Official Luthiers Forum!

Back in the day Lance and I had an informal competition as to who's underside of their top was the neatest including sanded to perfection and cleaned up to the max.

Michael would have beat us both, beautiful work!!!

Yup, I did a week long workshop with him in 2012. Lots to take away from that experience.

M

Me too; about the same time frame. However, I brace my tops a bit more robustly now. My Somogyi tops are already getting played out. The first one I built after Somogyi's course is going to get a new top this year.

I run my tops and bracing a bit heavier as well. It was very interesting to learn just how far you could go before failure - a lot farther than you’d think! I just had my first post Somogyi guitar back in the shop for a checkup and it still sounds and plays great! It needed nothing but a cleaning and some new boots.

M

What do you mean by played out? It sounded good at first but after a certain amount of playing it sounds worse?

Pat

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Pat

Yes. The first one is probably 14 years old or so, and it has been played hard. But now it sounds flabby. It sounded great at first, but was mainly a monopole monster.

Hans Brentrup who used to post here called guitars like Somogyi’s “instant gratification “ guitars.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Yeah, I remember coming out of his workshop thinking “I’m never gonna build that light!”. He had a couple guitars that had been around for a while that were crazy light and sounded really tubby -

Wow interesting! Something to think about for sure.

Pat

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Pat

If the top hasn't distorted too much you might try re -bracing it. Tops that are too thin usually sound bad almost immediately.

As everyone has mentioned kudos for your workmanship. I don't know much about how E.S. makes guitars but to my eye the bracing looks hella stout. Is this to balance a thinner than usual top thickness?

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

According to his book and reports from others he uses thinner tops and increases the height of the braces to compensate, resulting in a lighter, more responsive soundboard.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

As is typical, I don’t really have a great answer. I think that my x-brace it lighter than most un-scalloped ones, and my finger braces and tone bars are heavier than most production guitars. Below is a picture of what Somogyi was teaching at the time (late 2012) The people I’m building for like the bass, balance and sustain of my guitars so I’m loath to change anything. In 2023 I’m hoping to have time to mess around with what Trevor is doing, maybe get a chance to play with falcate bracing.

M

Interesting. I would assume he's using a top tuning fixture here in the pic.
That looks like he was using thin strips to re-enforce the top underneath the braces, making the bracing a sort of inverted T shape.
I have seen one of his ex apprentices using bracing shaped a bit like that, sort of scooped or concave up the sides to give a wider footprint where it's glued to the soundboard, while keeping the bracing lighter than it might otherwise be.
Possibly this would reduce the telegraphing of the bracing though the top because his tops were quite thin and the bracing quite narrow.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Yes, his braces are “Eiffel Tower” shaped. Wether it helps with telegraphing, no idea. On the guitars I saw while there, you could see every brace through the top - at night… As for the “thin strip of reinforcing”; he uses masking tape as a prototyping tool. You can stick the tape over the brace location then glue the brace to the tape making the brace removable. This can also be done to a finished guitar. You can add a brace to the outside of the guitar to see what happens if you add a brace or add to an existing brace. Kind of a cool idea -

M

Fascinating Michael. I did read that in his book about adding bracing outside the tops, cool indeed.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Light and strong is a real possibility. A woman friend of my son want to learn guitar but not spend too much money, so they took a guitar that had been hanging on the wall in her father's rec room since the 1970s, in to get the bridge fixed. Turned out to be a 1927 Martin OO-28. Her father was a drummer, so we forgave him. When my son brought over the guitar, I picked it up and almost had it fly out of my hand, it was so light. So it lasted from 1927 to 2019 just fine, except for the cracked bridge. So I'm going lighter by using that as a guideline.

Dang, I love stories like that! Did you get any measurements and/or shots of the bracing for future reference?

Pretty cool!

M

Well, with the exception of the bindings and end graft that pretty much completes the inlay nonsense. Tomorrow I’ll brace the back and get going on the side sound port.

M

Laying up and installing side-soundport reinforcement.

M

Mind if I ask what thickness veneer do you use?

They are called out at .5mm but measure more like .55mm or .022”

Dyed-veneers.com

Actually Michael, I do have the measurements around here somewhere. Not sure where though.

Box closed, sides faired, time for binding ledges. I will be using my Ultimate binding jig for the first time. I tried to find an old guitar body to practice on, to no avail - Sorry Jay! My plan is to practice running the body around the jig over the next couple of days to get used to the feel of the thing. Nervous!

Ever heard the trick where instead of flush cutting the excess, you route a channel lesser in all dimensions than your bindings? That way you don’t have to deal with sanding the endgrain which makes life just a touch more bearable. Fairing the sides is almost my least enjoyed task…