Stephen Faulk

I have hard thumbnails, but my nail beds are not up to the task.......there's a joke there somewhere.

I don't know exactly I'm working for that photo. I know the height is 1/2" and thickness is 4 mm and that's all. So it looks like the center to center is about 1/2" They aren't going to measure it.

I wouldn't ordinarily bother anyone with my lowbrow guitar problems, but somewhere I remember seeing trade basses with crimped liners and thought it might be a thing. These liners are about 1/2" tall and 4 mm thick...if you must know Edi. The regular liners I make are identical to cello liners, about 3 mm thick and 20 mm tall...more or less. They are smooth. Most guitar lining is smooth or kerfed. This one I want to copy happens to use crimped liners and while it's not a big deal, but I want to cross the 't's and dot the i's on this one because going to show it to some picky old fart. And he won't buy it, but someone else will.

This is the liner I'll copy, the bottom liner

I'm thinking about making a copy on an instrument with crimped liners and the crimpyness needs to be part of the copy. I've only got to make about 6 feet of it so leaning towards the idea of the vise outfitted with a metal 'tooth' to press the crimp... I remembered that once I saw a tool that looked like a mill that you hand cranked the wood through and a tooth or gear thing pressed the crimp. But I don't need to make a production tool, just a one off. I'll work up something and show it for comment.

I need to make a crimped liners tool. Has anyone ever made, or seen a good way to make a basic hand tool for creating crimped liners? A modified set of pliers? A toothed thing to use in a vise? Any ideas?

I made a video about a rib thickness stop jig I use to get even thickness on ribs. I thought those building celli without a drum sander for ribs might be interested. https://youtu.be/QpYYQzYh2RY

Awagami paper makes an injet line of kozo paper - You can find it here. Follow to an online store or in Japan I highly recommend calling them. Emails about sales get missed. They ship internationally through the online store. The inkjet kozo is top quality, and it comes in standard A-4 size which is easy and inexpensive to ship. All big enough for any instrument repair. http://www.awagami.com/aijp/index.html

You might want to become acquainted with Alan Carruth the guitarmaker and student of Carleen Hutchins. He's evaluated testing like that and can talk with great sophistication about the reasons why bowed instrument ribs benefit from being a little flexible vs. how stiffness effects guitar ribs. I can email him abut it if you like.

If you have not found a paper supplier- Awagami Factory in Tokushima - just call them. They make a few kinds of high quality Kozo's.

All between 75 and 70 cm...had them since 1998 One bass blank has grain swirl can be cut down to cello blank to avoid flaw. or not... Snakewood is plain. Bass 65 USD each Snake 50 - sell as set or bass as pair. Ships from Japan via Japan Post EMS service, 50.00 USD approx.to Europe or US.

Personality, you got......personality.......hahaha

Ceramics is exactly like the patterns and cycles James says. It has a natural flow. I also see that , and I see it right down to the way you move the tools over the wood. And the critical moments when you are voicing the top by taking less and less and analyzing were to stop is a time we don't spend all day with. All the prep work, sharpening, buys stuff, talking on the phone, joining tops, backs all that busy work is not spent in the critical minutes of the thicknessing. We do all this other stuff, and then comparatively spend very little time hands on at the most critical part. If only I could sit most of the day and voice a stack of tops and then see how they work, I'd learn a lot. I think this is why people turn to the idea of engineering as much guess work out of making, because we don't live in that sweet spot of the mindfulness of voicing the top and then seeing pretty quickly what that meant. I'm not being facetious by saying this, but I think 'over experimenter' type makers operate from a place of fear, as much as curiosity. I know some makers who really not makers, because they mostly get off on testing stuff. They are gageteers who use gagets on instruments. Myself, I find it tedious. I learned to make a particular kind of instrument from a teacher who was part of a tradition and I did not question the traditional alchemy. Then I studied up on why it works and learned some empirical sets of values why the tradition works, not I use it, but not as much as intuition backed by experience of trial and error. I've never been afraid to the point where I had to line up a great deal of empirical sound information in order to make something. I've always stayed close to traditional ways and occasionally done some really stupid things. I've looked at this for a fairly long time and I think the over thinking is fear based, and sometimes even causes 'analysis paralysis' - on the other hand some of the people that are down i the weeds if that stuff come out with pretty interesting discoveries about how instruments work. I think the ones I admire most at the makers who turn out lots of work and try to create sets of data. I certainly have benefitted from them.

The sound of different liners is one of those things that gets into anecdotal territory- There are reasons for using different styles that have o do with a few main factors - inside or outside mold? Neck glued to the top? Build body with top and back glued on before neck attachment - and so on depending on which type of guitar is being build. The liner may effect sound, but guitars like violins are super complex and isolating the liner as a component of sound is really difficult to maybe impossible. The debate or conversation around liners usually has to with stiffness of the rim of the body and ribs an dhow that effects the top and back. So liners factor into that, but it's a difficult thing to argue that one way of doing makes better sound. We know some general things like stiffer rib assemblies tend to be a platform that does not 'absorb' energy from the top and keeps the top working more independently. That effects the top modes in a general way that we can hear if we are working the other factors of construction to accentuate that stuff. Not stiffening the rim as much and using flexible ribs, makes for another kind of transference of energy to the ribs. Some sound is coming off the ribs and generally more flexible ribs have a characteristic drift to the sound. I was just explaining the different liners types because wanted to mention flat and crimped. I have not seen a violin with liners over the corner blocks, but I have seen celli and basses with crimped liners, but I can't honestly remember over the block liners, but it seems to stick in mind. Lot's of makers offer anecdotal reviews of stiff laminated liners that make the rim stiffer, but it's difficult to say if it's better.or even stiffer. I did an experiment where I set up a sample rib of the same material and thickness and glued tentalones to one rib and a beefy laminated liner to the other. Naturally the laminated liner rib was stiffer, and the rib with closely spaced blocks had a bit of flex. Then I glued a section of top wood over each rib, and the glue block rib stiffened up so it was as non-bendable as the laminated liner. Once the rib is locked into place with the top at 90 degrees to the rib, the top becomes a sheer panel and the assembly becomes stronger. Now all these other questions arise about whether corners should be stiff and heavy or stiff and light? Then other things come into play like where do you cut the line for the rim binding and purfling, and how much liner and block do you leave as the place where the top attaches to the ribs? If you make this stiff laminated rim and then cut into it, thus encroaching on how much wood the top 'hinges' on, what have you done to the sound? One thing that happens is the main top mode drops and so does the main air mode. When the purfling and binding are glued into the channel cut around the rim to accept them, the modes go back up. I say listen to the modes after the binding is on and see where they are and if they are radically off your calculations or where your design usually ends up you might be able to move them around with by some wood reductive means. But guitar making is simple right? HAHA The thing I grapple around and fumble and get frustrated with most about guitar making are guitarists. Speed is a factor, people buy those pre kerfed liners because they bend so nice and fit the bent ribs. Liners and tops also have a sonic relationship, but it's highly anecdotal to offer anything definite because globally the guitar is too complex.

There was a guy who developed a guitar saddle out of a kind of surgical aerospace composite graphite material. The way the company came at makers was with a condescending attitude, I think they even pitched a graphite violin bridge here. They price of the saddle was prohibitive and none were offered as learning samples. The product was kept as a proprietary secret and users were encouraged to ship the instrument to the maker for installation and paid $100.00 US for the saddle. Eventually no one liked the idea and it evaporated for now. It was really a problem in search of a solution. I'm always skeptical of these 'genius improvements', but these folks seem to be, by how they are being described, as genuine. I'm going to follow the progress of the product through the testing that has been proposed.