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RE: vertical string pull on the soundboard (torque)
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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 RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to TonyGonzales84)
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quote:
You could just look away...
Why look away?
I’ve got to say I’m really happy that Stephen has been posting more on the Foro recently, I’m also happy to see Morante has returned to post some more links to great music, too.
At any rate, this discussion has moved so far past where it was when I initially started composing this that I’m not sure it’s even relevant any more, but maybe just some food for thought....
Is there really that much difference between what a maker who uses their senses does when building, as opposed to a maker who takes a more scientifically conventional approach? When an “intuitive” maker picks up a piece of wood, a top, for instance, and holds it between their fingers, gives it a flex, runs a fingertip across the wood and listens to the quality of sound, gives it a tap and listens to the tone, how rapidly it blooms and decays, senses if the wood feels cold or warm, hard or soft, light or heavy, damp or dry, smells the wood, pokes it with a fingernail, takes a fine shaving off it with a plane, and on and on, are they not doing this to obtain an understanding of the material and arrive at a sense of how to work it? They may not be entering the data into a ledger under the columns of moisture content, stiffness, density, runout, etc, but that is part of the information they’ve gathered, along with good measure of other useful intangibles, as well. They just haven’t quantified it as much as internalized it.
I realize there are many makers who say they take exhaustive measurements and keep a record of the data as they would prefer not to rely on their senses, as their test apparatus and methods do not lie, while one’s senses may deceive. I’m not going to argue with that except to say I firmly believe every maker should follow the path that fulfills them. Otherwise, they’ll quit. I do take exception, however, when the implication is made that somehow the application of ‘science’ over ‘intuition’ makes for a better guitar. That’s a conceit, in my opinion, and it is so because a guitar is so much more than that.
For example, what’s the point of the formula for natural frequency you gave if the maker doesn’t understand how to work a brace? Not just as a structural element meeting a target criterion but as a piece of material that has to be glued in a manner that not only imparts strength to the plate, but does not telegraph, stays attached, doesn’t crack, can withstand explosive impact and adverse climatic trauma, maintains structural coherency under stress over an extended period of time, as well as contribute in a positive manner to the musicality and beauty of the instrument? I think understanding the implications of the formula is very important, but perhaps it’s numerical application is not.
Which I think also applies to the earlier discussion with Konstantin and Richard concerning the initial question of this thread. Of course the discussion was of value, it was also very interesting and conceptually beneficial. But the numbers were of less importance than the conclusions, in my opinion.
I just caution against using mathematics as a weapon, rather than as a tool. That’s not gonna help anyone make a better guitar.
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Date Sep. 1 2020 7:14:54
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TonyGonzales84
Posts: 78
Joined: Apr. 23 2020
From: San Diego, CA
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to TonyGonzales84)
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RobF, I agree 100% with your opinion. I have nowhere tried to state, explicitly or implicitly, that the cavalry is here because we have guys that can sling a little physics and math. I will reiterate that, I hold Luthiers in the highest regard and respect, and I understand completely that it's a hands-on calling (I mean that with the utmost reverence).
The formula for the natural frequency was meant only to help see how something like this could be so simply thought of. In order to clarify that post, I might have included something like, starting with 1000/247, which changes to 987/184, after I shave off such and such from some specific locations of some braces -- the denominator dropped much more than the numerator, so the frequency goes up significantly.
_____________________________
Tony
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Date Sep. 1 2020 7:29:59
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to RobF)
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quote:
Is there really that much difference between what a maker who uses their senses does when building, as opposed to a maker who takes a more scientifically conventional approach? When an “intuitive” maker picks up a piece of wood, a top, for instance, and holds it between their fingers, gives it a flex, runs a fingertip across the wood and listens to the quality of sound, gives it a tap and listens to the tone, how rapidly it blooms and decays, senses if the wood feels cold or warm, hard or soft, light or heavy, damp or dry, smells the wood, pokes it with a fingernail, takes a fine shaving off it with a plane, and on and on, are they not doing this to obtain an understanding of the material and arrive at a sense of how to work it? They may not be entering the data into a ledger under the columns of moisture content, stiffness, density, runout, etc, but that is part of the information they’ve gathered, along with good measure of other useful intangibles, as well. They just haven’t quantified it as much as internalized it.
As Al Carruth points out, we don't retain as much tactile information in your fingers as we think we do. We do work with materials that give a small range of tactile information we have to evaluate. Part of the Gore approach is to teach how to narrow the information we have to evaluate by using physics, and that enables us to do it with an accuracy that we can't always get to with your hands or ears. But in order to understand what the physics data are telling using we have to refine our hands and ears.
