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RE: double top flamencos (in reply to jshelton5040)
Hi Tom,
Thanks for taking the time to illustrate your idea....very clever. There are many variations on these internal shapes that have been tried by myself and others. The center strip has been done by many including me and i have eliminated it as unnecessary. I don't believe that the additional wood in prime tone/mode producing areas would help our cause.
Related to this is the data from Brian Burns who reported that applying the golpeador with white glue made for better sound than when it was applied with self adhesive materials. Admittedly this is just anecdotal but it does illustrate that the areas above the bridge are important to manage.
Note that the edges on all braces are sharp and not rounded. It is well proven.
You find the same ideas on old and modern Spanish traditional work. The tops of fan braces are planed to a sharp edge because the section profile of the brace is pyramidal or shaped like a Gothic window frame with a point at the top.
I would however be willing to wager in a guitar the effect of enhancing laminar flow over components in an effort to increase aerodynamic performance would find that the margin of gain is very, very little. There is a big difference between laminar flow over a large surface to decrease drag or cancel vortice forces over air control surfaces behind the square edges ect. Aircraft are working on a different level of volume and speed of flow over a larger area of surface and I have a hunch the reciprocity of that surface area is negative when applied to smaller surfaces and edges in the context of less air movement in contained space.
Now I'm not challenging the aerodymaniacs engineers and physics or radar specialists or anything....to do a calculation of reciprocity between laminar flow over airfoils and guitar braces. I would never do that, oh no.
Thanks for the explanation Tom, the magnets seem like a good idea. I experimented with using white glue on golpeadors years ago but had trouble keeping the edges down.
Stephen, the notion of air flowing inside a guitar is of course fact. The ratio of scale of the surface over which air flows is typically known as a "Reynolds Number" and has nothing to do with my family name. Model airplane wings are typically measured from 60,000 RN whereas those of a jet liner is in the millions. Turbulators providing improvement for lower Reynolds number surfaces are themselves highly debatable in spite of rigorous wind tunnel testing.
As I mentioned all this stuff is anecdotal and I claim absolutely no assurance that it makes a difference. I see no reason however not to provide for it just in case it does make a difference. It's just like the hundred other things we can't measure but do them under hope and intuition that the final result, i.e. guitar performance, will convince us.
In rereading my text when I say that "it is well proven" I meant that the radial symmetrical bracing design itself has been in use long enough that it is well proven. The actual brace shape having sharp edges is simply intended to assist that theoretical effect discussed above. Either way it is easy enough to make and provides the builder with an antidote for boredom as does commenting on this forum.
Either way it is easy enough to make and provides the builder with an antidote for boredom as does commenting on this forum.
Oh I hear you, I alleviate decades of boredom by funneling my thoughts through here.
On a serious note, we had a conversation sometime back in which the idea of finishing the inside of the guitar was considered, you know varnish on the inside. The quesiton that came up as whether or not it is for three things:
1. To stop fast expansion and movement of wood in rapid humidity change conditions 2. To make the inside of the guitar pretty. 3. To create an inside surface that would have lower drag friction for air moving inside the body cavity.
I know from other discussions on MIMF that #1 is basically untrue, or to any practical effect to stop damaging effects if a rapid radical change is going to occur.
Number two is debatable, I don't like shiny insides and it makes repairs more difficult. Mileage varies from, maker to maker on how pretty it is.
Three, Richard Jernigan who is a radar specialist and highly skilled at solving physics questions performed a calculation and found out that in fact the reduction of friction was so minuscule that it would not effect the performance of the guitar. So he shot down the anecdotal assumption made by some non builders that they thought the varnished inside was superior.
Since you are honest as the day is long and are saying it is a function of your style of making to extend the logic of the Reynolds number concept into your building I like it. And I as the imperious and self appointed grand visior of the De Bunking Dept. will not have to badger you. You have out smarted me.
I would however implore you to say that you in fact invented the Reynolds Number in guitar context and any parallel development in aviation design was pure synchronicity.
To be serious again, I wonder what the actual performance improvement is? If there is empirically checked data that says the square spar/brace thing is doing something good in the body cavity, I want to mess around with square edges more.
Mr. Jernigan is experienced enough to know that calculation un-supported by experiment is sometimes in error. Especially in engineering, calculation usually is based on a simplification of the real situation. The question is whether something important was left out. Only experiment can answer that.
If there is empirically checked data that says the square spar/brace thing is doing something good in the body cavity
No empirical data relative to guitars that I know of Stephen. Like any other developments we luthiers come up with, it becomes a matter to the guitar itself speaking in a single voice for all the practices and methods we have employed. How you intuitively come to judgement about such things will remain subjective until enough others agree with you and then it becomes legend.
Personally, I hope the guitar remains a scientifically undefined musical object so you and I can continue to entrance our victims with romance.
So what would you call that, Mr. Jernigan, an Enigma?
I would call it the element that makes guitar making an art, not a science.
It's an important distinction. My brother, a distinguished physician, reminds people that medicine is an art. Medicine may rely heavily on science, but its practice is an art....or at least ought to be.
I would call it the element that makes guitar making an art, not a science.
It's an important distinction. My brother, a distinguished physician, reminds people that medicine is an art. Medicine may rely heavily on science, but its practice is an art....or at least ought to be.
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