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Hey folks

I changed the neck of the problem guitar this weekend. It did the job. I couldn't find anything suspicious in the post-mortem, so I'll treat this as a one time event (with my fingers crossed it won't happen again...)

Here are some pics of the guitar (composite top - Spruce, Balsa and Cedar- with Honduran RW B&S) and another one I just finished (Cedar/Indian RW).

Cheers

Pat

A few more...

GREMLINS!
Close associates of Murphy...and his famous law.

Are you now going to try to disassemble the offending neck bit by bit to see if you can locate what the issue was? A good learning experience as you wouldn't want to put that neck back on another guitar. Done carefully you should be able to salvage most parts, unless it's all assembled with epoxy.

_________________
Hank Mauel

Hey Hank

No way this neck is ever going on another guitar: it's possessed!!!!

I sawed it off and will dismantle it when I have the time. Got a lot on my plate right now...

Cheers

Pat

This prompts me to ask...was this built in the "Spanish heel tradition" or with a dovetail/MT joint? If it was the first, you had a heck of a job to replace it.
By the way, nice looking instruments!

_________________
Hank Mauel

"composite top - Spruce, Balsa and Cedar"

What does this mean, in your context?

Hey guys

Hank said:



My neck is made separatly then glued on, with a bolt securing the whole thing. This method is inspired by the Greg Byers approach as shown on his site. With the lower string tension of a classical guitar it would hold with no problems just by gluing it (no dovetail) but I add the bolt for 2 simple reasons: 1 - I am a bit insecure ( ) and 2- by tightening the bolt, you get an excellent clamping action without the need for an elaborate gig to apply pressure.

I could have simply removed the bolt and unglued the whole thing so that it could be re-used, but I was a bit pressed for time so I decided to just saw it off and remove the leftover pieces with a chisel. That took all but 10 minutes with no damage to the finish around the edges.


wbergman said:




I have been fiddling with this composite top for a couple of guitars. I am not all that keen with the nomex center so I stole this idea from Robert Ruck, who wrote about it in an article in a GAL Quarterly article. It's an all wood, 3 layer top. The top layer is Spruce, the middle layer is a mix of Cedar and Balsa, and the bottom layer is Cedar. I use epoxy to hold it together. The middle and bottom layers are very thin: about 0.5mm each. The top layer is a bit thicker, and I am realizing that this is where you can tailor your sound to achieve the results you sought.

On my first attempt, the top Spruce layer was really thin: from 0.8mm in the center to 0.4 in the periphery of the lower bout. The result is a very loud and responsive guitar, with excellent bass and middle frequencies, but the highs are a bit subdued for my taste. I made this second guitar with the same thickness for the middle and bottom layers, but with a thicker top layer (the Spruce is about 1.2 mm thick in the central area and about 0.8 in the periphery of the lower bout). The result is that the guitar sounds more traditional (although I find it a bit louder and more opened than a normal new Spruce top) with the improvement in the high frequencies that I was looking for.

It seems therefore that the secret lies in the thicknessing of the top layer. Thicker leans towards a more traditional sound while thinner emphasises the "double top" effect. I will make the next one somewhere in between, with the top layer at around 1mm in the middle/bridge area and mayby 0.6/0.7 in the periphery. I am really looking forward to hearing the results.

Cheers


Pat