But because here we a strictly looking at flamenco guitars we are working with a similar set of body sizes and materials, so we can make tactile comparisons and get pretty far. But we know now from flex testing by hand and then comparing it it to a flex test by a scientifically organized test that we are not as accurate as we'd like to think. We simply work, as I said, in a range of tactile information that's fairly forgiving whet we try to evaluate it by bending and twisting. We get a pretty good idea, and we are lucky that pretty good is good enough a lot of the time.
The most useful info is maybe density vs strength, we can evaluate the best material for tops because it's almost always obvious.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Sep. 1 2020 7:36:21
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
You're doubling down on how much you don't know, and that's transparent to those who make guitars. But that's the world we live in now, people who don't practice a discipline are by virtue of an internet connection able to purport to understand it.
There is an excellent book published a couple of years ago entitled, "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established knowledge and Why it Matters," by Tom Nichols. It covers a lot of ground, but is relevant to this discussion.
Nichols attributes today's lack of respect for expertise largely to the old populist idea that every person's "opinion" is as valid as the expert's "facts." We see a lot of that in the Trump administration.
I think the internet has a lot to do with what might be called a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based collapse of any division between professionals and laymen. It is like a lit match dropped into a gasoline tanker-sized container filled with the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Sep. 1 2020 13:41:45
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
As Al Carruth points out, we don't retain as much tactile information in your fingers as we think we do. We do work with materials that give a small range of tactile information we have to evaluate
I won’t disagree, in no small part because of who the source of the information is, and also because it’s being brought to the table vetted by you, but is this something that has been subjected to rigorous testing and has been proven or is it anecdotal and just someone’s opinion based on their personal experiences? I’ve heard similar said about sound or tonal memory, where it’s been asserted that we have little to none, and my own experience tells me that that is not the case.
I think the hands, eyes, and ears of a maker who is a regular practitioner of their craft are pretty powerful and accurate measurement tools.* Which is not to say that the information gathered by the senses can’t be augmented and/or verified by data obtained using additional methods, but it certainly can’t be replaced. I think this applies to all types of guitars, I don’t think there is something intrinsically more facil about the flamenco guitar that gives it some kind of free pass from the rigours that the demanding world of the classics imposes upon the classical guitar. I personally find the flamenco guitar to be a more challenging instrument to make, but that’s just me.
There’s been a lot of marketing during the internet era advocating the scientific method**, and successfully so, partially because we also live in an age that places high value on instant gratification and people are naturally hoping to be shown shortcuts on their journey towards excellence. Thing is, it’s not been shown that following a rigorous numerical methodology results in the making of superior instruments with any more consistency than what can be achieved by a competent maker using traditional methods. There’s no doubt its use can be invaluable when debugging problems, however.
Anecdotally, I once sat in a hotel room in Madrid where two guitars were being compared. One was a guitar constructed using largely traditional methods by one of the people present, who is a maker I respect and hold in high regard. It was I think maybe their thirtieth or fortieth guitar and it had been quickly made. The workmanship, to my opinion, suffered for it and I wouldn’t have been happy to show that guitar as one of my own. The other instrument was made by someone who is currently accepted to sit at the pinnacle of the craft, and whom is considered to be a ‘modern’ maker in his methodology. It was a ridiculously expensive instrument. I wasn’t blown away by the workmanship on it, either. Both were played, competently but not wonderfully. In neither case did any heaven’s open, angels sing, or peak experiences occur. They both sounded OK. I wasn’t overly impressed by either of them, although I liked them both. They sounded about equal to me, something that was verified by the player, who felt they were both pretty nice to play but wanted to head out for a beer.
Ultimately, I think the ‘scientific’ and ‘intuitive’ methods can co-exist, and a bias towards one doesn’t preclude the use of the other. It’s up to each maker to find their comfort zone or balance and work within that. As I said earlier, otherwise they’ll quit.
*anyone who’s done hand work under high magnification can attest to how finely tuned the mechanisms of the human machine can be. My hands are no more steady than the next person’s but the shaking seems to reduce proportionally to the level of magnification due to the brain’s use of visual feedback to stabilize one’s movements. It was a fairly epiphanal moment for me when I realized that.
**at least, that’s what I’ve been calling it, I’m not sure how others refer to what might be considered a counterpoint to an “intuitive” method.
