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A customer contacted me a couple weeks ago and had me make up these custom cylindrical sanding boards (only arched in 1 direction). I've thought of making instruments that were only arched in one direction but I never new what the advantage would be.

Has anyone ever built instruments with this type of radius? What are the advantages? What types of instruments would you use this on? I think I may have seen some bouzoukis built like this.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
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I believe that Laurent Brondel builds with a cylindrical rather than spherical radius. Perhaps he will chime in.

I build Weiss only,
most of the time,
and I use a 25' radius, home made go bar deck and sanding sled for these.
I think it lends itself to the Weiss style lap steels.
Keeps stuff nice and straight.

Laurent does or has, same with Howard Klepper. Laurent had a thread on the AGF I think comparing the tonal effects.

I did build like this as well, but my reasoning what that Howard and Laurent do it so it must work. My own thinking on this, with nothing to back my ideas, is that it allows for the top to be more free cross the grain, it also makes the body neck geometry a bit easier.

The down side is preparing braces, they need to reflect a location on the board, with a dome, you can just shape anywhere in the dome and get the same result.

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Stefan Sobell does, I think Laurent brondel has been inspired by him.
Anyway, in both cases, really nice sounding guitars.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

I tried a cylindrical top and back on my last one, number 18, a small jumbo. I was encouraged by seeing others do that, but I was motivated more by structural considerations. If string tension tends to rotate the neck upward, compressing the top and putting tension on the back, then it seems that doming the tops and backs would be like building in springs that could more easily deform than cylindrical tops and backs. Maybe that’s all wrong or the effect is too small to be significant, or maybe it’s just a crackpot theory, I don’t know, but it’s a nice guitar in any case.

Steve

I build my backs that way.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

I build my soundboards and attach them to the rim in a cylindrical form. Have done so for at least 15 years. Structure, sound, and geometry all work for me.

I learned to build with a cylindrical form from Rick. It works great. The main advantage is the ease of attaching the neck. Since the top has much less top to bottom curvature, the fret board always fits nice and tight and the top still has a play to expand and contract with humidity.

I build octave mandolins with a cylindrical radius. When combined with a strong "break angle" at the bridge, I think it works well for a sound with a loud attack and moderately quick decay.

By 'cylindrical radius' I assume it is meant side to side rather than neck to tail? And if so, what of the upper bout? Does it remain flat via the UTB? This is a new concept to me and I'm interested in investigating further.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Sobell's were not made with a cylindrical arch. The intended shape was more complex than that and production methods meant it ended up more complex still. Though it has to be said you will get closer to that sound using a cylindrical arch than a spherical one.

nigel
http://www.nkforsterguitars.com/#/book/4568936095

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nigel

http://www.theluthierblog.com