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Here is the latest Luthier Tips du Jour video. In this video I show several ways to make a three piece back.
This video as well as all my other videos are available via my website, https://lutherieacademy.com/videos , or on YouTube.
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Three piece back video

Cheapskate that I am I would have done the four piece option and saved the third piece for another instrument. I had an old parlor guitar made from dark BRW and I never noticed it had added "wings" until the place I consigned it to left it in a sunny display window and dried it out. I learned antique shops are not good places to put old instruments.

Just thought I would share... I've done a couple of 3 piece backs, a 000 and an OM.

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Nice!
I especially like the Maple with the BWB purfles.
For those with limited resaw capacity a 3 piece back can be a way to process their own guitar sets from narrower boards.

You ca always go the Boaz route and make a 50 piece back.

I do multipiece backs on some of the octave mandolins I build:

That’s a cool look, Clay!


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Is that a curved back, Clay? Or is that just an illusion? I have a curved back guitar, like a lute back, to make. I have the form made, and have some idea about how to do it, but I need to do a few more before I tackle it.

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Why be normal?

I think it's probably an illusion and it looks really cool. I have made many 4 piece backs before and one 3 piece. I have a 3 piece BRW dred that is the best sounding dred I've played to date. I think they look cool when done well and in particular when done intentionally like with the purfling lines and such.

Hi Ken,
The octave mandolin back has "cylindrical arching" - it is curved side to side. Also the instrument body is tapered like the old citterns, thicker at the head and thinner at the tail. I have built a few of them this way and like how they turn out. After I built the one pictured above I started "slip matching the backs, and actually prefer the visual effect that gives - more "shell like". I re-photographed some pictures I took predigital days to show that (instrument toward the back. I have considered building one with the staves scooped out like on some of the old Chitarra battente guitars, but haven't attempted that yet.

Clay I think what Ken and I are seeing is each individual back slat appears to have a curve or arch in it.

Hi JF,
I thought Ken was talking about something similar to how a chitarra battente back is arched when he mentioned "like a lute", but I may have misunderstood. The staves in the OMs are "flat", so it is an optical illusion. On some of the old chitarra battente instruments the staves are "scooped out", while on other instruments they are "flat" but the back is arched.
The backs of the OMs don't have back braces and the backs are free to grow (swell) or shrink (flatten) with humidity changes. The Voboam guitar backs also didn't use back braces.

http://www.liuteriadinsieme.it/en/s_chi ... tente.html