F5s, Guitars, Thickness Sanders, and Kool Aid

[sgrexa]

Maybe it was witnessing a thickness sander in operation for the first time a few months ago? I am not sure, but this question / observation has been floating around in my head for far longer. A thickness sander is a magical and dangerous piece of shop equipment not often employed or found in the typical USA garage. Everyone should seek a chance to see what these marvels of 20th century engineering are capable of at least once in their lifetime. Basically, you put a piece of wood in one side and after some serious mangling and loud noise, it comes out a few mm thinner on the other side. It also spits out a wonderous shower of sawdust all over the place. I have been playing guitar a lot longer than mandolin. That would be about 32 years vs. around 18 or so spent with the mandolin. I have been getting Vintage Guitar magazine since at least 1991 so I am familiar with the vintage world of flattop guitars and have a soft spot in my heart for them. I recently even drank the Kool Aid and picked up a vintage, yet thoroughly beat, 1936 Martin 0-17 for a song at Guitar Center. Granted, to put things in context, this is admittedly the store brand, all mahogany flavored Kool Aid, but I love it just the same. I have never had a lack of respect for great acoustic flattop guitars whether made by individual builders or one of many great factories over the years. It is just that ever since I really got a grasp on how difficult an F5 was to build in comparison to a flattop guitar, I have more respect for the individuals and companies that can consistently build great examples of the F5 style archtop mandolin. I have never been as picky with guitars as I have mandolins. Most flattop guitars sound pretty good to me, though I can tell the exceptional ones from the merely good. At least I think I can? You see, I am evidently in a very much maligned minority of players who actually think Taylor guitars generally sound and play very good. On some of the guitar sites I have been visiting lately (I am looking at you UMGF) I would be dismissed as an uneducated know nothing slug of humanity for saying that out loud. There are legions of Martin and other devotees that seem to want nothing to do with a Taylor guitar and would not be caught dead playing one in a store even just to see if old Bob T is up to his same old tricks. This is somewhat puzzling to me? In short, a recent trip to the Guitar Center showed me that you can get an amazingly good guitar, brand new or used, for not a lot of money. Now the vintage guitars and exceptionally built newer guitars do usually have a couple things in common: a certain "dryness" in tone, great volume, balance, and are usually built amazingly light. Not much different than the factors that separate the great mandolins from the merely good. The GREAT ones IMO are always lightweight, play and sound great with nice volume, balanced, blah blah. Basically, and this is definitely MHO only, a GREAT mandolin will give you, on average a 10-15% advantage over a merely "good" mandolin. Now, again IMHO only, a GREAT guitar gives ME maybe a 5-10% advantage over a merely "good" example, and that is being generous. Anyway, what I have found is that some of these guitar luthiers have amazingly long waiting lists. 4 or 5 years is not unheard of. This phenomenon has largely disappeared in the mandolin world, unless you want a Monteleone. In that case I have no idea how long you will have to wait or how much you will have to pay. Correct me if I am wrong, but the other heavy hitters seem to be only months to a year or two max out on orders. One prominent guitar builder even has a seemingly non-existent "system" where he builds the guitar he wants for the person he wants (Person B) with no regard to how long person A might have been waiting. The random selection process involves sending him various postcards, pies, Boston Red Sox World Series tickets, etc. and basically just being very lucky and blessed. I don't really know what this particular builder gets for a guitar but I think it is probably over $10,000. That is just a guess. I did read that another builder with the first two initials TJ, has a pretty serious waiting list and gets around $45K for an OM-45 style guitar. This got me thinking that maybe Gilchrist and others have priced their F5 mandolins way too cheap? That might sound crazy, and maybe I have had this wrong all these years, which is why I am posting this rant. For those of you that have built both, which is more difficult, a flattop 45 style guitar or an F5 mandolin? Again, I am not trying to show any disrespect to these great flattop guitar builders, I am just trying to wrap my head around this dichotomy, that is all. Thanks for tuning in and I appreciate any and all opinions.

Sean

[sgrexa]

Oh, and before anyone chimes in, I will spot the guitar builders a generous $1,000 for Brazilian stump wood or even $2,000 for properly quartered BRW back and sides. I think that should even be enough to cover the all important BRW headstock veneer as well. Even though this stuff seems to have more regulations than viable California Condor eggs, there seems to be no shortage available that I can see.

Sean

[fscotte]

I think building an A style mandolin is fairly easy. A guitar scares me.

[Marty Jacobson]

This got me thinking that maybe Gilchrist and others have priced their F5 mandolins way too cheap?

I think what you're seeing there is the effect of vastly larger demand working on the guitar market.
The mandolin market is pretty healthy in the US and around the world, but we still have threads which make it clear that the majority of people on the street are not quite sure what a fretted 8-string instrument with a scroll should be called.

The market for guitars, on the other hand, covers basically anyone who plays some kind of music.

Also, nearly every serious woodworker, it seems, builds a guitar at some point in their life. Relatively few build mandolins. I believe the bar is higher for building the first mandolin - it's some pretty complicated joinery and carving. And there isn't a straight line on the darn thing, so your tablesaw, which is the primary tool for most serious amateur woodworkers, only gets you so far.

