Have any of you tried to make a hardwood topped instrument?
Have any of you tried to make a hardwood topped instrument?
My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A
Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.
I've never made one, but birch was widely used for inexpensive guitar tops. Harmony brand, for example.
Interesting guys, thanks.
My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A
Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.
Arik Kerman also used (before he retired - though his son is supposedly building in his style) a hardwood top paired with an internal 2mm thick spruce soundboard near the back of the instrument. The Labraid internal back is carved, I believe, and similarly thin, maybe 3mm or so.
I make ukuleles, so most of them have had hardwood tops.
If you're asking specifically about mandolins, I doubt there are many around with hardwood tops. Hardwoods tend to dampen out the higher frequencies, which helps to stop a uke being shrill. But one of the main points of a mandolin is that bright, treble voice.
If you wanted a softer sounding mandolin with a hardwood top, then I think it would have to be a flat top or cylindrical. Carving an archtop would be challenging because the cellular structure of hardwood is quite different from softwoods - I suspect you'd have to make quite a few experimental tops before you got one which worked (if any of them did!) and didn't collapse.
Brian's instrument doesn't look like a hardwood top to me. If so, it's very clear grain hardwood.
Bill
IM(NS)HO
The Grand Concert models have walnut or maple tops (at least so far... Who knows what he'll come up with next).
This is partial hardwood rather than all hardwood, rather visibly. I don't know that I can tell any difference in sound from it's sibling models that were all spruce.
Thanks,
Magnus
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