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On good guitars, how thick should be the golpeador for it to protect the fragile surface of the wood? It seems that V. Amigo's guitar has quite a thick one while others have a thinner one. I just wonder if there are different grades for the plastic used?
Assuming that you're going for the clear ones, not the white, then there are two thicknesses available that are self adhesive, .005 and .011. I believe the .011 is the most often used.
One would have to make the assumption that the 0.011 protects better than the .005 as it is a little over twice as thick. I have not seen anything thicker, unless you go to regular acoustic guitar pickguard material. Of course a piece of 1/4" (7mm) steel plate would provide the best protection! In other words there is probably a "point of diminishing returns" on the thickness of a glopeador.
If you can avoid using the self adhesive plates, I would recommend that you do so. On a beater guitar they are fine but if it's a real nice guitar I would have a luthier who knows that they are doing to apply your golpe plate using real glue that dries. The problem with the self adhesive plates is the glue never dries, it's a gummy mess and I have reservations about what that can do to the sound (if it's a real sensitive instrument) and what the structural issues may be in the long run. They also become damn near impossible to remove once they are real old and beat up. You can use solvents to disolve the glue but if someone has almost worn through the plate from heavy golpes then things get ugly fast.
Most of us are using around .10 thick plastic for our plates. I wouldn't go much thicker or thinner for that matter.
Whoops your right. It should be .010 sorry about that.
I have tried in the past to use elmers white glue which is what Lester DeVoe does. I assume he still does it that way although I could be wrong. Now I am using 24 hour epoxy, the West System to be exact. I learned this technique from Richard Brune and it is what Robert Ruck does as well. This method gives you the best looking tap plate you can get, in that you can barely see it, it is almost totally invisible. There is barely any epoxy in there if you do it right, that particular brand dries very hard and you can remove the plate if you need to. The epoxy sits on the surface of the shellac like a film and can be peeled off too, although the one time I did that i had to use a very sharp and very carefully manipulated chisel to get it going.
I can't imagine attaching golpe plates any other way.
Oh yes, I get my plastic from art supply stores. Just be sure not to get it rolled up, you want flat sheets.
Printable Version
In other words there is probably a "point of diminishing returns" on the thickness of a glopeador.
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