Laminate woods

[UkuleleAl]

Is plywood on a mandolin really that bad? The obvious ups to me are: less impervous to weather damage, cheaper to make (cheaper to buy the finished product).

Regards Alex

[Paul Busman]

I kinda wonder too. I own a couple of laminate ukuleles which look and sound terrific, and were extremely inexpensive.
(I think you mean MORE impervious to weather, not less, btw).
Calling these materials plywood doesn't do modern laminates justice. They're made from very thin layers and bonded with high tech adhesives.
The back and sides of a mandolin are relatively less resonant than the top, so a worthwhile approach might be laminates in those locations and a traditional spruce or cedar top.

[Markus]

How do you carve gradations in laminate and have it end up looking like one piece of wood? Recurve on laminate?

I am no luthier, but the cost savings going to back and side laminate cannot be huge, carving the back is not likely to be easier w/laminate and would look odd, and any weatherability is only partial.

It seems like mandolin manufacture is more about the labor then the price of materials (see f-style, binding ... both cost a exponentially more than the materials).

It's an interesting question, and I have been wrong plenty before ... I would love to know what % of the price wood is for a mandolin, I would be surprised if it was over 10%. Saving a couple % max (likely tenths of a %) on costs, to sell a non-standard product is a tough row to hoe.

[Fretbear]

A curved laminate will be steam pressed into shape as opposed to graduated, but it's curvature will resemble a piece of solid of wood that is graduated. Laminates definitely work for musical instruments and can be very loud. I recently refurbished a laminated flat-top guitar that had a pulled-up bridge, loose braces and a laminate bridge plate that fell right out in my hand when I tugged on it. The top would likely not have survived up until now if it had have been solid wood, and I was able to completely revive it. It is very loud, but not particularly refined in it's tone. I once had a pressed-top Kay Graciella mandolin that was incredibly loud, but it was also quite sweet-sounding. In the past, I have known at least two virtuoso mandolin players, who would rip-off Sam Bush Licks on their dreadful looking pressed-top mandolins, when the rest of us couldn't get our fancy boutique models to sound anything close to them, so they are capable of a lot.

[Willie]

In 1981 I had a custom mandolin made for me and the builder ask me to give him money up front so he could buy all of the wood he would need, he asked for $45, I know costs have gone way up since then but that was just about 5% of what the final cost was for him to build it....

I also have a guitar with a laminate top and it sounds as good as my D-18 does and a lot of pickers that come here prefer it to their own Martins so laminates do make some good instruments now and then...I owned an Aria with a laminate top and it was a killer of a mandolin, great sound and volume....

Willie

[Folkmusician.com]

For flat top guitars, some of the solid top/laminated back and side instruments sound pretty good. It is not uncommon to find a solid top/laminated back and sides guitar that sounds better than an all solid guitar at the same price point. I don't see the same trend with mandolins. Not that it can't be done, but rather there is not the overlap and variety that there is with guitars. I have no doubt that someone can make a nicely done pressed/laminated mandolin that would turn out better than a poorly carved all solid instrument. Actually I suppose there are some mandolin examples. The few all solid auction specials I have seen were not nearly as nice as a Kentucky KM-140. I have also seen a couple of small builder mandolins that didn't stack up to a KM-140.

Since solid wood can be pressed into shape, there is no real advantage to going laminate on a nice instrument.

[belbein]

In boatbuilding you deal with this a lot, so I know a little something. Laminates' primary advantage is that for any given thickness, they are much stronger. If they're glued up properly, they also don't suffer from any of the (I don't know the technical term) checking and structural failure along the grain that wood does. I say, "If glued up properly" because unless you do it yourself (and even then) you can't see glue voids in the middle of a sheet of plywood, obviously.

The bad thing is that laminates are relatively less bendable. If you're going to do curvy bends (think F-style mandos or guitars) you kind of have to take very thin strips, bend them, and then build up the layers of laminate in the curvy form, layer upon layer.

There is no physical reason you couldn't carve a top or bottom out of a laminate sheet. It could be much, much thinner than "real" wood for the same strength. The three problems I see are (1) as you carved you'd get the inconsistent patterns as you cut cross sections through the different layers ... but if you paint rather than stain, this would not be visible; (2) it might carve a little rougher as--when you carve down--you create layers of endgrain of the various laminated layers and (3) IF the drum-like function of the top is real, not a folk-myth, then I suspect a laminated top would resonate less. There might be ways to compensate for that, but I just don't know enough about it.

There's a lot of prejudice against plywood in traditional hand-craft building. In the boatbuildling world, no "real" builder would use plywood. But they are the perfect boatbuilding material. At least one think-out-of-the-box builder made quite a nice name for himself designing light plywood boats (Phil Bolger). I don't know enough, yet, about lutherie & laminated wood, but I suspect that someone who thinks outside of the box (someone, let us say, Padma-ish) might well make excellent use of them.

