MIMF

A bit OT, sorry. In case you are wondering that guitar is a late '30s built in the former Czechoslovakia. In Schönbach to be precise (renamed as Luby after the WWII). It seems to be an Albo (ALred BOrst) No. 23. In the '37 catalog it's described as all solid woods and carved, but I've seen many vari...

The problem is that bridge rocking of that sort is, at best, unimportant on an arch top. That's how I understand it too. Floating bridges don't rock that much, if any. So I still don't get the reasonings behind using transversally wide bridge feet other than adding mass. Some other guys talk about ...

We're not really dealing with a 'wave' phenomenon here, just a varying force, IMO. The bottom line, IMO, is that for most arch top bridges you can treat them as a 'lump' of a certain mass without too much danger of leaving anything out. The mass adds to that of the top, determining resonant frequen...

I tend to prefer single piece bridges over mutiple part ones. Of course there's always exceptions. But I've never thought too much about it or the causes for it in other terms than overall weight/mass, stiffness (floating bridges on arched tops are still braces somehow, aren't they?), impedance (whe...

Be careful what you ask for: I could go on about this stuff for a long time. Well, I don't see the problem. Always ready for a good reading LOL. But you are right, I should have been more precise. I was trying to ask about bracing as per the original quote. From what I've seen 'parallel' bracing se...

From what I've seen 'parallel' bracing seems to produce a more 'bass balanced' timbre than X-bracing. Wow, really? That goes against what's generally accepted out there as a kind of dogma since the '30s when Gibson made of it a thing and D'Agelico and later D'Aquisto followed. Please, Alan. Would y...

One of the best archtops I've played and owned is a '50s laminated Bräuer (former Czechoslovakia). Not a budget guitar at all. Built to high standards. The key is how you laminate the plates. They are commonly 4 or 5 plies of very specific thicknessings and spices.

Solomon uses three fingers kinda fan for his great Phidelity. Old Gibsons had parallel (more an inverted Vee than actually parallel) before the X was introduced by the early '30s. does size of the oval hole change tone/volume Of course, like in any guitar. Smaller holes soud bassier, big holes sound...

Kinda Guild M75 meets Parker or something like that.... Beauuutiful instrument. Truly charming. Great job!

It looks gorgeous. Great job! +1 on walnut for back and sides. Love it for archtops or any kind of guitars. +1000 on good local woods. No need for exotic tonewoods given you can get good stuff localy. Around here (Spain). you can get excellent native walnut, pearwood, cherry, cypress... who needs co...

[...] But it will also sound like plywood, i.e. bad. We use a book matched top so the wood is symmetrical across the center seam, but you can do it with one piece if you can find one big enough. [...] Arch tops are carved from thick pieces of wood, not pressed into shape. Well...the cheap plywood a...

The bigger ones, the C series, had a special body shape that later became the OM size for the flat-tops. Yes, that size was developed for archtops first. The R series... I cannot remember it now for sure. I think they were 00 bodies. AFAIK... Oh and the scarcer top end F series were a special size u...

Interesting reading. Thanks for sharing, Alan.

What a beauty.

Yep, this is of great help.

http://collinsguitar.com/carruth-plate-tuning-dvd

Perhaps trying to get the bridge to tail distance down to 6", but I'd worry about losing sound. I played an Eastman El Rey in a shop that had 6" bridge to tail and I liked the feel of it a lot. But it had almost no acoustic sound for a variety of reasons. Don't be afraid of that. Strings ...

For laminated check ACME as well.

http://www.acme-archtops.com/

Ah, Ok. Now I got it. Thanks for clarifying.

Never tried a spruce bridge. I guess it deserves at least a go. Spruce has relatively low density so in certain way I guess what to expect from it, but it has a wonderful ringing or resonance. Seems like something to try.

Dennis, I have a similar solution for the bridge of my archtop; bone saddle over hardwood bridge. It is only a hypothesis, but after observation of both the saddle and nut in refining the action setup, I noticed indentations at both the bridge and saddle that seem to indicate the windings of the st...

Hey, Dennis. Have you put a bone saddle on top or is it just bare wood contacting the strings? I'm wondering.... Isn't spruce too soft for that use?