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My current build is based on the GAL Gibson L-O plans, the shape and size are about all I am using from it. My project has a standard x braced top, engleman spruce, cheap off ebay, and a Port Orford cedar back, carved from a 1" thick blank, material I found in the forest locally some years ago, a few worm holes, but 30 + grains/". The tap tone of the carved back is so much more appealing then the braced top, I am wondering about just doing a carved top and back for the next, but since these are being built by me, a new builder, I have to assume they will stay with me, and I am not interested in a guitar over 15" in the lower bout, and would prefer to stay in the 14" range.

So why are there no small body arch tops out there (that I am aware of), do they just not work? Or as Bennedetto says in his book about round sound hole archtops, is there just no market for them? Seems the evolution of the archtop has some what stagnated, other then sound hole variations, they seem to have stayed the same pretty much, of course there can be plenty going on that I am unaware of. Part 2 of this question is the hybrid that I am working on, arch back, flat top, elevated fingerboard, I may find out why not myself in a few weeks when I finish, but why not?

Arch top with a fixed bridge, another why not

I have refrained from asking this question, as these "why not" type questions generally get little response, but have wondered for some time, and would love some input as I will find out the old fashioned way and just build them, but would love the benefit of experience as I go into these little traveled waters.
Thanks,
Rob

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THE BEST arch top I ever played was a 16" Gibson L5 from the 30's. It sounded like a cello when plucked. I wish I had bought it,but it was $3000.00 at a guitar show,and wasn't in too good condition. I'm not sure if I had 3 grand on me at that show. It was one of those old ones which had a birch back,I think.

It was quite loud. Though I like the 17" guitars better,just for appearance sake,which is probably a foolish reason anyway,I'm not sure that the 16" would not make a better guitar. Since most people like the larger arch top guitars,it could be tough to sell one. I swear,though,this old Gibson beat them all ! I've even rebuilt Strombergs years ago.

Hi, Rob,
I'm sure there are a lot of smaller body archtops out there. Benedetto himself shows a smaller bodied nylon string guitar in the back of his book. I've seen many photos of small arch top tenor guitars, and D'Angelico built an arch top uke for one of his clients. I don't think a smaller archtop would have the cutting power of a large one, but this is immaterial in home settings or with amplification. I've asked the question about arched back, flat top guitars myself. I know that they've been made by a number of builders. I think the market is just somewhat limited for these instruments. I will be interested in seeing yours.
As for fixed bridges on arch tops, I guess there's no reason you can't try one, but archtop bridges transfer their energy to the top in a somewhat different way. I believe there's more than tradition at work here in the fact that archtops continue to be built with floating bridges and various tailpiece schemes.

David Rawlings, who plays with Gillian Welch, plays an Epiphone Olympic, which, depending on the year, has as small as a 13" lower bout and Epiphone made several other small body archtops. Thanks to Rawlings, the Olympic has become fairly desirable. Gibson made several 14 3/4 " models but I don't know if they made anything smaller. Not sure about others but there is a ton of information on the Antique Vintage Guitar website. http://home.provide.net/~cfh/
I was wondering about using a 13 or 14 inch archtop guitar pattern for an octave mandolin. I see a lot of builders doing something like that but I'm not sure what size they are using.

Kent

Historically these guitars were being played sans amplification in big bands. So the smaller bodies probably fell out of favor for volume reasons. So I bet you don't see them now just because everybody is so used to the 17". I'm building a 16" archtop right now just for a more compact body and not really for acoustic reasons. The pickup is kind of the great equalizer.

Thanks for the replies,
George, curious comparison to a cello, typically I think that would not be considered a good thing, a plucked cello has a distinct different from a guitar type sound, though I love the cello, dated a cellist for many years, I even had the opportunity to meet Bernard Greenhouse, my girlfriend's teacher and got to check out his unbelievable Stradavari cello. He offered to let me hold it and check it out, but I was fine doing so from a distance with my hands in my pockets, it was valued at about 4 million almost 20 years ago when I saw it. Beautiful instrument and an amazing sound, he is an amazing player as well. But hey, 3 K for a beat up guitar, you can get a new custom one for close to that.
CPhanna, thanks, I googled tenor archtop and found a few. I imagine that a fixed bridge on an archtop would have potential but take a lot of work to make it work, where on the arch, how to brace, bridge height and size, it would be a long journey with potentially limited benefit, and in the end, no one would want one.
Kent, thanks for the link, lots of cool stuff there, including small arch tops by epiphone from the 30's, but of course there is no info on the why's and why nots, do they sound good? The mando project sounds like fun.
Jason, that is my point, the archtop was built to project over an orchestra without electronics, but that is not important now, so they have stayed very traditional.

I know I am off on a tangent with this idea, but in a field where almost everything has been tried, I am grasping for a little uncharted territory to play in.

Other ideas out there? Let me know,
Thanks,
Rob

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Hey Rob, when you say fixed bridge on an arch top do mean a bridge like a flat top glued to an archtop or do you mean a glued down bridge but still with the tailpiece? I ask because it seems to me that the arching of the top is really designed to deal with the downward force as applied by the trapeze style tailpiece and not for the upward force of a conventional flat top bridge. The forces on the top would be completely different I would think. As far as the appeal of a small body archtop goes, it may just be one of those things that has to be tried. You may build it and realize why no one ever builds them or you may have just stumbled onto the next great thing. I dunno.

Maybe my cello comparison was not thorough enough. I don't mean that the treble strings had no sparkle. The bass strings had sort of a cello like tone. It was extremely nice,though.