Anyway, the worst that can happen if you try it is that you end up with a mandolin that doesn't play well, so you can experiment with different strings, bridges, finishes, and so forth.

[MikeEdgerton]

Kay marketed their laminated parts as a feature in the 30's. Washburn used laminated wood on the sides of some of their expensive guitars in the very early 1900's as a means to avoid side cracks. With that said there really is a reason people prefer the sound of solid over laminated and I'm pretty sure David Grisman or Sam Bush could make an inexpensive all laminate mandolin sound better than I would if I was playing an original Lloyd Loar Gibson F5. There is something to be said for adding talent to the mix.

[garyedelman]

Hate to differ with you belbein, but in the boatbuilding world, real builders, like Kerry
Gerrity and Sons (california) were called the Steinway and Sons of boatbuilding and
Eric Goertz was called "crude but effective" both for their work in "plywood". Well,
it was laminate using West System epoxy developed by the Gougeon Brothers of
Michigan. Both builders produced a number of world champion racing sailboats using
what has been called "west system" boats, and Gougeon continues to produce world
champion iceboats. The way it works is that very thin strips of veneer are saturated
with the epoxy and laid across one another, making sure the laminate of the first "ply"
is totally dry and cured before attempting the second play. The first ply becomes the
inner core and the boat or part is built outward from there. The problem comes when
it is not done properly, as the rot starts from the inside and goes out if it has not cured
properly. Further, you can't tell it's rotting until it is too late, as there are no outward signs.

So it's not really the glue voids (any boat builder or hobbyist knows to check the
end of a piece of marine ply for voids) but the way the wood was laminated.

There are a lot of boats sailing after 1,000s of miles that have lots of bent and
compound curves made from "west system" procedures.

I have often wondered if a mandolin could be built like this. It would be impervious
to the elements much like the carbon fiber New Mad Mix mandolins. However, the
reason "west system" boats were so popular was that they had a "weight to strength
ratio" at the time at a cost that was far less expensive than planked wood, fiberglass
(either cored or solid), or aluminium.

The problem therefore, as I see it, is that it would not resonate. You can bend it and carve
it. Maybe an instrument of "west system" for its back and sides, and a solid piece of
adi spruce or something would get you tone and volume.

Just my 2 cents from someone who has raced on a lot of world class west system boats.

[UkuleleAl]

Interesting, plywood can be relatively thick on a mandolin. I think as long as it is solidly pressed you shouldn't have problems with glue voids; correct me if i am wrong. :/

[vic-victor]

There is an old saying that well built instrument made of cheap woods/laminates will sound better than poorly built one even if the most expensive woods used. This is very true. But nothing can beat finely built instrument made of best woods.

[Jim]

I use an all plywood mandolin as a travel and camp instrument. It is indestructable as faras I can tell. It doesn't sound as good as some but you can only tell if you A/B test it right there with the other mandolin. It is less resonite than some of my solid wood mandolins but that could be the finish too since it has the typical low end Chinese "dipped in plastic" look ( and smell when I first got it) This too is not a bad feature for my travel instrument. Anyway I think plywood can make a perfectly fine instrument. As for racing sailboats , though my Macgregor is 'glass, my favorite so far was a Mahogany Flying dutchman and I'm sure it was mostly plywood. 20 feet long and 2 people could pick it up and carry it( D@#n that boat was fast). The strength to weight ratio for wood can be amazing.

[belbein]

Garyedelman: What do we disagree on? Are you objecting when I said prejudice against plywood in traditional hand-craft building. In the boatbuildling world, no "real" builder would use plywood? If so, you missed my point. My point was that the people who are very proud of "building them the way they're traditionally built" wouldn't touch plywood because it's [imagine this said with a sneer] "not authentic." Of course world-class builders would have and will use plywood: their interest isn't "purity," it's strength and weight.

I don't want to get into an argument about boatbuilding here. I stopped arguing about this with "real" "Traditional" boatbuilders a long time ago anyway because I think it's just stupid. I also stopped arguing with banjo players who would say you can't pick with two fingers or four because Scruggs didn't do it that way. And I won't argue with anyone who says that you can't build mandolins with plywood because, for example, Loar didn't.

These are what I like to call "religious" choices. They are beliefs held with absolute conviction, impervious to discussion or contrary facts. If you hold them, you're welcome to them, since I have my own "religious" beliefs. Like this one: I personally don't see anything wrong with either building with carefully handcrafted pegs or hand-forged nails, or using West's epoxy system, or carbon fiber. For tens of thousands of years, our species has used the best technology available: hell, if West's two part epoxy had been available, the Egyptians would have used it to build the pyramids.