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Date Sep. 1 2020 13:44:29
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
The idea is around here to kinda give space to those who do it frequently if not professionally to give the trouble shooting tips on repair and construction.
It’s probably a good topic for another thread, but I’ve often wondered what motivates makers to participate in these discussions. I know it’s been suggested (generally by non-makers) that it is a form of self-promotion, but there are so many examples on the Foro of this backfiring that I really question that. I guess each contributor has their own reasons, some people are naturally gregarious, others enjoy enthusiastic debate, and I think most, if not all, welcome the opportunity to benefit from the thoughts and experiences of others while sharing their own. I’ve sure learned a lot on these pages over the years.
I also believe many of the participants here are motivated not just by a thirst for knowledge through discourse, but by a genuine willingness to help those who sincerely desire the input. Time and information is given freely and it seems that, for most, all that is asked for in return is a nod of appreciation and a small measure of respect. Bit of a bargain, actually.
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Date Sep. 1 2020 17:52:56
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to RobF)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RobF
I think the hands, eyes, and ears of a maker who is a regular practitioner of their craft are pretty powerful and accurate measurement tools.* Which is not to say that the information gathered by the senses can’t be augmented and/or verified by data obtained using additional methods, but it certainly can’t be replaced.
I never paid much detailed attention to the methods of the Mexico City luthier Juan Pimentel. I have clear recollections of him planing a top, trimming braces, placing tentellones by spearing each one with a long needle, toucning it to the glue pot and setting it against the top and side, but one small episode impressed me.
I went to his shop to pick up a top quality guitar for one of my best friends. Pimentel told an assistant which guitar to bring from one of the back rooms, while he didn't interrupt the task he was working on. The guitar was beautifully made, and even brand new it had an impressive voice.
I said (in Spanish), "Maestro, my friend likes the action at the 12th fret to be the thickness of two U.S. centavos."
"Certainly. Do you happen to have two U.S. centavos?"
"Here you are."
He placed the pennies at the 12th fret, eyeballed the gap, and handed the guitar to the assistant, who loosened the strings while Pimentel went back to work. The assistant handed the guitar back. Pimentel popped out the saddle, took a ball point pen from his shirt pocket, and made a mark on the bone, again gauging only by eye. He stepped over to a horizontal belt sander, turned it on and touched the saddle to the moving belt--ssst. He handed the saddle to the assistant, and went back to what he had been working on when I showed up. The assistant installed the saddle, re-strung the guitar, and handed the instrument to me.
I measured with the pennies. They just kissed the strings without moving them. "Thank you, Maestro, it's perfect." Pimentel nodded once, and continued working without looking up.
I took the money out of my wallet. Pimentel laid down his tools, took the money without counting it, glanced at me to see if I needed change. I motioned "no." He put it in the cash box, thanked me with a smile, made a notation in his ledger, shook my hand, and went back to work.
Pimentel told me he started out at the age of ten sweeping the floor in a guitar shop. He had three sons. One became an electrical engineer, one became a lawyer, one became a guitar maker. The son and a grandson carry on the guitar business. The shop in the calle Dr. Martinez del Rio looks much spiffier than it did in the old days.
Juan passed away years ago. I still miss him.
RNJ
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Date Sep. 1 2020 23:07:32
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
There is an excellent book published a couple of years ago entitled, "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established knowledge and Why it Matters," by Tom Nichols. It covers a lot of ground, but is relevant to this discussion.
Nichols attributes today's lack of respect for expertise largely to the old populist idea that every person's "opinion" is as valid as the expert's "facts." We see a lot of that in the Trump administration.
I think the internet has a lot to do with what might be called a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based collapse of any division between professionals and laymen. It is like a lit match dropped into a gasoline tanker-sized container filled with the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The internet has a been a two way street for trades education. I used to do carpentry work and I hated Martha Stewart because she lied about how complex it was to, for example, remodel a kitchen or bathroom. I thought that bitch is making money by taking work away from people who actually work for a living at these trades by teaching homeowners to bypass us. But a funny thing happened, people without in depth knowledge began taking on house changing projects too big for them to handle. They would get a third of the way into a project, usually soon after the demolition stage, and realize it was going to take much more time to the work the job because they didn't have the time to spend a few years becoming competent at a trade. Then that's when the calls came in. People would get hip deep in a project after watching a few episodes of Martha, freak out and then call an actual contractor to swoop in and save them. Part of the reason you pay a contractor is for the time they spent learning to do the job well. You pay more for a seasoned contractor because that means they made their mistakes on someone else's house early in their career. Also known as the 'they know what they are doing' tax.
