Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all, I've been away for quite awhile but am finally glad to be back and building again. Where I work we have some really high tech equipment for measuring vibrations in just about anything. I have a chance to get some high quality data from laser equipment that will show me exactly what parts of a guitar are vibrating, how much, how fast, including braces (in every direction). I've seen the glitter patterns, but this takes it a step further and will provide very specific data besides the glitter pattern. My question is this--while the data will be rich, what are some specific things this equipment could be used for when building a guitar? Great data doesn't mean anything if it isn't used correctly. I suppose I could look at the vibrations of a really nice guitar and then compare other guitars, but this seems trivial to what could be done. Anybody have any good ideas for some experiments?

Thanks!

I have been very curious to see exactly what a domed top looks like when it's vibrating in monopole. The typical exaggerated graphic representations show a smooth curve almost like a sine wave that actually inverts on the down phase. Clearly a domed top doesn't invert so I'm curious to know what a typical X-braced domed top actually does.

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