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fine tuning a top
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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 RE: fine tuning a top (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
Tom,
Was this reply to another thread or did you just begin this out of thin air? I'm fascinated you are telling your secrets public. 
My only question about your method is how long do you wait before you start tweaking one of your guitars? I know my guitars and many others change for a while after they are strung up. I allow them to go through those changes for several days if not weeks before I finally decide I have done good. I can't imagine changing a guitar with fine tuning until it has really settled.
That said I don't mess with them after I make them, except that one time I whittled on the bridge patch of one that was too stiff. I had an AHAH! moment where I could see you can change them by carving here or there, but my reaction was to not make such a big bridge path in the first place.
You should take whatever I say with grain of salt.
Cheers old boy,
S
Yes, it is a take off from another list of recent posts. And I'm sharing my techniques to raise the level of the art to where all builders in general can have the same information to try and build the best they can.
I was once asked by a well known luthier whom you all know, why spend years accumulating this information and just give it away. My answer to him was that he and some of our other peers showed me nothing about building technique and that it was mine to give away if I chose to.
And I wait about several days to two weeks before I start the fine tuning process. I usually play the guitar in, first.
And this is with the understanding that once it is finely tuned, that age will cause it to grow in favor with its voicing, done before hand. And the bridge strap communicated for you to build it thinner so this is what you do.
This is the same with fine tuning. I build to the closest tolerances I can and finish off the tuning from there. And usually, the more I work with a specific design, the less I have to fine tune it. But I always have to tweak the voice to some extent.
Sometimes I have actually taken up to two months to tune a guitar. But this is not the norm, usually it takes about a week.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Oct. 24 2012 3:59:42
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: fine tuning a top (in reply to KMMI77)
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quote:
I imagine it would be hard to know when a guitar has truly reached its potential.
You are right, it takes a certain amount of intuitive skill to know when to stop the process and allow age to finish out the voice.
The age factor is vitally important for the guitar and no amount of fine tuning is going to finish its voice.
It takes age to grow an instrument into a great guitar.
So, a player can have a good guitar off the bench where everything is in its place but age is necessary to mature its voice.
The last guitar I built was one that defies imagination and I think it would be hard to replicate that every time I build but then I learned some more information toward possibly being able to do it again...we'll see...
The point is to build a specific design to get familiar with its potential instead of switching to other types and styles. I've settled into the Miguel Rodriguez style and a modification of the Reyes style, and these two styles give me what I find most desirable for my own building taste.
But most any design can be tweaked to become a great guitar, and this is the hope for all builders, as an applied art.
I use to think that top graduation was enough to finalize it but I started fooling around with fan brace tuning in the 80's and found an added avenue toward improving the guitar's tone.
30 or 40 years ago, most American classical guitar makers didn't use this technique, perhaps because they weren't aware of it, but many arch top and steel strung acoustic builders seemed to know that they could apply this technique to manage a better sound and articulation.
I believe this is what the old masters in Spain were doing, to some extent, as they used different intuitive techniques to accomplish it.
All I'm doing is taking ideas from already existing sources and fitting them into my own techniques to finish off what I believe to be a necessary trend for the art.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Oct. 24 2012 13:25:41
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: fine tuning a top (in reply to keith)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: keith
Mr. Blackshear: I am puzzled here. In a thread at Acguitar a poster posted a query about validating your method with factory guitars and such and your response was not quite what you mentioned in your post here. So, to follow your statements, which is it? Can your methods be validated by taking a less than steller guitar and making it more steller? If so, then great and sally forth. If not, then maybe the post estebanana made holds validity.
This is not to argue with professional knowledge but to say that I'm finding out things, as I go, with guitar building. Fine tuning certain designs is more complementary for me if I understand the design, which was the case with the 1200 dollar guitar.
And if I implied it couldn't be done on a cheap guitar, then I now have to admit that it can, but with the reservation that certain aspects of the guitar's top have to be in line with certain rules of fine tuning.
In other words, the greater the distance between cheap builds and quality designs, the greater difficulty there would be to make it work.
But for an example: If a guitar company would follow a specific quality design for a less expensive guitar price, then the fine-tuning technique could be of great value at a more affordable price.
I think this is a certainty but not many builders are interested in learning this technique as a vocational endeavor. At least, not right at the moment.
