Is CF necessary?

You can ask questions here about Trevor and Gerard's exciting new book on Luthiery.

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joel
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Is CF necessary?

Post by joel » Tue Jul 11, 2017 6:51 pm

Hi all,

I'm interested in buying the books (perhaps as an early Xmas pressie to myself). I'm still on my first build, building to Cumpiano's book mainly (I started before these books came out. Its a long story...) But before I do, I'd like to know if carbon fiber and epoxy is required to build to the methods described? I don't think I've seen any images on the web of falcate braces without carbon fiber. I really don't want to use epoxy.

Cheers.
- If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs. - David Daye.

- The mouth of a happy man is filled with beer. -

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kiwigeo
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Re: Is CF necessary?

Post by kiwigeo » Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:55 pm

Joel,

To keep your bridge weight down to a minimum youre going to have to incorporate carbon fibre matting under the bridge patch and in the bridge itself on a Gore style steel string or in bridge only for a classical. if that's the case then you're going to be working with epoxy so you might as well incorporate the cf under and on top of the falcate bracing. It looks messy but with a bit of practice the bracing is not that hard to get done.....don't apply too much epoxy (the lower layer of cf will "float") and use a fine tipped paintbrush to move the cf tow around and splay out the ends.
Martin

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Trevor Gore
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Re: Is CF necessary?

Post by Trevor Gore » Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:05 pm

The books provide design and building methodologies that can be used to design and build just about any type of flat-top guitar. The design book talks about how guitars work in a quantitative fashion, whilst the build book illustrates the techniques using four designs, two classical and two steel string. The traditional designs (X and fan) use just wood, the contemporary designs (falcate and lattice) take advantage of modern materials (CF and epoxy) to get a significant performance boost. Whilst the falcate design and build occupies only a small section of the book, it seems to be the part that has excited people the most. I put the falcate design in to show that there can be much more to steel string guitars than just X-bracing. All the methodologies are there so you can come up with your own designs, with or without epoxy. You choose!

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kiwigeo
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Re: Is CF necessary?

Post by kiwigeo » Wed Jul 12, 2017 12:00 pm

I love epoxy...I love coming inside after a few hours in the shed epoxying up falcate braces. I love reaching into the fridge for the bottle of Guniness.......once it's stuck to your hand you've got no choice but to drink the whole bottle!! :gui :gui
Martin

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joel
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Re: Is CF necessary?

Post by joel » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:33 pm

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback.
- If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs. - David Daye.

- The mouth of a happy man is filled with beer. -

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