Official Luthiers Forum!

In Kent Everett's new viocing video, he talks breifly about the "candle trick" where he says that if you hold a lit match in front of the sound hole (after closing the box) and tap the top it will blow out the match if you've done a good job of voicing. If it can blow out a candle then you've done a great job. Anyone ever tried this? Is it a good measure?

The video is great by the way...

Chuck

Chuck,

This is a measure of looseness and stiffness that like any other method, top deflection testing and measuring, chladni patterns etc, will mean absolutely nothing to you unless you have something to compare against and know what it means. Some consider this a parlor trick, (not the " parlor" guitar type) but it can actually be one more little "trick" in your repertoire while trying to make your guitar the most responsive it can be without imploding. Try this on a bunch of guitars and you will soon begin to understand how this could be helpful.

Works on the uke I'm building

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

Also, you can just place one hand in front of the soundhole while tapping the top. The puff of air coming out can be felt with your hand, although it is less impressive than blowing out a match. For me this is just part of the "tap on everything to become familiar with the wood" style, i don't think it tells me anything specific, but it doesn't hurt to tap/listen/flex/bite in the quest for familiarity.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Seems like focusing on this test too much could cause some serious "wolf tones" or other spectrum response anomalies, right?

Kind of cool to blow out a candle, yeah I've had fun with it before....FWIW, I will say that those guitars sounded good.

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Gwaltney Guitars