But while the bar (or psychological barrier) for building the first guitar might be lower than building your first mandolin, I believe the level of difficulty involved in building a master-level instrument is about the same, regardless of the instrument's phylum.

Speaking of which, how's your mandolin build coming, Sean?

[sgrexa]

Good points Marty, and I may have overestimated the number of members here who actually have built both. There really aren't many that I can think of and even fewer who might actually post. There are more who have built a flattop and archtop mandolin, but not necessarily a pearl encrusted 45 example or an F5. I would like to hear from those folks. I think you are certainly right that to build any instrument at a high level is commendable, and of course I am aware that the guitar outnumbers the mandolin in popularity likely something like 9:1. My question was more general in nature, and I do realize that markets for anything exist for a number of reasons, but most importantly because someone is willing to pay whatever the price to get X brand whatever. I was just wondering if the number of man hours and skills required to build a high end guitar and mandolin were roughly equivalent. As you touched on, the geometry of guitars certainly makes things seem like it would be less difficult. My observations of a thickness sander were kind of a revelation to me. I never realized how simple it was to make a piece of wood thinner. This definately knocked down the mystery and charm of the guitar luthier a notch. Seems like once you get a feel for the desired thicknesses, bracing requirements, and bending sides of guitars, there is not much mystery left in the process. An F5 mandolin requires some whacky almost 3 dimensional thinking and planning. It is a very tricky beast indeed. This is why I started this thread. To see if I can learn what I might be missing and why these instruments are commanding such adoration, long wait times, and big dollars. My mandolin is coming along very slowly. I have been somewhat reluctant to purchase the "right" tools to start carving maple and this has resulted in less than satisfactory results. Basically, with most of them, the analogy would be like trying to cut a two by four with a butter knife. It just doesn't even seem like it should remotely work. This is why I have moved onto my next brilliant idea of introducing a cheap orbital sander into the mix to at least remove some excess material so I feel like I am making a little progress. I then plan on sucking it up and purchasing an Ibex finger plane, some good chisels and some sharpening tools and learning how to use them. I will report my findings soon!

Sean

[Bill Snyder]

A cheap orbital sander is NOT the way to remove excess material. Before you do that get a disc sander for a drill. Put some 24 or 40 grit paper on it and go to town. Dusty, dirty way to do it but the orbital sander will also be dusty and dirty and not nearly as fast.

[peter.coombe]

I have found that it takes me just a bit longer to make a guitar as it does to make an A type mandolin. The difference is in the finishing, there is so much more area to cover in a guitar and that takes longer. So, an F5 would take me significantly longer to make than a guitar. It does depend on the amount of decoration which can be very time consuming. A highly decorated guitar would probably take as along as an F5.

[sgrexa]

Thank you for the tip Bill, I meant to say grinder which should be fun. I just inherited a nice one and need to pick up some sanding discs for it and also some heavy duty clamps so my plates do not go flying and get to work. Peter, your observations are great and just what I was looking for, thank you!

Sean

[fscotte]

I only use a right angle disc grinder and then an orbital sander for carving the maple backs. For the grinder I use the 50 grit discs. I can carve the recurve inside and out with the grinder. Then the orbital sander is followed up to smooth out the roughness. The final application sandpaper by hand.

I ditched the Ibex finger plane a while ago. Just too much trouble for its own good when using extremely hard maple like I use.

[Marty Jacobson]

The grinder is very aggressive. When carving by hand, I use one of those Steelex "bowl carving" tools and a combo of various planes for hogging. Don't underestimate the effectiveness of a normal plane for shaping the outside.

For all kinds of shaping, the combination of a drill and New Wave sanding pads cannot be beat. A random orbit sander does a great job for general smoothing, but for refining recurves or nooks and crannies, New Wave is awesome.

123493123494

I first started using this system to work on turned bowls when I was about 15. Then I used it extensively in my industrial design modelmaking, and of course found it very useful for lutherie. I use these in cordless drills, in a fancy right-angle Milwaukee, which gives even better control and doesn't run through batteries, and in the drill press.

I have yet to chuck one in the CNC machine -- but believe me, I've thought about it! Imagine, pulling a Spruce top from the machine... finish-sanded to 320... nirvana...

[Pete Jenner]

It would make sanding with the grain difficult.

[Marty Jacobson]

It would make sanding with the grain difficult.

Or impossible. You do need to use a felt block and 320 grit for a few swipes afterwards, but I always do that with a random orbit sander or any other non-manual sanding technique anyway.

[fscotte]

Orbital sanders shouldn't cause any issues with grain direction.

[Marty Jacobson]

Yeah, but there are always little 1mm circular sanding marks somewhere that show up under finish. The customer might not notice them, but they bug me. So I never shoot finish on anything that hasn't been thoroughly finish sanded by hand. And then inspected under mineral spirits.

[Jim Adwell]

Swirl marks are usually caused by a bit of coarser grit that is left on the work from coarser paper when you sand with finer paper. This happens in hand sanding too, but it's not as noticeable because you're leaving scratches with the grain rather than across the grain. You just have to watch for them and sand them out by hand sometimes, no matter how carefully you clean the work between sandpaper changes.