I have taught this to a few builders and they see the benefit but the majority of builders already have their own techniques that they feel comfortable with.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Oct. 24 2012 22:34:52
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TANúñez
Posts: 2559
Joined: Jul. 10 2003
From: TEXAS
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RE: fine tuning a top (in reply to Jim Kirby)
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quote:
That seems like a little bit of a contentious question. If you go to a dealer like GSI, you are presented with a whole range of prices from $2,000 to $10,000 +. Hopefully there is an objective path to deciding which of those are worth $10,000, besides the maker's name?
I'm not trying to be contentious myself, I'm just trying to understand what you really meant.
Not my nature to be contentious. I'm truly curious? I think the answer may just be a personal preference. For example, I've played and heard guitars that were $8000.00 but I've never really compared the sound to the guitars price because I've played guitars that are $3000 that sounded the same. So I personally could say that the guitar sounded like both a $3000 and $8000 guitar. Does that make any sense?
So, what does a $10,000 guitar sound like? Does it really sound that much different than a $6000 guitar? Can you hear the $13,000 difference when playing a Reyes to a $10,000 guitar?
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Tom Núñez
www.instagram.com/tanunezguitars
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Date Oct. 25 2012 2:48:44
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: fine tuning a top (in reply to KMMI77)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: KMMI77
quote:
I you want to deepen the 6th string sound then sand a little off the top of the 7th brace and sand it slightly thinner toward the sound hole. Use a flat stick close to the length of the brace, with number 400 grit, making just a slight sand and then check the sound. If you go too far then the sound might become muddy. The idea is to keep the 7th brace at its bottom about the same height but taper it slightly thinner toward the sound hole, along its entire length.
Thanks for sharing this information.
When you mention in your earlier post about playing partial chords, Do you leave three strings tuned up to tension at a time when working on a guitar, Leaving just enough room for you hand?
To You and Blair, I always keep the strings at concert pitch and use a little stick, just long enough to be the width of the fingerboard at the 12th fret with a couple of cuts in the ends of it to separate the strings at the 12th fret; the 3 trebles on one side and the bass' on the other side. This allows me enough space to divide the strings and get my hand through the sound-hole. I keep all of the strings at concert pitch while I'm fine tuning.
Also, I use 3M self-stick sandpaper on a flat stick about 3/4" wide and about 5" long to do the top of the braces. Keep in mind that this technique does not completely flatten the top of the braces if the design is close to the mark, already.
Note: there may be other ways to work through the sound-hole but this is my technique.
Also, this is just for the 6th string.
I have all the strings information if you care for it.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Oct. 25 2012 15:25:29
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: fine tuning a top (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
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I have made wedge shaped sections of wood and hard foam blocks and foam taped sandpaper to them to do all kinds of sanding operations to the braces. it can range form prepping for a repair, to working brace down to change the guitar.
However I still take exception to the idea that you can tune a lackluster factory guitar into a world class guitar, and most reputable luthiers would back that up. It's just not that simple as sanding braces.
That said if someone wants to start a business "fine tuning" junkers they should go and do that. Serious luthiers will continue to build serious guitars that don't require a lot of internal tweeking to make the guitar speak.
The other thing to keep in mind as this information is disseminated across the internet is that brace tuning is not a panacea, the top, braces bridge plantilla etc. of flamenco guitars as a system need to be conceived of as a complete system. To say it is closed mined to continue to practice building guitars without using these brace tuning ideas is ridiculous. There are many ways to achieve the voice in the guitar and most of it takes place at each stage of the construction as the guitar maker gauges flexibility, density and other qualities in the wood and design that really create the sound of the guitar. To simply second guess a good guitar maker because you think you can sand the braces into a world class guitar is not reality. You must have a foundation to build on and the foundation is gained through years of experience building.
If you want to sand braces you should, but bear in mind even as Tom Blackshear fine tunes his guitars he understands the designs he makes and how he builds. This may or may not work on the guitar of others and in many cases, my guitars certainly, if you changed the braces or other factors you would likely ruin the guitar.
So continue on, but let it be said this is not the only answer. Many great guitars have been ruined by crackpot amateurs thinking they can improve something they fundamentally do not understand. That is one of the ways guitar repair people get work, fixing amateur modifications. I see examples of this kind of mutilation in one form or another at least twice a month.
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Date Oct. 25 2012 20:43:35
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