This is the intriguing part to me, how is the carved arch supported with an x brace, structurally acting any differently then a dome. On a flat top with a dome, the relationship of the bridge on that dome is critical to distribute the forces put on the bridge and optimize top movement for tone, on a carved top, that dome can be shaped how one wishes seeming giving the builder more control.


I am not sure if my motivation is the next great thing as just a different thing. I have always been more intrigued playing with shapes then colors, meaning making standard construction guitars with different wood and trim combos is less compelling to me then messing with the construction.
Rob

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I always forget that flat tops aren't really flat. That's a good point about the domed top. It would be interesting to hear the sonic differences between the two bridge styles on otherwise identical guitars. Are you going to use f-holes or a round sound hole?

'Way back when I did a little experiment on the effect of arching on a plate. It was part of my 'free plate tuning' series of articles in 'American Lutherie', so you can get the gory details there. Basically, the higher the arch the higher pitched the 'ring' mode frequency was, and, presumably, the higher the 'main top' mode pitch on the completed guitar, all else equal.

What this means is that a highly arched top is going to have the sort of tap tone pitch and stiffness that you'd expect from a much smaller flatter top. The guitar will tend to sound 'smaller' than it is. I have to think that that's why archtops tend to be big: small ones can sound 'thin' and may be too 'cutting'. That was certainly the case with the two 15" archtop classicals I made.

Keeping the arch low would help.

Arching the back is, in many respects, a cheap wood upgrade. That is, an arched maple back can work about the same as a flat Brazilian rosewood one. I have made one arch back-flat top guitar, and one of my students made one, and they both turned out very nicely.

Despite opinion to the contrary, archtops don't really work much differently from flat tops. The twice-per-cycle tension change of the vibrating string does drive the bridge on a flat top more strongly, but the top can't respond very well to that force, since we build them to _not_ fold up, and it's not an efficient sound producer except at certain frequencies. Most of the differnces in the sound seem to be due to the added stiffness of the arch, and the differences in the soundholes and air resonant pitches and amplitudes. I made a 16" archtop classical a couple of years ago that souned surprisingly 'normal', and have another in the works that I think will be even better. That one had a floating bridge: a fixed bridge, like on the original Gibsons, would pick up the tension change signal, although it's anyone's guess how well that would work. Hmmmm.

Jason,
I messed with a guitar prior to this retopping one with f holes and one with more of a traditional sound hole, I was surprised as to how much the holes location changed or defined the tone, f holes sounding more like an archtop with great note separation and cut, and round holes up top sounded like a standard flat top, both on a guitar with an arch maple back.

Alan,
Thank you for your wisdom, and as with most of your posts, plenty to think about and digest.

So likely a domed top and a carved top of the same approximate arc will have similar sound, making the carved much more work and more wood for a similar result, that is what I am getting out of your explanation.

This is good to hear, since this is actually one of my motivations, I would like to stay away from imported exotics and get the bang for the buck out of cheaper local woods, Port oford being the desirable local species for me.

OK, I got Allan Carruth to go Hmmmm, personally, I will call that an accomplishment and will feel validated that this is not a stupid question.

I made a promise to myself that before I spend hundreds on wood for a guitar, I will by the Somogyi books and the American Lutherie back issue books. Why waste the fancy wood without a formal education. So these first guitars are more about process development, jigs, and finding the features that I would like to work with, such as fan frets, elevated fingerboard and body size and shape, then I hope to use the info from the books to hopefully learn how to get what I want tonally out of these features. Then when I can get some good results with this education on cheap wood, I will look at some zoot. My current project will have about $30 worth of wood in it. As magnificent as many of the first guitars I see here are, I do not want to work with trepidation about making cuts on fancy wood, if I mess up a part on this, a few buck and a few hours, I am over it, as a cabinet shop buddy would say, wood does grow on trees, get a new stick and make it right, that is harder to say with fancy wood.
Thank you Allan for the info, all your informative posts are greatly appreciated.
Rob

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Well Rob,

personally Padma Likes your attitude and approach to building.

you wanna make small bouts guitars with flat tops wnd carved backs... then by god do it....if thats whats in the heart.

Ya, read all the different posts and books with their different thoughts, opinions and BS*
but in the very end its just you and the wood, alone together making sawdust.

Its your wood and your time and your saw dust. My suggestion is ...do it your way and to with everybody elses take on how it "should be done." Right! again

Regarding size and tone and all that stuff... my last two arch tops were 12 inches with all cedar tops, backs and 2 inch wide ribs and sonically they kick ass. BUt off course the purist say thats not possible. To which again I say

In fact Rob, your approach to building is one of the smartest thing me heard on these forums ~ thats next to my posts that is.

blessings

Padma

*BS ~ belief systems

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Wow, the Padma, thank you for the encouraging words, though I am confident in the effectiveness of my self devised lutherie curriculum to accomplish my personal building goals, the validation from an experienced builder whose work I respect such as yourself is appreciated.

I feel this is the key to commercial interest in my future instruments, doing what is in my heart by God, that is going to make me so happy when I play, that when some one hears me play these guitars, and sees how happy I am and how this joy comes through and out of the guitar and touches them, they will want one.

I don't want to reinvent the wheel and ignore the work others have done, I just want to apply it to my vision of a guitar, Bach introduced us to using particular patterns of notes, modern scales and keys, I use them all the time, but when I get in the mood to rip on some rock and roll parallel fifths, hey Bach I got some rockin to do.
I think what Somogyi is preaching in building is that instruments become responsive when the components are balanced and working harmoniously, it is not the size or shape that is key, but balancing the components within that size and shape. I look forward to reading his books, as I do many of the authors' words on this forum, "but in the very end its just you and the wood, alone together making sawdust"
Thanks again the Padma, for this and all your interesting posts.
Rob

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