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Thread: Spruce for rims

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    I like to do something experimental on each mandolin. This time I want to use spruce rims. Has anyone ever tried this, and if so, how did it affect your sound?

    Larry

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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    I'm going to go out on a limb here and say somebody has probably tried nearly every wood available for a rim, somewhere, sometime.
    The only spruce rim I've seen 'in real life' was on a guitar built by Dick Boak, at Martin, that he called the "spruce goose". The whole guitar is spruce; top, back, sides, and neck. It sounds (surprise!) like a guitar.

    The wood in the rim probably has about as little affect on the sound as any wood in a mandolin. There is a well known story of a classical guitar builder, Manuel Torres I believe, who made the rim of a guitar from paper-mache to show how little affect the rim material has on the sound.

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    Registered User John Flynn's Avatar
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    sunburst:

    I think you mean Antonio De Torres Jurado, who is considered the "Stradivarius" of classical guitar builders. He built both the back and sides of that instrument out of paper-mache to show it is only the top of the instrument that counts.

    BTW, in looking this up online, I unfortunately found out that the name "Manuel Torres" is most commonly associated with a porn star.

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    The famous Torres papier Mache' guitar was still extant and somewhat playable when Irving Sloane was doing his first guitar book. Don't know about now.
    Jim

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Ted Beringer made a mandolin for me totally out of spruce....

    Sounds fine....

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    Ursus Mandolinus Fretbear's Avatar
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    The sides do take blows and abuse though, so the use of something like maple is probably a good idea for reasons other than acoustics.
    But Amsterdam was always good for grieving
    And London never fails to leave me blue
    And Paris never was my kinda town
    So I walked around with the Ft. Worth Blues

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    From reading these comments, it makes me question why maple is so very much preferred over all other species. Is this just tradition? If you were blind tested, could you discern mandolins that are *not* made of maple?

    Woody

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    Thanks for your scholarly input, all. I think I will skip the papier mache, but I am anxious to put the spruce to the test. My thinking was that it would serve as an extension of the soundboard, so to speak, thus giving me more volume. Plus, I just happen to have some spruce strips that won't work for much else.

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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Woody, I'm convinced that maple, particularly curly maple, is a tradition borrowed from the violin world, along with F-holes, arched and graduated plates, and so forth.
    In blind tests, my bet is there wouldn't be anyone who could reliably pick out the species of wood that a mandolin is made of, but at the same time, I can hear subtle, general differences between the mandos I build with hard maple and soft maple, so there is certainly a contribution to the sound from the wood of the back, and (I believe) the neck, and probably even the sides to a lesser degree.
    I think maple is preferred because the figure is attractive, it sounds fine, and it's what people expect.

    Larry, the spruce sides won't work as extensions of the top any more than any other wood. The vibrational modes of the top go right to the edge of the plate, and no farther. (further?) The sides do influence the top and back modes slightly, by flexing in and out, and, depending on their stiffness, contributing to either relatively lower or higher frequencies of the main, lower frequency modes, but the effect, if I'm not mistaken, is so small as to be considered negligible.

    As I read that sentence, it is confusing to me, and I wrote it! It means the top and sides have different "jobs" to do in the mandolin, and making the sides out of spruce doesn't get them to do part of the top's job.

    Oh, and spruce isn't very easy to bend, but obviously, it can be done.




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    This would probably be a good time for me to promote the wonders of loucust., huh John ? Locust back and sides, mrytle neck, englemann top. could be the best sounding mando I built. Not the best looking, but a hoss ! Don't think I'll try the soft wood for the sides.

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    Quote Originally Posted by (grow @ Jan. 28 2007, 23:29)
    The famous Torres papier Mache' guitar was still extant and somewhat playable when Irving Sloane was doing his first guitar book. Don't know about now.
    Jim
    From wikipedia,
    (This guitar resides in the Museu de la Musica in Barcelona, unfortunately it is no longer playable). Another of his experiments --perhaps a better description would be a display of his craftsmanship-- was a guitar made like a Chinese puzzle that could assembled without glue, and disassembled would fit in a shoe box.

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    I'm curious then, if the back and sides make such little difference in sound, why Ovation guitars and mandolins seem so looked down upon. Is it just an appearance thing?

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    [QUOTE]
    I'm curious then, if the back and sides make such little difference in sound, why Ovation guitars and mandolins seem so looked down upon. Is it just an appearance thing?

    Because they sound like Micky Mouse guitars?

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    I have been watching the ongoing build of a Dyer style Harp Guitar all out of spruce (top back sides) over on the Harp Forum. It will make a nice light instrument, for sure.

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    Some folks go way too far when they claim that the back and sides have no effect on tone. The top is indeed the main arbiter of sound, but back and sides have a very definite effect in how the sound projects out or envelops the player, in how the notes and particularly the harmonics sustain, and in the overall tonal balance. Don't believe for a moment that de Torres "proved" that the back and sides have no effect. If that were true, he'd have stopped making all wood guitars! It's the degree of effect, not the absolute yes or no of it all.

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    The "paper mache" that Torres used is quite different than what we think this means, which is usually what your first grader does his artwork with. Think of more like lacquerware from china.

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    Quote Originally Posted by
    Think of more like lacquerware from china.
    ...or the fibreglass that Ovation-style instruments are made of.

    I think what Torres was trying to prove was that the soundboard of the guitar alone is capable of withstanding the tension of the strings - the back and sides provide some structural support support, but the actual stress they are under is minimal. It is obvious that the acoustic properties of a resonating chamber will depend on what material its walls are made of, how reflective or avbsorben it is. But, perhaps what Dicvk Boak's 'Spruce Goose' goes to prove is that, on the grand scheme of things, there is not really that big a variation in acoustic proberties between different species. Does a mahogany-topped guitar sound *radically* different from a spruce-topper?

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