waist area, but has that graceful recurve as it returns to the binding with a gentle line and the elegant miters in the purfling at the bottom end of it. Jason's building ome beautiful guitars and has obviously been influenced by Kevin Ryan for this design, but has taken it in an interesting direction that makes it unique to his beautiful guitars.

Concerning bevels and their variations, Grit Laskin and Linda Manzer were among the first to employ them on guitars,
but there have been many variations on those early designs that I would consider much more pleasing from a visual standpoint.
The most recent, of coarse, being that of Kevin Ryan with his "Ryan style" bevel that doesn't include the recurve that drops
the bevel surface back into the binding and purfling in an abrupt end. Kevin was the first builder to create that bevel with its smooth transition into the binding at both ends.

The copyright protection of simple descriptive terms for a design innovation is a precarious endeavor and is a tough thing to
enforce and their use is a tough thing to restrict and regulate. We've all watched as the bevel and other innovations have been picked up and duplicated by builder after builder and, most times without even a call out of simple courtesy to their originators
to get even a casual nod of permission from them or any effort to give credit to them by the imitating builders.

I've watched as one builder after another has implemented exact reproductions of bevels without ever making a mention of where they got the idea or were graciously offered input by the originator in an effort to help the imitator to achieve great results as they used their ideas, designs and even their methods.

I waited a long time to even begin prototype efforts to introduce a bevel design on my guitars partly because I was never a fan of them in their original design format and partly because I had a deep backlog of standing orders that didn't include them that I've needed to direct all of my time and energy to. It wasn't until Kevin Ryan's beautiful bevel design was unveiled in 2002 that I had any interest in using something similar on my guitars.

I new have six prototypes with bevels in different stages of construction in my shop, but I never even considered breaking ground on one of them until I'd gotten personal and specific permission from Kevin Ryan himself to use his bevel design. I can
only imagine that it has affected Kevin at times to see his design showing up on guitars being built by other builders without ever hearing from them and with no credit being given to him for such a beautiful and functional innovation.

Once I am offering the bevel in his style on my guitars, it will be listed in my options list as the "Ryan Style Bevel." I will likely also offer a variation on Kevin's gorgeous bevel flutes.....which are a protected design innovation and won't be showing up on just anyone's guitars for that reason. The placement of the flutes in the bevel offer a more practical focus of the sound provided by them for the player.

Kevin very generously and graciously offered me permission to imitate his designs in these areas and I am using them as the sound foundation and inspiration that they are to create my own variations on them, but they will always be offered with complete design credit being given to their inventor, Kevin Ryan. I've enjoyed trying different approaches to achieving the bevels and using different materials and dimensions to document the tonal effects of them as I do, but the inspiration and model was still born in the mind of one of the finest builders to ever lean over a bench to pour his heart into a guitar as he built it.

It never hurts us to give credit where it is due and, if anyone knows Kevin, they know that he deserves every accolade we can give to him as peers in this industry. His ideas are among the most innovative and progressive that have ever been implemented in guitar building and will have long lasting effects on the quality of the guitars being offered to and created for players all over the world.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

This is just a note for any one who cares I spent four days in the Prince Albert Museum in London Eng just looking at stringed instruments you can pull out a case about 10 feet long and 8 feet high each instrument has a number and you can listen to it being played on head phones. I have nothing but respect for Mr. Laskin and Ms. Manzer but many instruments had simaler bevels . They may not be guitars but they were stringed instruments.

I'm doing an arm rest and a rib rest (Laskin or Who Ever Style) for the first time and the making the bevel is a piece of cake. It's the binding and purf treatment which is most time consuming and difficult. At least if you are using wood binding. Plastic would be much easier.