Acoustc Guitar Rant

[YeahDoIt]

I think acoustic guitars are built all wrong.

One problem with acoustic guitars is the top gets slowly pulled up by string tension. This is less likely to happen if they use a trapezoid tailpiece to transfer the tension to the end of the guitar. But do they build with a trapezoid? Not usually. Mostly I see a wood bridge glued to the top of the guitar.

Guitar necks are always a problem. Necks warp, or twist or maybe the frets just wear. So instead of gluing the neck to the guitar why not make a screw on interchangeable neck and fasten it to a block of wood at the neck end of the guitar body. We could shim and adjust the neck to adjust the action. But do they do that? It probably makes guitars less expensive too.

Maybe guitars built this way sound poor but for inexpensive acoustic instruments it might be an improvement.

Oh and we need pickups - not piezo - in these things too, tone and volume controls, output jack on the top so we don’t bang the connection when playing on the sofa. Cause you know how much we like the sofa.

[etechstan]

Adjustable bridge saddles for intonation!!! My old Squier could be tuned perfectly, hit a D chord and a God-awful sound erupts. I tried sanding that little blade piece of plastic, adjusting the neck and anything I could think of. I finally did solve the problem, I replaced it with an Alvarez.

[die Bullen]

It sounds like you are ready to enter the world of archtops, YDI...

[spellcaster]

I agree 100% with everything said above. I suspect the fixed neck is a consideration for resonant transference but it does make repairs and setups tough. I've never understood the objection many people have to trapezoid tailpieces, but I think they look kind of cool. I also wonder why acoustics can't be made with one stabilizer block between the front and the back at the bridge location so tops don't distort. Adjustable saddles and adjustable bridge height? Great idea....Not everybody wants the same action setting or the same string guage. Maybe Fender's got the right idea with the Stratacoustics and Telacoustics....At least they've got the neck connection right. There's not a lot of technological improvement between guitars in the early part of the last century and what we can buy today, and maybe it's time.

[Fussel62]

I think acoustic guitars are built all wrong.

One problem with acoustic guitars is the top gets slowly pulled up by string tension. .

There was the same problem with my Hohner 12-string. The neck lifted up more and more. The top kind of negatively arched, where the neck is joined in direction to the sound hole. The action in the upper frets got worse and worse.The guitar is 20 years old now and not expensive, so I tried to solve it in a very radical way: I put the guitar upside down over a big pot of boiling water and put a 20 kilo weight on the back and let it boil for hours. Put it over two big books then with the weight on it for nearly a week to dry. The guitar is playable again with a quite low action for an acoustic one.

[spellcaster]

Fussel, I admire your ingenuity...and your guts! I don't know if I'd have had the nerve, but it sounds like it worked. I've got Dan Erlewine's Guitar Players Repair Guide and it's got some good insights on solving this problem, but I've never heard of your trick before.

[YeahDoIt]

20 kilos is a lot of weight (about 44 pounds). I am pleased that it worked.

Lot of good ideas in this thread.

I don't see archtops often. I appreciate some of the archtop designs but have no experience with them.

[die Bullen]

Fussel's idea is a good one- actually steam pressing is usually the technique used for straightening necks without truss rods and it sounds like Fussel has devised his own steam press.

YDI- if you haven't tried archtops (hollowbody electrics) you should. Trapeze tailpieces are common with this kind of guitar and the tops/ bodies tend to be much thicker than your standard acoustic folk guitar. Also electronics are built in.

A basic non-cutaway archtop can be quite loud- you can definitively play an intimate setting without an amplifier and when you need to get louder, you can plug it in. The sound is different from a flat top acoustic guitar though- archtops sound like electrics when plugged in, but they have a character of their own, they don't sound like strats or telecasters. At louder volumes they do tend to feed back but with addition of a sound post you can minimize this somewhat.

Something like the one on the right is what I'd suggest- you don't need to buy a 50's vintage one like I have- you can definitely current production models that won't break the bank.

[Fussel62]

Beautiful and precious guitars, your Guilds!

[die Bullen]

Thanks Fussel!

Good things come in threes so I can't leave the baby brother out- which is "newer" (from 1961)

[Fussel62]

Fussel, I admire your ingenuity...and your guts! I don't know if I'd have had the nerve, but it sounds like it worked. I've got Dan Erlewine's Guitar Players Repair Guide and it's got some good insights on solving this problem, but I've never heard of your trick before.

I used that rough method before I discovered any guitar forum. The problem became so bad, when I lent that guitar to a friend over wintertime. He placed it beside the heating for months, as he told me later. Just knowing that water works for bending wood, I had a try. There wasn't much to lose, because the guitar cost me only 250 D-Mark in 1992.
If it had gone wrong, so what?

[Fussel62]

That's really a beautiful family, DB!