MIMF

Hi Adam

I came across this builder who uses multiple pieces on his acoustic guitar sides.

You can read about it here: http://jrkluthier.co.uk/the_side_jig.php

And you can see a video of him using it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKOsrf2J3O0

The jig he sells for £80 but you can make one for a few quid

I hope this helps

All the best
Dave

Reading this thread i cant help but go back to the mid 60's when Martin was running short of BRW and came up with the D35 and its three piece back.
The options we have are infinite and when I do something "different" i imagine a sound unique because i ventured outside box.
I' m now thinking sides of more than two pieces and why not orient the grain of the sides from soundboard to back and use up all my left over scraps. Make sides from 20 pieces or more, the look could be spectacular.
When i go to shows to look at guitars i admire the workmanship, the form, the wood but what really impresses is something totally different, that works.
Love this forum!!

Wood that thin, or any wood really, shrinks a lot along the grain. Making sides with the grain going in the short direction is not a good idea.

Mark Swanson wrote:Wood that thin, or any wood really, shrinks a lot along the grain. Making sides with the grain going in the short direction is not a good idea.

I'm not sure I understand why the different orientation would make a difference. It seems to me that changes in the length of the side (along the grain with normal orientation) would be worse than changes in the width of the side. I agree it's not a good idea, I just don't have a reason....

If it was a good idea, someone would be doing it (and probably hyping it as the latest breakthrough in design). On the other hand, it could be a material thing. I suspect it's pretty difficult to find boards wide enough to do one piece sides with top to back grain orientation, and piecing together sides would be a lot of trouble. They should bend easier, if they don't split!

Side material (in typical orientation) will get wider/narrower with changes in RH. The box will get deeper or shallower. If the grain is oriented vertically this change in dimension will want to alter the shape of the box (but the top and sides will prevent that). It seems like this is asking for trouble but I can't put my finger on exactly why. I would expect the sides to be prone to splitting as the wood dries itself out. This is all based on thought experiment, I could be way off!

I'm confused. Does wood move more along the grain or across the grain? Mark seems to indicate that it moves more along the grain, while Bryan seems to contradict that. I thought it moved more across the grain, but I doubt the difference is significant enough to make it unfeasable to use the rotated orientation. I still don't think it's a good idea, but I believe it could be made to work.

I guess we need to all be talking about the same thing when we say things like "along" and " across". . . What i meant to communicate is that Wood tends to expand and contract in width and thickness but not so much in length (thinking of these dimensions as used to describe the typical board). To paraphrase Roy Underhill 'moisture is to wood as age is to a man, it makes him thicker and heavier but not taller.'

All that out of the way, I still don't know if this would work or not. I still would be worried about splitting along the grain but I don't know exactly what would happen. It could be a very cool look though.

Personally i think shrinkage would be minimal.
The fun part here is the mechanics, just how wide and how many pieces.
Width of side pieces (terminology here width means across the grain, length with the grain) can be anything from 4 or 5 inchs down to ?..
May not even have to bend if their small.
Do i kerf the sound board and the back and then connect?
Part of the process will be to think of advantages and take advantage
Think a scoop and a bevel may be easier. Sound ports no problem.
Any style or shape of Cutaway a piece of cake!
Back and top don't have to be the same shape
Mix wood pieces for look
And if you dont like side bending well,,,,,

I think you might get away with it if you laminated some spruce in the usual direction behind it.

If you went with only typical side woods, but with the grain direction running from back to soundboard, I think eventually you would get cracks in the sides somewhere in the upper bout, probably near where the upper bout is widest or maybe a little closer to the heel.

But that wouldn't be the end of the world. Linear soundports...

I guess it's all been said, but it's definitely possible if you think along the lines of a violin. A violin has 6 piece sides, though I assume you could do it with 4 pieces. You really need an area for the side pieces to meet up and be glued to: the sides of the guitars join at the neck block and heal block obviously, and violins use the corner blocks to joint the multiple piece sides. So you could definitely do three pieces sides if you use something like the corner blocks in violins. You could also introduce some interesting shapes to the guitar by using corner blocks: I am thinking along the lines of a Kay Kraft "venetian" style guitar:

http://www.gbase.com/gear/kay-kraft-ven ... 0-sunburst

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here in my post, it's my first or second post, can't remember.

Jonas

Rodger Knox wrote:Barry's right, 3 piece sides are a bad idea. It will be more work and the result will probably not be as good.
However, as an amateur building for yourself, you have the luxury of pursueing bad ideas. It can be made to work, but it won't be easy. You won't be able to use normal forms on a bender, and there will be a couple of seams in unusual places.

"as an amateur........you have the luxury of pursuing bad ideas." ??? That's an enormous call!!! I would like to think that the pursuance of any idea was worthwhile.

Barry Guest wrote:

Rodger Knox wrote:Barry's right, 3 piece sides are a bad idea. It will be more work and the result will probably not be as good.
However, as an amateur building for yourself, you have the luxury of pursueing bad ideas. It can be made to work, but it won't be easy. You won't be able to use normal forms on a bender, and there will be a couple of seams in unusual places.

"as an amateur........you have the luxury of pursuing bad ideas." ??? That's an enormous call!!! I would like to think that the pursuance of any idea was worthwhile.

An idea being worthwhile to pursue falls into a similiar catagory as dumb questions. While there is a widely held belief here that there are no dumb questions, I contend that a dumb question is one to which you already know the answer, particularly if you know the answer because you've asked the question before.

As a professional, I would presume that there is limited "disposable building time" available, so trying something that you know will take longer, be more difficult, and probably not be worth as much is not worth pursueing. As an amateur, it's all "disposable building time"!

Was Galileo dumb to ask his fellow scientists and the Church to look through his telescope? They chose not to look because they already knew the answers, just like you.

Sorry to be so blunt, but there is almost nothing in stringed instrument acoustics that cannot be challenged. The existence of the study of psychoacoustics (the perception of sound) is proof that we still have a long way to go in understanding stringed instruments.

"Was Galileo dumb to ask his fellow scientists and the Church to look through his telescope? "
Yup! He was probably sorry he asked!
Pursuing "dumb" ideas can be fun if you have the time for it. In some cases they even lead to improvements of the product. Amateurs can afford the time to do "research" projects more than people building to others expectations.

Maybe not "dumb", but certainly "unhealthy".

Barry Guest wrote:Was Galileo dumb to ask his fellow scientists and the Church to look through his telescope? They chose not to look because they already knew the answers, just like you.

but how do you really feel?

Not as dumb as dumber!

Clay Schaeffer wrote:"Pursuing "dumb" ideas can be fun if you have the time for it. In some cases they even lead to improvements of the product. Amateurs can afford the time to do "research" projects more than people building to others expectations.

My point exactly!