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I am wondering how many of you guys are making classical and steel string, or archtops, madolins, etc. for that matter. Does your approach in voicing the top have a crossover of ideas between the instruments or do you treat them differently? Once you get past the structural part of supporting the different string tension, how similar is your graduating and/or bracing technique for different type instruments?

Tim

Your approach to each has to be different because the way the tops work is different

A book could be written on the subject but here is some food for thought.
I build my steel strings to hold tension and my classicals to release tension.

Take a look at the plans for:
Martin Dread
Stella 12-string
Torres Classical
Bendetto Archtop
Gibson L5 Archtop
Bruno Classical...

You will notice massive differences in construction... Some are full of braces and strutting... Some only have a few independent braces glued in here and there....

If you don't have much bracing or your bracing is already extremely thin... most of your voicing has to be done on the Top, bridge, back, and elsewhere... and vice versa...

There is also a difference in how they are built and voiced... Many Classical builders build a "White" guitar, then string it up and voice it, then apply finish... Most steel string builders build, finish, then string and make final adjustments.... so it is pretty inconvenient for steel string builders to wreck the finish by thinning the top from the outside once the finish is polished up... so they fool with stuff on the Inside...

Then you have Archtops and things with small soundholes... You can't get your hands back up inside it once it is closed... so most adjustments after stringing it up must be done on the outside unless you want to go pull the back off.

Thanks

John

One of the reasons I asked is that there are a few big builders making crossover guitars,( i.e. Martin, Goodall ) along with several one man shops also doing the same. I would think that there would some common ground btween the two especially in loosening up the top.

Truck, I know there are big differences in the way they are made and braced but I was assuming that the driving force is still the strings + bridge and there may be some similarity in getting that optimum transfer of energy. I really like the idea of stringing up the guitar in the white to do the final voicing, although I have never done this on a steel string. Up to now it has been simply on the tap tone and with the back off. I actually have the Torres plan on order from GAL, along with one of the Hausers', and had hoped it would be here today. Hopefully they will help, at least to make a classical.

Robbie, Thanks for the response. You have actually said quite a bit in few words. So where's your book? I'm sure as I travel down this road there will be more than one. Once again Thanks!!! It's food for thought.

I can't speak for the manufacturers, but most cross over guitars are really classical bracing with a variation in the neck. Some put a 14 fret neck, and narrow the nut and radius the fingerboard, to make it play more like a steel string. The only manufacturers cross over I have played was a Taylor, and it was junk, as far as sound went, and nearly $2,000, to boot. It would have made a good paddle, maybe. It looked nice. I'm sure it sounds better if you plug it in.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

The differences between nylon and steel string guitars really go back to the differences in the strings. Compared with steel strings, nylons have much lower tension and are deficient in high frequencies. This defines the central problem of making the two different sorts of guitars.

With a steel string, you need to build a strong structure to withstand the extra tension, and, at the same time, come up with enough bass to balance out the trebles. A strong top is necessarily stiff, and tends to accentuate the trebles. The usual way around that is to build bigger, which shifts the overall balance of the guitar to the bass. It costs you some volume, but that's not an issue since the extra tension gives you more power to work with. In addition, X bracing is a bit stiffer for a given weight than fan bracing, and also helps give a more 'solid' or 'full' timbre to the sound, through a shift in the 'cross dipole' resonance, IMO.

On a classical, you need to keep the top light and also figure out how to get the most out of the little bit of high end you have in the strings. In a sense, this is a harder problem than that which faces the steel string maker, and it's generally considered more difficult to make a good classical than a good steel string (_great_ guitars of any sort are always tough to make). It's intersting that almost no classical guitarists of note play factory guitars, but many fine steel string players do. Smaller size helps keep the top stiffness up while still using thin scantlings. Wood selection seems to be far more critical, especially in terms of damping factor. But, most of all, it seems to come down to finding the 'correct' balance of things for the particular set of wood you're building with. That's why it's hard to mass produce decent classicals.