meeting-10-12-03

Scale Meeting 10/12/03

Our Neck Construction Adventure

Continues...

This month's meeting was open to the public and was held at Mercy Music. We were glad to see that SCALe is still growing each meeting. We added a few more members.

Pepe Vergara, our newest member brought a classical guitar he built to the meeting. He wanted to show us his design and get some feedback. The body bracing was shaved in order to open up the sound of the top. The spruce top was also shaved thinner in some areas to increase the response of the smaller baroque body size.

Gary holds a Pepe Vergara classical guitar while Pepe explains it's unique characteristics.

Pepe show us his neck joint and the added block which gives the joint strength.
Alternative and future neck joint methods were discussed.

Pepe tells us more about the many design decisions he had to make and how he was able to solve the structural problems.

Next Gary talked about wood density and showed us some fingerboards and some of the different scale lengths commonly used for all sizes of guitars, basses, and mandolins. The fingerboard above is of spalted Maple. Spalting is usually considered a blemish is furniture building, but it is an area of wood that has a very high concentration of minerals. This high mineral content gives the wood various dark streaks of black brown or green color, it's density is increased and has become more conducive to frequency sustain and harmonics.

Birdseye- Small localized areas in wood with the fibers indented and otherwise contorted to form few to many small circular or elliptical figures remotely resembling birds' eyes on the tangential surface. Sometimes found in sugar maple and used for decorative purposes; rare in other hardwood species.

spalt

\Spalt\, v. t. & i. [Cf. OE. spalden. See Spalt, a.] To split off; to cleave off, as chips from a piece of timber, with an ax. [Prov. Eng. & Local, U.S.]

n. [Cf. G. spaltstein, from spalten to split.
a. [See 1st Spell.] 1. Liable to break or split; brittle; as, spalt timber.

Here are the subjects that were covered in the meeting:
Headstock shapes styles
String post positions face
Wood density
braces, purpose and shaving
Guitar top tuning

Pepe Vergara, our newest member brought a classical guitar he built to the meeting. He wanted to show us his design and get some feedback. The body bracing was shaved in order to open up the sound of the top. The spruce top was also shaved thinner in some areas to increase the response of the smaller baroque body size.	Gary holds a Pepe Vergara classical guitar while Pepe explains it's unique characteristics.
Pepe show us his neck joint and the added block which gives the joint strength.	Alternative and future neck joint methods were discussed.
Pepe tells us more about the many design decisions he had to make and how he was able to solve the structural problems.	Next Gary talked about wood density and showed us some fingerboards and some of the different scale lengths commonly used for all sizes of guitars, basses, and mandolins. The fingerboard above is of spalted Maple. Spalting is usually considered a blemish is furniture building, but it is an area of wood that has a very high concentration of minerals. This high mineral content gives the wood various dark streaks of black brown or green color, it's density is increased and has become more conducive to frequency sustain and harmonics.
Birdseye- Small localized areas in wood with the fibers indented and otherwise contorted to form few to many small circular or elliptical figures remotely resembling birds' eyes on the tangential surface. Sometimes found in sugar maple and used for decorative purposes; rare in other hardwood species.	spalt \Spalt\, v. t. & i. [Cf. OE. spalden. See Spalt, a.] To split off; to cleave off, as chips from a piece of timber, with an ax. [Prov. Eng. & Local, U.S.] n. [Cf. G. spaltstein, from spalten to split. a. [See 1st Spell.] 1. Liable to break or split; brittle; as, spalt timber.