Wood resonance and the "Park Bench" Guitar

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/tonetipswoodresonancethe/

I particularly like paragraph 3 - "Sometimes a piece of wood just doesn?t want to be a guitar ? it wants to be a park bench".

I've tried out some of those in the shops. :roll:

Interesting point that Gibson is making now,
But in the begining it was something like this....
From the book Gibson Guitars - Ted McCarty's Golden Era, page 79

"Wood was one important consideration for the solidbody. The team tested different kinds and Allers worked with patternmakers on different types of bodies using different woods, An all-maple body had great sustain, but was deemed too heavy. An all-mahogany body didn't have enough sustain. So they tested various combinations to see how long a string would vibrate on a test fixture. McCarty described the test as simply attaching a string to two mounts on the body, plucking it, and measuring how long it would vibrate, In some cases, the string would vibrate for too long a period, and others for too short a period. Eventually, they found a suitable combination."

And all of this because it was quoted by Ted McCarty Page 74 "We got involved in the Les Paul solidbody because Leo copied one of Paul Bigsby's guitars. And as soon as we heard he had a solid body going on the market, I bought one from the company and we studied it. We had never made a solidbody - and he bolted the neck to the body, which was infamy as far as we were concerned. So we decided, about 1951, that we weren't going to let him have the whole market. So we decided to make a soldibody"

Interesting history, maybe Gibson should have explained it, how it actually was.

regards
Mick

That is interesting - thanks for the post.

How it actually is / was seems to keep changing depending on circumstances, and dare I say, sales.

Any views whether the now trumpeted tonal advantage of chambered and weight relieved bodies are down to justifying what is done to heavier wood supplies to keep guitar weights acceptable to the customer or is it just it was never tried before despite "swimming pool" cavity strats and semi-acoustics, etc., to hint at the possibilities?

it's true; some lumber just wants to be firewood & some guitars are worth about as much :lol: ..................

There will also be an element of companies justifying the use of the more exotic woods that are not sustianable i.e take hundreds of years to grow. Some companies will off set the non environmentally friendly models against the budget models. This way they can show and overall reduction in carbon footprint.

Is water based paint and laquer still being used by Fender. I may check out their environment policy on their website.