[Archtop 13]

Originally Posted by polishbroadcast

Rainsong made a small run of archtops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLU3ju1CVCs


My guess is no one makes them (anymore) because they are a niche of a niche.

That's what I'm talking about. It's a beautiful archtop, but it sounds "tinny". A Jazz guitar should have a nice natural woody sound to it. CF is very hard material. It's going to be next to impossible to get that tone out of it.

[Lizardkinged]

See I cant say that it would sound bad. Its a fairly resonant material. It might be incredibly bright. Might be very boomy and bright.

[rhino2104]

Wow. Kinda forgot about this thread what with all of my life changes lately.

Originally Posted by Archtop 13

They build bicycles & car parts from carbon fiber, there's no reason an archtop couldn't be made from the stuff. You'ld probably have to construct a pretty accurate vacuum bag mold of some sort. I'd certainly be interested in hearing what you come up with. My reservations are this... An archtop is a very classic sounding & looking instrument, even more so in the Jazz world. Getting it to sound "woody" might be somewhat of a challenge. An archtop is a little more complex to build in some ways, than a flat top. n archtop has matched bracing that needs to be fitted, glued in & can be varied in size, spacing, angles & placement/configuration. Being carbon fiber is a very stiff/hard material, I'm imagining the reflected tones being on the bright side. You will need to find some way of combating this. The traditional archtop is made with a Spruce top which is very light in weight, relatively strong, yet soft. It's the prefect soundboard. My personal experience would tell me to built the top from spruce & the rest of the guitar from CF. If you seriously get into this project, let me know. Like I said, I'd be interested hearing about it. Or even bouncing ideas around with you. Hyde

I know that they have bracing and it can greatly effect the tone. I have also heard that it can kill the tone depending on how it's done. The same goes for acoustics from what I understand. Acoustics use a lot of it for strength as well. I'm figuring that the strength of the carbon fiber would be able to negate the need for bracing as far as strength. The tone part is what I've been tossing around for a while though. I'll definitely keep everyone abreast and bounce ideas off of you as I go along.

Originally Posted by Lizardkinged

Ive seen a carbon fiber cello before. But never a hollow body

The carbon fiber classic stringed instruments are what got me thinking down this path. It lead to me finding the acoustics which prompted me into more research of carbon fiber properties and abilities in the guitar world.

Originally Posted by Archtop 13

It certainly can be done. The question is how to make it sound good. If you did a 335 style guitar with a block in the center you wouldn't be relying so much on the acoustics

As I said before the tone part is what I've been thinking about. I think it can be done. I'll probably just have to build one and see how it comes out, get everyone's take on it, and adjust fire.

Originally Posted by calvin lee

me thinks you need a carbon fibre falcon.

I might do it. We shall see. I'm more worried about getting a hollow body built and going from there. If someone on here has a falcon tracing and dimensions I might just go ahead and start there.

Originally Posted by damacleod

Here we go... found it.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-home...5-project.html

Awesome. Thanks. More reading material and research. I love me some research

[rhino2104]

Now here's another thing to think about when it comes to this potential build; do I go with a removable neck like the carbon fiber ES-355 or do I make the entire back, sides, and neck in to a single piece?

[Archtop 13]

Originally Posted by rhino2104

The sound is the only thing that I'm remotely concerned about. I've heard several videos of some of the carbon fiber acoustics and they sound great. A bit different than wood but not much. That could have been the difference in the build though since the ones that sound really different don't have internal bracing.

I do think that I can build it. Honestly the hardest part for me is going to be building the mold. From there I think it will get easier for me.

The mold will be a challenge, but don't under estimate the little details.

[Archtop 13]

Bracing is an important part of the Archtop hollow body. Sure, it can dampen tone. More importantly you should be looking at how it affects tone, if you are going down this road. If you complete a parallel bracing structure,2 ea. @ 1/2" wide from neck block to tail block in an electric guitar you are giving your pickups a nice stiff structure for receiving & transmitting string vibrations. If you then use a maple top & a spruce top on two otherwise similar instruments you get completely different results. Same goes for traditional unattached bracing in an acoustic instrument. Now if you take unattached bracing & build a box joint, making it Xbraced you get a different result all together. These are all thing you will want to understand before you build an Archtop w/o bracing. It wouldn't hurt to have an idea of how spruce is going to sound vs maple because you will then understand why carbon fiber will sound the way it does. & you will be able to predict how it will sound before you put all the effort into it.

[rhino2104]

Trust me I'm not ignoring the little details which is why I'm looking into bracing at all. From a structural stand point it won't need the bracing. I do know from a tonal stand point it will need it though. The CF ES-355 in the other build thread sounded decent and it was x-braced.

[Archtop 13]

I'm not saying you will need it, CF is very strong. I'm saying you will need to compensate for it some how. I know enough about CF to understand how it's put together but not enough to actually work with it . As with a carved top, it should be graduated to allow the top to act as a speaker cone, thin in the recurve area & thick near the center. Of course, most archtops these days are plywood & don't have any graduations. A Gretsch compensates by using a thin laminated top &, from what I've seen, very heavy bracing.

[rhino2104]

It sounds we're on the same page as far as needing the bracing for tone and not strength.

I'm probably going to use bracing to compensate for it since I don't think my skill is high enough to change the thickness. We shall see though. This is still a ways off at the moment. I still think that I need more research on archtops before I go through with it. Probably work a little with some CF and I think I have some spare maple and spruce around here somewhere that I'm going to work with. I think that I'm going to start by building my mold though. Thinking I'm going to start that today. Yay for playing with MDF.

[Trigger]

Hey,

I've been skimming this forum for a while but just finally signed up. I just wanted to chime in and mention that I just finished building something similar to what you were thinking. You can see the highlights at: http://www.coroflot.com/JoeCostello/...lowbody-Guitar



Let me know if you have any questions.

[calvin lee]

awesome.

[rhino2104]

That is a thing of beauty. Do you have any sound clips of it? I'd love to hear it.

[Archtop 13]

That is pretty neat! Why did you go bolt on? sound files?

[Trigger]

I have been really busy with other projects so I don't have any great recordings yet. But I do have a cell-phone recorded video of my uncle putting it through the first paces. Please note that it's not fully set up yet and this was basically an initial test drive:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/10861369...ts/Str7FFwZxoQ

I went with a bolt-on neck because I'm pretty amateur at building guitars. We considered doing a carbon neck and head but it was pretty daunting. I liked the idea of being able to adjust the height and angle of the neck after the fact too. And having that all done by Warmoth meant that at least that part was 100% dialed in.

[rhino2104]

I'm also really liking the f-holes you used. They look like a modernized version for a modern material. A nice progression and evolution kind of thing.

[ishtar]

Originally Posted by rhino2104

I'm also really liking the f-holes you used. They look like a modernized version for a modern material. A nice progression and evolution kind of thing.

And yet retro....

[Skev]

Originally Posted by ishtar

And yet retro....

The better of both world!

[HypotenusLuvTriangle]

holy carp.

[Archtop 13]

Tough to hear the guitar well in that video

[Trigger]

Thanks. I agonized over the f-holes for the entirety of the process. I went back and forth between traditional, modern, cateyes or Trini Lopez diamonds. In the end I decided to go somewhere between traditional and diamonds. Yeah, like a modern, minimal simplification of traditional form. Glad you guys agree.

Yup, that video sucks but it's all I have right now. I'll get another one when I can.