Doing the "crease" for a Selmer-Maccaferri model.

[Alain Bieber]

Glad you post this picture. So I will not be the first one to build a Selmer-like guitar without a heavy rosette. I really cannot imagine a Jazz guitar with such a large rosette. BTW, I bought the Selmer tail piece distributed by Stewart Mc. . I do not like it much with a kind of flashy red leather decoration (?), once replaced by a black leather ersatz, I think I will use it.
For the rosette it will be either a single purfling line.. or nothing.
Craig/ I will have a look at the new Busato serie by Dupont next week. I will tell you what is made: crease, bombé or nothing. (Do not forget the accent on the bombé word. Bombé is a shape, Bombe is.. just a bomb. <g>

[Al Dodson]

Allen, This one has a dark and light line of edge banding around the soundhole. I agree, I,m not a fan of large rosettes. Here are some pics of the details.

[Alain Bieber]

Thanks Al,
I took a decision concerning the size of my Selmeroïd. Without any originality for a classical builder it will be as wide as 36 cm. I am still hesitating on the question of the thickness. I was tempted to give some internal volume to this relatively small box, through keeping for instance the original thickness frtom 95 to 100 mm, but it looks rather un-elegant at first sight. I could reduce just a little bit, say 5mm.
I wanted to send a first draft drawing to you.. but I have NO idea of what is needed to insert a photo in the new MIMF. I need help. I am not a real fan of computers and my grandaughter , my great adviser, is in Toulouse.
In spite of my mention to stay logged in if possible, I am always de-logged (English?) and need my password each time I want to communicate. Here too I am not gifted enough to see what goes wrong.<g>

[Bill Raymond]

Alain, when you "post a reply" just below the space where you write your reply there are 2 tabs, labelled "options" and "upload attachment". If you click on "upload attachment" you will open a small window where you can enter the file name and location of a photo on you computer to be attached to your reply. It took me a while, too, to figure this out.

[Alain Bieber]

Thanks. First draft of my Selmeroïd contraption. First attempt to send a photo too.

[Alain Bieber]

I went yesterday to the Maurice Dupont showroom near Opera Bastille, here in Paris. Nice shop. To my surprise, not a single model in the shop presented a crease or pliage. When questioned, the shop leader (I suppose he is a good level M. Dupont's assistant luthier, since he is in charge of much of the maintenance, for the now distant Cognac factory) said to me that they gave up the crease or pliage thing a long time ago. I quote " No noticeable difference in the results and a source of problems for the over all resistance of the object". I add that It is true that such guitars are often treated on the very "muscular side" by their owners, when in the tradition of Django's epoch particularly. They only do it when the customer insists.
The dome of the soundboard does not exceed (visual appraisal only) 5mm. For the large mouth, I could see a reversed top, the strutting is quite similar to the old Selmer reference. Also visual appraisal only.
At the end I had a great deception: I will not build the FIRST reduced Selmer guitar. They propose since a year or two a reduced version, called by them as for a classical a 3/4... in the context of their own top serie models. Too bad.<g>.

[Bill Raymond]

Alain,

Your observations match my own: Nearly 10 years or so ago I was able to see a Dupont in Palo Alto--there weren't many floating around this country in those days. I estimated an arch of ca. 1/4in. on the grande bouche cum resonator. It had a great Selmer type sound. As I recollect, he resurrected the pliage for an "exact copy" model (the vieille reserve, or something it was called), but wasn't using it on most other models.

[Alain Bieber]

Gentlemen who gave a help,
I think I will go without the crease for this "first one" but, in a way, I am slighly disappointed to avoid this difficulty. Well, some others remain. For instance the very small radius needed to be (almost) faithful to the cutaway side shape. If you do not follow the multi-ply technique for the ribs, which will be my case, I forecast it can be tricky.
Maybe I will have to follow a two (roughly) 1 mm thick ply technique for this trebles side. Still thinking. I plan to use Ceylan satinwood and I suspect it to bend correctly, but no more than that.
Thanks for the infos.. and the support.

[Craig Bumgarner]

As long as your arch is not too severe and top too thick, you should be fine without a crease. What is too severe and too thick? No red line, but roughly 6-7 mm of arch (camber) and 2.5mm on the top would be roughly the upper limit. More arch than that and/or more top thickness, the force needed to get the top down to the tail block after crossing the lower arched brace(s) will overcome the arch in the braces. Modest arch and thinner top, you'll be fine.

Bending the cutaway into a solid wood side is doable, just practice on scraps until you get the right combination of heat and bending force. Thin the wood a little (1.8-2.0 mm) at the most severe bend and maybe even boil that end in water for five minutes first.

If you laminate, I'm guessing you might have trouble with 1mm plywood. I have laminated with 1mm solid wood and it works, but it is right on the edge of breaking at the cutaway. Plywood might be even more difficult, but a few tests will prove that quickly enough. Building laminating molds for a one off is a lot of work. Bending solid sides over a hot iron is quick and effective.

