Anders Eliasson -> RE: "Luthiers share your creations" thread (Feb. 5 2014 14:49:13)
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quote:
Good to hear about the steel string. Do you have any inclination to make any more steel strung guitars? If you do make a 12 string! I really love them, a nightmare to play though! Guitar no.4 sounds good. I have a lot of love for guitars that don't have much in favour for their looks but do for their sounds - guitars for playing! Maybe they think it's one of the better guitars you made as the sound developed - I imagine most of the guitars you have made, you've not managed to hear when they have been 'broken in'? I look forward to seeing the build for your 2A with a mastergrade Sitka Soundboard. Out of curiosity, how do you grade soundboards? When it comes to Spruce tops anyway, I often think there's an obsession over 'perfect' visual appearances with the lines being uniformly close together, but I've played some amazing guitars where there has not been a uniform distance between the lines. I really like Sitka as a soundboard for material for steel strings, and it's easily my favourite over the more often more revered but more expensive Adirondack, Englemann and European spruces, as Sitka to my ears sounds warmer. One thing about Sitka spruce soundboards, is they don't look that nice as they age but that's not a very important thing. Time will show if i will make more steelstring guitars. Its all about time and energy and right now, besides building Spanish guitars, the violin is what I´m most interested in. The number 4 is what Ricardo described a Gerundino guitar, a rasgueado and pulgar guitar. (I liked that description) That it does really well, but picado and especially arpeggios up the fingerboard is not its force. I dont really grade soundboards and when i say mastergrade, its becase it was bought as a mastergrade. Soundboard grading is there in order to make money, so that one piece of very good soundboard is 20,-€ while another with some different characteristics but not better sounding costs 80,-€. When I choose wood for a 1A guitar, its sound first and then looks. Some of these picture perfect soundboards, all white, hardly any contrast can be to sloppy in their cross grain stiffness. Then its better with some contrast even though some think it looks wrong. The contrast is the hard and stiff part of the wood. To much wintergrain and it gets to heavy. Its all a compromise. I wont continue to build with Sitka spruce for simple reason that I´m in Europe and I can get Euro spruce cheaper and its what most clients want.
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