ernandez R -> Neck sonic ideas (May 3 2021 17:07:07)
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Neck sonic ideas. On my first guitar I made the headstock with Hickory, it was just handy and as I was going to use friction pegs I thought it would hold up better then the Cottonwood I was building the rest of the necks out of. It some point I realized that the was a sonic benefit but not sure it was the density in relation to the Hickory having less dampening or the increased mass? I suspect both. On my next series of guitars, two 650 Classical and two 666mm Flamenco I decided to use the Hickory again for its perceived benefits, friction pegs of course. I also have been thinking a lot about incorporating a carbon rod for both of the reasons I'm using the hickory as well as its long term stabilizing properties. The problem is integrating the carbon bar far enough from the natural axis. I kept thinking the whole back of the neck should be a unidirectional carbon shell but the process and esthetics was not something I wanted to deal with. The next idea was simply a full depth web. Well sourcing a suitable material, ideally a pultruded unidirectional plate, I recalled I had some light weigh carbon fiber cloth collecting dust in the shop. Bingo! After some thought I decided two webs separated by about 6mm of wood of two layers of 6oz cloth would suffice. Basically the equivalent of about a 6mm X 3mm rod but mathematically many times more effective. The four neck blanks were spilt, one piece flipped around end for end, this way the rift sawn grain was mirrored to reduce any tendency to bow. The neck assembly for the two Flamenco is Cottonwood and the two Classical is birch, both locally harvested woods. The Flamenco necks have a spine of Birch between the two full depth CF webs as well as all four headstocks. The heal part of the neck assembly was laid up much the same way but in a separate block that I could band saw two pieces from each, one Birch and one Cottonwood. I'll attach a photo as I could go mad trying to type out a description. I had this wedge of Birch saved for a few years specifically for necks but when I was resawing it I discovered one end was spalted. At some point I decided to roll with it knowing the CF might make up for some of the structural and tonal losses. I even made end grain headstock veneer out of it placing two layers of CF cloth between it and the Hickory knowing the end grain was structurally unless. During my first build I discovered many builders were using Corain for nuts and saddles and I had just made a countertop out of a yellowish material that when looked at askance could be confused with aged ivory or bone. About a year later I saw an early American guitar with ivory pegs and I thought to myself how hard would it be to make pegs from the yellow Corian. It was F'n hard, I broke many, and made many blisters on my hands, but was able to make up six heart shaped pegs for my Partners Valentine's Day Parlor. Once I had the guitar strung up I notice right away something was dramatically different tonally. It was the pegs, more specifically it was the peg material. I was also building at the time two 666mm Flamencas but with birch sides and backs, spruce necks, I called them my "Flamenca Mulatto", not Blanca nor Negra but in the middle. Anyway I made up one set of pegs from the Corian and another from a different material similar but with more mineral content. During all this I decided to change out the Hickory pegs I had made for my first guitar with a set of the Corian pegs just to see. Yes, different and yes, in a good way. I should have made two recordings. One more note regarding the two materials: I decided to make a nut a saddle set out of the more mineralized one, it is more dense perhaps by a factor of two, and again an improvement but hard to quantify, perhaps more different then better if that makes sense? Well just some food for thought. HR ps. If you trip on over to my Instagram page there are photos and a couple time laps videos of the neck CF layup.
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