Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Hello all! Happy New Year to everyone! I'd call the last decade "mixed", but guitar building has certainly been a great joy in my life! Here are the results for my latest build. I intended to make a higher-tuned guitar this time and am overjoyed that I hit the marks very closely! It has a nice, high...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kXVj_4_xmAb2TXWoZc4DPaM48nbe8gn-IzlvRONP4fE/edit?usp=sharing Hi all! I built a fun calculator in excel to find either: 1) the width of the fretboard at the body join, or 2) the e to E saddle width given various inputs. I'm not an expert geometer, but with the...

I was finally able to visit a guitarist friend and get some sound clips. It's pretty amazing to listen to a good guitarist play your instruments! Anyway, here are a few sound clips. They were recorded with a handheld Tascam DR-40x (which I just got... I'm super happy with the quality of the recordin...

It sounds great, Trevor! I think the extra weight opened up the low end just a little bit, which I thought was a little lacking. The volume is great and the whole instrument has a 'choral' quality to it. If you let a chord (or even just a single note with a little vibrato on it) ring, there is just ...

I added 230g (115g on each side) and this is the new spectrum analysis:
I'm going to call that good!!

Thanks all!

Chris

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Adding side mass to bring the T(1,1)2 down to 170Hz should give you a close to "text book" result.
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Great! I thought as much. Thanks!

Chris

Thank you, Trent! I did make the binding and was really pleased with how it came out. I'll definitely use that again... it has sort of a graphic quality with the little straight lines and dots.

Lordy, I've had a brain fart here and was thinking of the T1 as the top instead of the T2. Sigh.

So, perhaps the reason for the T2 being a tad lower than my target is the heavier bridge.

Please disregard.

So, the frequency analysis of http://www.anzlf.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=8478 this guitar looks like this: BO 1 Final.png Do the Books discuss varying dB levels in regard to the various T1, T2, T3s? If so, could someone point me to which section? I'm curious why my T1 is so low (and it's consistent a...

So, I'm probably more excited than is warranted about my latest guitar, but I'm really happy to have one that is of my own design! I decided to work in a slight offset to the lower bout and it think it gives a bit of a feeling of motion to the guitar - it's also very comfortable to play, as it moves...

So, it's been a few weeks since I've strung up my second Falcate guitar and played around with it. Still sounds great! I finally got around to testing the degree of bridge rotation and it's only .7 degrees, tested with an iPhone clinometer and some adhesive putty. String and saddle height are good a...

Good morning (or otherwise) to everyone! It's the day before Thanksgiving here in the States and I've just finished up my second Falcate Guitar - now I get to spend the rest of the day cleaning house!! Thanks so much to this great forum and to Trevor and Gerard for their excellent book! Both have be...

Thanks, John and Martin! I only thinned the perimeter of the top very slightly, given that I had already gone a touch below the target thickness. The bridge is walnut and is pretty light at 18g with holes drilled and the saddle slot routed. I think my main focus with this guitar is that the back be ...

Hello again, everyone! So, my second Falcate guitar is well underway... The box is closed and bound and the BO/BO neck fitted. Carpathian Spruce top with a target thickness of 2.67mm - I think I may have gone a touch thinner after leveling the rosette. EIR back and sides with a target thickness of 2...

Consarn it.

Well, I get closer every time! I'll get there.

Thanks for your help along the way!

Chris

Hi, Trevor - Thanks for the response! I looked at the T(1,1)2 in the first graph data and it's a little lower at 195Hz. The T(1,1)3 is at 221Hz on the first graph. So I can likely lower the T(1,1)2 by adding side mass, correct? Any idea why the T(1,1)3 is so quiet? The top braces were laminated spru...

Progress! So, my first Falcate guitar is strung up - very exciting! Still have to adjust action and check intonation. It has a live back, but I've only minimally scooped out the lower brace, so it's pretty stiff. It is finished. I did thin the top 60mm around the edges. I have the side weight blocks...

Well, it isn't pretty (I obviously have to work on my epoxy spreading skills!), but my first falcate top is glued up! Thanks for the help thus far!

Thanks, Trevor! Full steam ahead, then!

Thanks, Trent! I'll feel more of a sense of accomplishment once the top is fully braced! (Fingers crossed)

So I'm finally getting around to making a Falcate braced steel string guitar! Very exciting! I have a couple of questions about plate thickness. For the Top plate, Trevor lists an f value of 75 to plug into the thickness calculation, but doesn't specify the bracing. For my bear claw sitka top, I get...

Trevor, you're a saint. That makes perfect sense.

I just closed the box and the gap at the saddle is a little less than 3mm, so I'll work to bring that down a bit. On to the neck join next!

Thanks!

Chris

Thanks for your help! I think it's starting to make sense to me now.

I guess we'll find out!!

To this point, I've been building guitars (5, now) with mortise and tenon, bolt on necks using furniture bolts and barrel nuts. With holes drilled oversize and the barrel nut allowing for some degree of angle variance, there's a lot of slop built into that system. It certainly makes it easy to fit t...

Well, I tapped the Redwood top I have... mixed results. I'm intending on building a Gore-style J45 (very light X-bracing). Redwood Top Thickness.png YM Dynamic Redwood Top.png I tried several different tapping methods and got pretty consistent results. This is a piece of tempered Redwood. It's very ...