Hey, I have a few questions about acoustic woods.
First is, what exactly does solid mean? What makes a solid sitka spruce top and solid mohagany back different from just a spruce top and mohagany back?
I have heard that solid woods age better than non solid woods. I've also heard that the tone will actually improve as it ages. Is this true? If it is true, why do they get better sounding as they get older, and why do only solid woods do this?
Thanks if you can help me understand any of this, and feel free to point out any missinformation I might have about something.
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Hi,
"Solid" means that it is a single piece of wood all the way through and not plywood. The cheaper guitars are made of plywood, which is thin layers of wood glued together.
The most crucial part of the acoustic guitar is the top, as that's where most of the important vibrating happens (to put it all in rough terms. :) ). I have been told that the most important parts of the body are the top, the back and the sides in that order. So cheaper guitars are all plywood. The next ones up the ladder have solid tops, the next have solid tops and solid backs as well.
With a plywood top you are dealing with different layers of wood and also with the resins that are bonding it all together. The grain in plywood also tends to run in different directions with each layer, to help make it stronger.
So the "aging" is complicated by the fact that you may have different woods running in different directions, plus a bunch of glue, all fogging the issue.
Does the tone of solid wood improve with age? Apparently yes, in general. However, I would imagine that, as with most things, there would not be a cast iron certainty about that. Some woods, or individual pieces may not perform as well as others, and some may reach a peak earlier than others.
Why? Well, we all get better with age. I'm positively antique and I'm darned near perfect now... :P Actually, I don't know. But I have read that they don't "age" with time alone, they must be played. Apparently some manufacturers attempt to "age" their instruments by subjecting them to a steady diet of generated tones for a while. What this does exactly seems to be a mixture of science and witchcraft. :twisted:
Maybe somebody else here knows just what it all does to the fibres of the wood?
Cheers, Chris
The wood fibers lose moisture. That actually makes the top thinner, and puts it under internal tension as they shrink.
The less mass there is in an acoustic top, the more efficient it's going to be in transmitting the string vibrations. And as luthier Dana Bougeois has said, a perfect guitar is right on the edge of ripping itself apart.
Laminated tops also lose moisture, but two factors keep it from developing as much as a solid top - first, the layers of glue prevent a lot of the moisture loss on the inner layer(s), second the grain in laminated wood switches direction - you'll have the top piece aligned with the neck, but the piece under it goes sideways. Coupled with the glue, that's going to limit the amount of internal tension a top can develop.
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