[Alain Bieber]

Craig,
My English being what it is, sometimes I disorient my fellow reader. I do not intend to bend ply (in the sense of plywood). I can have sawed veneer in Ceylan satinwood about 1mm thick, and this is what I planned to use in double for the treble side. In the meantime, I will dip a piece of that wood, 1.8 mm thick, in the water for a long time and see how it behaves under the bending iron. My Maestro has done marvels, but with BRW, with that kind of thickness, plus extended dipping in water and wrapping in aluminium paper when bending. The wood stays kind of plastic for quite a while after that, but hardens at the very end.. say a week. Very curious.
I am starting that guitar with a 2.2 mm unchanged thickness for the spruce top. My aim is to get a 5 to 6mm final high dome when finished, strings under tension. I imagine I will loose around 2mm dome heigh when assembling and 2mm more when stringed. My braces should have, logically, a 9 to 10 mm dome at start.
I will use my un-noticeable Stauffer neck (unpatented <g>) to keep kool with neck alignment problems.
I told you I am not a purist..

[Bill Raymond]

Alain, Peter Davies has bent solid sides of east Indian rosewood to the Selmer shape. Perhaps he will chime in with some advice. Otherwise, I think your plan of using 1mm laminae is a sound one (pun intended).

[Jason Rodgers]

How are you measuring this pliage/bend/dome? Or, maybe I should ask, from what reference point? I've downloaded the various free plans available on the web, and it looks like the top dives a good deal from the pliage toward the heel and tail. Drawing a straight line from the top of the heel to the top of the tail block, it looks like the bend rises about 10mm. Is this the dome you're talking about, Alain? Or is there some significant lateral doming that the braces induce?

By the way, I watched the film "Life After Django Reinhardt" about his 100th birthday celebration held in Samois. I knew there was a strong Django/manouche culture out there, but you French LIVE it!

[Alain Bieber]

Hi Jason,
That will be really during the building process that I will decide if I can go without a crease. My idea was to have one until I visited M. Dupont's shop. Apparently he is now building slightly flatter tops, I will try his way and see If I can have a good result. If not, I am on my way for a re-topping session. I am an expert in re-topping since I do that often for my classicals<g>.

Do not amplify too much the strength of the Django's culture in the French Jazz scene. It is followed by a medium size tribe only.
The French have followed rather closely the evolution of jazz that took place in the US. We even have now local "rap". Isn't that wonderful? So, for rythm oriented music we have the complete spectrum from New Orleans to punk... except maybe something that could correspond to folk and country music. Folk and country here is mostly hurdy-gurdy, with some accordions and alas, in some cases, bagpipes! Recall, a western part of France is called Bretagne....
Folk and country music always had a local character here. Only for spinsters too <G>.

[Peter Davies]

Hi Alain, for what it's worth, just a note to say that the tight bend for the cutaway was quite straightforward to bend, taking things slowly, using East Indian Rosewood and a narrow heated pipe (a piece of shower curtain rod).
It's worked 3 times so far. The only problem I've had on the tight bend was trying to bend ebony binding, which just didn't want to bend, just snap.
The side thickness was 2.2mm and soaked in a bath following the Cumpiano book. It was a relief to see it bend without any drama.
All the best,
Peter

[Alain Bieber]

Thanks Peter. That way to do it looks efficient indeed. Clean work! May I ask you how long did you soak your rib?

[Peter Davies]

The side was soaked in a bath for about 20 minutes. During that time I added a couple of kettles of boiling water to keep things warm.

As for the soundboard arch, I didn't heat bend a pliage in the first one, just bracing. I couldn't figure out how to do it and asked an experienced builder (the late David Hodson) who advised arched bracing alone. The braces in front and behind the bridge were 7mm high which compressed to 5.5mm with strings on.
The finished guitar has a good overall sound balance from bass to treble. The following one with a pliage is much more focused on the middle and treble frequencies.
I should think you'll end up with a great sounding guitar either way.

All the best,
Pete

[Alain Bieber]

Good infos for me. Thanks Peter.

[Don Linowski]

This topic has great replies for the subject of the "crease." I am looking for information on the original, traditional method of building these guitars from scratch. I have Michael Collins excellent book for the "laminated" Selmer-Maccaferri which I'm sure yields a superior instrument. However it requires jigs and lamination of nearly every piece in the instrument which is fine if one is setting up for production shop. I assume this is not how they were originally built. Has anyone written how they were originally built?

[Simon Magennis]

... However it requires jigs and lamination of nearly every piece in the instrument which is fine if one is setting up for production shop. I assume this is not how they were originally built. Has anyone written how they were originally built?

They were in fact built in a factory setting with jigs galore as well as very skilled workers. The definitive book about Selmer Maccaferri guitars is the book entitled "The story of Selmer Maccaferri guitars" written by Francois Charles who also published plans for various models. Remember that Mr Maccaferri apart from being a musician was also a prolific inventor/developer and created and sold what was probably the first completely plastic guitar as well a large quantities of plastic ukuleles. He also made plastic clothes pegs.

[Craig Bumgarner]

..... and plastic violins and reportedly ALL the plastic cases for tape cassettes regardless of brand.