MIMF

I feel that most of the sound is in the top, and what the B&S do is mostly related to density and stiffness, with, possibly, some influence from damping. All woods vary a lot within species, which means there's a lot of overlap between species. Some mahogany is soft and low in density, with high...

I've always used a peg board for hourglass and teardrop shaped dulcimers. The sides are threaded in and out of a pattern of dowels to define the shape. The dowels are short enough to allow for gluing in the top liners. Once they're in the top edge is dressed off, and the top glued on. When that's dr...

I'm not entirely sure of what I'm looking at here, so I'm reluctant to say too much, but I consider any amount of checking in tone wood to be concerning. Some of that does look like 'honeycomb checking', characteristic of too rapid drying. The outside of the piece gets 'case hardened' and can't shri...

That's what I do now. Again, the tenon captured in the mortice is your 'safety'; even if the heel splits it can't go anywhere, so you won't drop the box. The tenon need not be a tight fit, but it's also a useful locator.

"Also, why not drill the hole from the top and hide it under the fingerboard?"

I've got the truss rod in by then.

The only down side to a bolt-on I can think of is the weight of hardware on a lightly built instrument. It seems to make a difference in the sound of Classicals, but on a steel string not so much. If you're using furniture bolts with cross dowel nuts be sure to put the nuts in the heel vertically wi...

Matt Umanov gave a talk at a GAL convention years ago where he mentioned the Gibson issue. He said that, when they were taking down the machinery they had used to make them somebody thought to check the top sander. It was set at .095", not the .125" called out on the prints. Maybe the heav...

Violin family instruments use flat wound strings almost exclusively, which don't cut into the nut the way round windings do. I say 'almost' exclusively: I can't recall seeing any new violin strings that were not flat wound, but I have not seen them all. Violin makers are very fussy about how they cu...

I do essentially the same thing with slower curing media. I seal the wood with shellac, fill with shellac/pumice/wood dust, and seal again with varnish. The pumice fill is somewhat porous, and absorbs some varnish, which then shrinks, so it typically takes three thin coats of varnish and a level san...

Hardwoods are not usually used for tops because they are denser, but generally no stiffer at a given thickness, than hardwoods. Curly maple also loses some stiffness because of the run out in the curl. The heavier top is harder to drive with the limited horsepower in the strings, and especially at h...

I can always fall into my usual rant against nitro. It is a health, fire and safety hazard to use, and breaks down inexorably over time, producing toxic and corrosive fumes. Most of the benefits of using it accrue to the factory that has invested in the technology to work with it more or less safely...

After trying a bunch of different things I've pretty well settled on a French polish type pumice fill. It takes some time and effort, but gives a good result that is really durable.

There are two basic ways to go about this; color on wood or colored finish. Coloring the wood directly accentuates things like run out and changes in density. On curly wood, for example, it makes the curl stand out because the end grain absorbs so much more color. On soft woods it effectively revers...

I don't think you'd need a bridge plate with a pinless bridge. I don't use them on Classicals.

No; those guitars are long gone.

Here's a shot of the scalloped bracing on an Oak/Sitka Dread. The top bracing could have been a bit lighter.

I'm not sure what 'modern' means either, but your guess is as good as any.

brace trim 1.jpg I've been using double-X bracing for years. Here's a shot of the initial trim of the top and back for a 12-fret 000 in BRW and Red spruce. This was intended as a 'fingerstyle' guitar; hence the 'tapered' bracing profile. I've also made them with a 'scalloped' braces for flat pickin...

So much depends on the dye. I've used opaque pigments on occasion when that was what was wanted, but some of the dyes, most notably the black, tend to be pretty opaque in themselves. It's not something I do often, so I don't have a lot of experience to say what's 'best'.

Alcohol soluble aniline dyes can be used with shellac, and you can get a decent opaque black that way. Make sure you get the right sort of dye; they're available in oil, water, or alcohol soluble versions. A friend of mine got some 'universal' orange once that turned out to be a mix of different col...

Three questions: 1) what is the problem?, 2) what is the nature of the substitute?, 3) how is using it going to help solve the problem? For whatever reason, forests are being destroyed because the market value of the trees, and the services they provide, are lower than whatever else can be done with...