But if someone wants to either use--or eschew--plywood, don't make me no nevermind. I just want to know how it turns out, because I might want to give it a try.

[Jim Garber]

Roger Borys was a student of Jimmy D'Aquisto and developed a high quality process of using laminates in archtop guitars. Granted that many, if not all of these are played with pickups but I have played on that belongs to the son of a friend and it is indeed a high quality instrument. As noted, "plywood" brings up Home Depot images whereas laminates for musical instruments are designed for sound production.

[UkuleleAl]

I agree totally with you vic. I have a Lanikai ck teq. I love it to bits. As far as i know it is laminate, but it has one of the nicest tones in it's price range(this could be because it is koa).

[garyedelman]

My apologies belbein. With your clarification, I think we totally agree.

[Schlegel]

Surprised nobody has mentioned the good 'ol Gibson A-40 or Stradolins. The A-40, with it's ply body and solid top can sound pretty darn nice if you get a good one. The top carving seems to be the critical thing. Stradolins it seems can be found ply back, solid top, mostly they are all ply, though some are all solid. I haven't played a solid top example of these yet, but the couple of ply ones I have tried are better than decent. Unrefined, or perhaps one might say un-complex in sound, but certainly pleasant and with very good volume.

[belbein]

No apology necessary. Thanks.

[Mark Seale]

Roger Borys was a student of Jimmy D'Aquisto and developed a high quality process of using laminates in archtop guitars. Granted that many, if not all of these are played with pickups but I have played on that belongs to the son of a friend and it is indeed a high quality instrument. As noted, "plywood" brings up Home Depot images whereas laminates for musical instruments are designed for sound production.

I'm familiar with one of these Borys boxes, and it is a FINE sounding instrument. And of course, Django sounded pretty good with his old laminated guitars...

[vic-victor]

There is an ages long discussion among classical guitarists on laminated woods. Everyone agrees that solid wood tops are better than laminates as far as sound warmth, richness and overtones concerned. But there's no consensus on body and back of a CG being made of laminates. Despite the fact that famous Torres made a paipier-mache guitar body with a decent solid top long ago and it said to be sounded as good as the solid wood guitar and Ramirez guitars have laminate backs. Still, people's perception is largely against laminates and "kosher" instrument must have all solid wood body and top.

[John Arnold]

Ramirez guitars have laminate backs

Ramirez was famous for using two-ply sides, with cypress inside of rosewood. It is not the normal 'plywood', since the grain is parallel in both layers. This was done to stabilize the bent sides. I have never heard of a top level Ramirez with a laminate back.
My 1853 Martin also has a parallel-grain spruce layer inside the rosewood back, supposedly to stabilize the back against cracking. It was undoubtedly laminated with hot hide glue, and seems to have no detrimental effect.
It is certainly possible to produce a high-quality guitar with laminated wood. Though laminates are associated with inexpensive, mostly Asian guitars, the quality is more a function of the types of wood plies and the glue used, as well as the care to eliminate voids and loose plies.

Stradolins it seems can be found ply back, solid top, mostly they are all ply, though some are all solid.

Stradolins made before WWII were all solid, though they were pressed, not carved. In my experience, those were much better mandolins than the later laminated ones, but that was mainly due to the design.
The 'standard' guitar or mandolin laminate is three-ply, with a cross-grain ply in the center. That stiffens the top in the cross-grain direction. For that reason, the laminated top guitar must have different bracing to equal the performance of a solid top. Yamaha was one manufacturer who understood this.

[Tavy]

While we're on this topic, how about the newer composites such as the "double top" guitars? No doubt you could use a similar system for backs as well.

[vic-victor]

While we're on this topic, how about the newer composites such as the "double top" guitars? No doubt you could use a similar system for backs as well.

What is the point using it for backs? Backs do not vibrate the same way as tops and my understanding is that theoretically almost anything will do for the back. Take aluminium bodied mandos for instance.

[vic-victor]

Ramirez was famous for using two-ply sides, with cypress inside of rosewood. It is not the normal 'plywood', since the grain is parallel in both layers.

Still technically not solid wood. I once had a very nice old Japanese instrument that was all solid, but had a two-ply back, the inner layer was the cut of the same slab turned upside down. They may have done it on purpose, but still, it was condemned as "ply" when I tried to sell the instrument. Luckily "double top" guitars are not condemned as ply

[MikeEdgerton]

...Stradolins it seems can be found ply back, solid top, mostly they are all ply, though some are all solid...

Actually I think you you have that backwards. I've seen more solid Strads than I've ever seen laminated. The early models I've seen have all been solid.