Official Luthiers Forum!

Nothing to add except...hi neighbor! I'm down in Cottonwood, just south of Redding.

Darrin

Interesting…

I can certainly see the influence of the violin structure in your original instrument and have to wonder why you decided to mix this structure with the structure of a steel string guitar.

With your current structure of a non supported top, lacking tonal bars, bass bar, I see essentially a loose drum head. The tops of a guitar, violin and cello etc. needs the tonal support whether carved, via tonal or bass bars much like a drum needs the stretched fabric to product a good sound.

I don’t think you’ll ever be happy with the sound of this instrument until you’ve stiffen up the top.

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Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

Marty Brunkalla makes a braceless top guitar and gets amazing volume and balanced tone. I really like his personal his OM size guitar. There was a thread about his guitars here a while back.
viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=15969&p=228563&hilit=brunkalla#p228563
He also uses this design on a high end Ukulele.
Kent

The top is very stiff/ loose. The underbridge supports the top, then sliding it forward a bit acts like a soundpost, though it does not go to the back but to the truss. It has a sound of its own, I showed it around yesterday, one guy loved it. It is stiff at the bridge but loose everywhere else. The sound is very woody but has a crisp penetrating sound too. The tone has some dobro and mando mixed in.

So the next experiment on this will be adding tone bars in an x pattern. The tone bars will contact the truss and the bridge will sit with its feet just behind where the tone bars contact the truss.

I expect the same limitations of tone from the contact with the truss, but it will be interesting. I hope to get some better bass. I should get it done tonight.

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Thank you, I knew some one else would have tried something like this. I like the carbon neck bracing, I started with 1/2" ply since it was in the shop and cheap. The you tube was pretty hard to get an idea of the sound though.

It seems pretty clear that there needs to be some sort of tone bars, but they can be only for tone, not structure. Thanks for the link.
Rob

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http://shastaguitar.com/
http://www.kalimbakit.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/comfyfootgr ... ature=mhee
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