Cafe wall guitar
- Peter Wilcox
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- Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:31 am
- Location: Northeastern California
Cafe wall guitar
A friend of mine made a cutting board using the cafe wall illusion http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ang-cafewall/ so I thought I'd try a guitar. Note that though all the lines are parallel or perpendicular, they appear to be wedge shaped. The illusion works best on the back, where there are no interruptions of the pattern.
Woods are alder, walnut and myrtle for the body, alder and walnut neck, and maple fret board. I have a bunch of leftover Fenderish parts, so I used a strat body and headstock shape, tele bridge, control plate, and pickup configuration, tele type rail split coil bridge pu, strat type rail split coil neck pu, 5 way switch giving bridge humbucker, bridge single coil, one coil each from neck and bridge, neck single coil, and neck humbucker.
Finish is sprayed gloss Zar water based polyurethane.
Woods are alder, walnut and myrtle for the body, alder and walnut neck, and maple fret board. I have a bunch of leftover Fenderish parts, so I used a strat body and headstock shape, tele bridge, control plate, and pickup configuration, tele type rail split coil bridge pu, strat type rail split coil neck pu, 5 way switch giving bridge humbucker, bridge single coil, one coil each from neck and bridge, neck single coil, and neck humbucker.
Finish is sprayed gloss Zar water based polyurethane.
Maybe I can't fix it, but I can fix it so no one can fix it
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
I like the strips of wood in between the rows. I think it helps with the optical illusion.
The fingerboard is interesting also.
Nice.
The fingerboard is interesting also.
Nice.
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- Peter Wilcox
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- Location: Northeastern California
Re: Cafe wall guitar
Thanks Gordon. Actually, the strips are absolutely necessary for the illusion.
Maybe I can't fix it, but I can fix it so no one can fix it
- Jim McConkey
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
Cool illusion! I assume you glued the light and dark layers in stripes, then sliced and offset? Any construction pics?
MIMForum Staff - Way North of Baltimore
- Peter Wilcox
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
Correct. When I did the offset, I inserted the myrtle strips between them.Jim McConkey wrote:Cool illusion! I assume you glued the light and dark layers in stripes, then sliced and offset? Any construction pics?
Alder and walnut cut to 2x2. The 2nd one is for a matching bass. Glued and sanded. Sliced and offset, with myrtle strips inserted, then glued and sanded to 1.75" thickness. Body roughed out with bandsaw.
Maybe I can't fix it, but I can fix it so no one can fix it
- Barry Daniels
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- Peter Wilcox
- Posts: 1317
- Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:31 am
- Location: Northeastern California
Re: Cafe wall guitar
I got the matching bass done. The illusion is not so prominent on this one - same pattern, same wood, same finish - I don't know why. I'm pretty much satisfied nonetheless. It was interesting.
Maybe I can't fix it, but I can fix it so no one can fix it
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
..ohhh...nice job...but if it moves I think it'll make me seasick.. )
- Karl Wicklund
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
My list of Things To Build is already longer than I could accomplish in two more lifetimes, but this gives me the itch. Thanks for sharing!
Kaptain Karl
- Bryan Bear
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
Very Cool!
I wonder if the effect on the bass is less because it is longer compared to the width? Is the effect more or less pronounced with smaller sections (relative to the total surface area)?
I wonder if the effect on the bass is less because it is longer compared to the width? Is the effect more or less pronounced with smaller sections (relative to the total surface area)?
PMoMC
Take care of your feet and your feet will take care of you.
Take care of your feet and your feet will take care of you.
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
Wondering the same thing.Bryan Bear wrote:Very Cool!
I wonder if the effect on the bass is less because it is longer compared to the width? Is the effect more or less pronounced with smaller sections (relative to the total surface area)?
Re: Cafe wall guitar
Those are great Peter!
Really cool!
Really cool!
Ever-body was kung fu fight-in,
Them kids was fast as light-nin.
Them kids was fast as light-nin.
- Peter Wilcox
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
Well, I've figured out why the bass doesn't show much of the illusion, but not how it happened. It's not the length of the checkerboard or the shape/squareness of them. Here's a stretched pic of the guitar, still showing the illusion:
The effect is dependent on the relative brightness of the intervening strips as compared to the light and dark squares, needing to be intermediate between the two. Somehow the brightness of some of the myrtlewood strips on the bass finished very close to that of the alder, especially on the left side in the pic below. The illusion is absent on the left, and somewhat blunted on the right. I don't know why this happened - maybe grain orientation or variation in the figure of the wood I cut them from. Anyway, I should have used a darker wood like mahogany.
The effect is dependent on the relative brightness of the intervening strips as compared to the light and dark squares, needing to be intermediate between the two. Somehow the brightness of some of the myrtlewood strips on the bass finished very close to that of the alder, especially on the left side in the pic below. The illusion is absent on the left, and somewhat blunted on the right. I don't know why this happened - maybe grain orientation or variation in the figure of the wood I cut them from. Anyway, I should have used a darker wood like mahogany.
Maybe I can't fix it, but I can fix it so no one can fix it
- Bryan Bear
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Re: Cafe wall guitar
Interesting. To my eye, the effect is definitely present in the stretched out pic. I wouldn't have thought about the color differential. I suppose one would need to choose wood for color and keep future color changes in mind. Perhaps the myrtle will darken in time.
PMoMC
Take care of your feet and your feet will take care of you.
Take care of your feet and your feet will take care of you.
- Peter Wilcox
- Posts: 1317
- Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:31 am
- Location: Northeastern California
Re: Cafe wall guitar
Bryan, it's not the color but the relative luminance (brightness or darkness) between the "tiles" and the "mortar lines" that determines the degree of the illusion. Here's the interactive site I referenced at the beginning of this thread where you can change different parameters to see how they affect the illusion.
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ang-cafewall/
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ang-cafewall/
Maybe I can't fix it, but I can fix it so no one can fix it