Figured Ebony Guitar.......Acoustic Tone Dream? Wishful Thinking?

veinbuster said:
I like these pieces. It is particularly interesting to see the lighter wood on both edges of the wood.
I think most builders would have placed the one on the right a bit lower on the wood to get the more common sap wood in the centre look - not saying your placement is wrong, just atypical.
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Thanks friend, just the kind of feedback I was looking for. I was thinking the same thing when I drew the lines, and wanted to do something a little different. Was even thinking about reversing the match and trimming the sap wood a bit. My goal is to get as much color contrast as possible onto the pallet. Some of the slabs were to cracked for guitars but great for mural laminates (I just started getting into murals made from wood grain collages). I will post a couple of those sets later today.

I wanted to try to do something a little different than the standard practice and design. I invested a good amount of time/$ in finding a good source for A-Typical African Ebony to achieve that goal. The pure black stuff is awesome but I love the color variation pieces the best.

Keep the feedback coming, I appreciate fella's.

Semi
 
Audie said:
I admire your quest. However, the single most important aspect of acoustic guitar tone is bracing.
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Thank you. We have been hypothesizing about this very subject. My idea is to use the ebony with lesser density then the solid black. For example, I bought some African Black & White Ebony that has a density of .95 and is very stable. I plan to use this for the bracing on one guitar.

I plan to use some extremely quilted and some extremely curly marbled pieces to cut bracing from as well. We believe that the curl combined with lower density of the wood and its integration with the curly backs, sides, neck, fretboard, and cross cut peghead (gonna try at least one peg head cut from the end grain of a slab and see if it works).

What do you think? Everyone? Anyone?

Thanks Friends,

Semi
 
Next Two Sets- 4 Sets Left and on to Sides, Necks, Frets, Bracing & Pegs

Next Two Sets- 4 Sets Left........




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I really like the one below a lot.......




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Post more later/throughout the today.

Please share you thoughts and opinions if you feel so inclined.

Semi
 
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Curly Marbled Black & White Sets + Side Blanks, Neck Blanks, Frets & Pegs

Curly Marbled Black & White Sets + Side Blanks, Neck Blanks, Frets & Pegs

Curly Marbled Black & White Sets

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Side Blanks, Neck Blanks, Frets & Pegs
(The stack of boards are the Marbled African Ebony Frets and will go with the fiddleback sets. Other 2 blanks for the B&W sets)

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Open to suggestions....

Semi
 
Effect Of Grain On Tone... when Quilted Marble finds Curl?

Effect Of Grain On Tone... when Quilted Marble finds Curl?


We have been debating in detail how resonance can be affected by the grain patterns. Specifically, the sound of a marbled piece of dense wood with both quilt and curl present.

Does the sound jump and land differently? Like jump and rebounding of of different sized and tensioned trampolines?

Does it feel lighter, heavier, both simultaneously?

Kind of like swimming in salt water verses swimming in fresh water? Even a salt water pool feels different then chlorine filter pools. A lil' more buoyant as they say yah?

Below are the blocks for backs that reignited this debate in the laboratory early this afternoon....

I thought I should check with my forum colleagues for opinions?


Semi


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SemiToneScientist said:
Effect Of Grain On Tone... when Quilted Marble finds Curl?
We have been debating in detail how resonance can be affected by the grain patterns. Specifically, the sound of a marbled piece of dense wood with both quilt and curl present.

Does the sound jump and land differently? Like jump and rebounding of of different sized and tensioned trampolines?

Does it feel lighter, heavier, both simultaneously?
Click to expand...
All else being equal, I would expect the difference to be too subtle for me to notice. Even if there was a difference, it would be hard for me to attribute it to the nature of the grain rather than some other characteristic of the guitar that back happened to be used in.
The question does make me wonder what type of tests and instrumentation would be needed to objectively measure the response.

If differences could be measured, I'd then wonder how to orient the wood to get the most satisfying sound out of the guitar.
 
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