Getting a call from a Marthadora would usually go down one of two ways.
The Martha home customizer would throw themselves on the mercy of the contractor court and come clean. They'd say "Oh my goodness I didn't realize how difficult this actually is and if I had, I would have just called you to do the whole job. That said, I'll pay you handsomely to rescue us and finish the job. We know you're busy, can you come over and look at our mess any time at your convenience? We'll pay you for a consultation even if you can't take the job."
or-
"I have a job to finish and I'm too busy because I work during the week I'd like you to come over now and look so you can finish it for me."
One type would treat you like a servant who deserves to clean up a mess, and the other eternally grateful you know what you're doing. There's a place where experience meets commerce and becomes transactional. The people who stay out of the way and let the crafter move in and work learned a valuable lesson from their own efforts at remodeling. When you look at a project from the beginning to end there will be unforeseen incidents and twists in the path of accomplishing the job. Something like a kitchen remodel job can become very complex if you tear far enough into the walls. The order of reassembly becomes complicated and the possibility of compound error lurks. And it's upon the shoulders of compound error that amateurs climb to great heights and then slip off to splat on the floor. One wrong measurement or slightly out of level ledger, or not understanding that the floor is not level, a myriad of things, or as Gene Clark used to say: " Building a guitar involves navigating a minefield of problems for a beginner." ( He told me that because I had messed up a few things on my first guitars and he was just saying it's a steep learning curve. )
Kitchens and guitars have a lot in common. Gene was famous for having his guitar shops in the kitchen. At his house in El Cerrito, near Berkeley, he had the band saw set up in the small kitchen where most people would have put a dining table. And his workbench was set up right next to it. He still had a bit of room to cook, but he told me that the refrigerator, the stove and the sink were all guitar making tools. He especially loved the sink because he liked washing glue rags and his hands all the time. His nickname 'Clean Gene' wasn't just because his work had a particular quality of precision and clean look. His hands were clean, except maybe a thumbnail that occasionally had a small dirty crescent, he must have been gardening that morning.
The Martha Stewart minefield and the guitar making minefield are both real. In the beginning if you make a mistake, like chip a piece off a headstock carving, you'll be lucky if you have a teacher to tell you its no big deal. They will command- "STOP! what you are doing. Collect the chip and carefully glue it back on and walk away until tomorrow." Collect your wits and work on something else. They will teach you to fix your mistakes until you learn to stop making those beginner mistakes. They teach you to see several operations ahead and why when you move through say a series of ten operations on a component like a neck, the forth operation will be the most crucial. They might even give you a mantra to say to remember to drill a hole parallel to a certain line. These little corrections they give guide you to learn how to work on your own and mature into a masterful maker yourself.
And all this is why a modicum of gate keeping by makers who've paid their dues is valid. What's a modicum? Who knows. Light gate keeping normal, because people who put the time in just know more and speak out when they see trouble down the road of a project or an idea. It's human nature. Heavy gate keeping could come from insecurity of the maker, or radical incompetence on the part of a habitual kibitzer. Too much third party kibitzing is really annoying to people who know what they are doing and trying to keep a beginner from falling into a pit of needle sharp pungee sticks.
But in the end everyone has to judge for themselves between a tiresome kibitzer, who in fact might have a correct move once in awhile, and an anxious gate keeping hovering guitar maker.
"I was only trying to help." they both say.
Indeed, the helping hand, strikes again.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Sep. 2 2020 2:32:41
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: vertical string pull on the soun... (in reply to RobF)
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quote:
I do take exception, however, when the implication is made that somehow the application of ‘science’ over ‘intuition’ makes for a better guitar. That’s a conceit, in my opinion, and it is so because a guitar is so much more than that.
These long winded discussions are needed and also interesting. Measurements and intuitive skill is necessary for a good guitar. Build it to the plan and then fine-tune it to bring out the voice. This can be done with science to some degree but it will always take intuitive skill to finalize an inter-dimensional vowel tone that is a builder's personal stamp.
To build a guitar to a plan, only by numbers and science, will produce some good guitars, but not every time because the wood wants to do its own thing, and it will fight back and resist the builder until it is made to give in and obey the stronger mind.
So yes, not every guitar is going to produce the same result by building to the plan alone.
So, to incorporate other techniques is necessary but then you have to know when to stop the tuning process toward maturity and let age set the stage for a more mature instrument. Its a matter of experience to know when to stop.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Sep. 2 2020 18:38:00
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