Thread: The Great Debate

Excellent workmanship wayne, nice looking guitars.
As for the subject on necks customer feed back I have received plus luthiers I have spoke with all say the neck is very importent for tone.
Cheers,Bob

My experience with acoustics has been that the choice of material for the neck has more influence on the sustain of the instrument rather than it's tone.

Please explain Martin.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

My experience with acoustics has been that the choice of material for the neck has more influence on the sustain of the instrument rather than it's tone.

In simplest terms the energy from a vibrating string exits (via the nut as well as the saddle. The energy transmitted via the nut is absorbed by the neck..the degree to which the energy is absorbed depends to a large degree on the density of the neck wood. A high density neck wood (eg mahogany) doesnt absorb much of the string energy thus the string vibrates longer (= high sustain). A less dense neck wood (eg Spanish Cyprus) absorbs alot more of the string energy and the string doesnt vibrate for as long (=less sustain).

You can do a little experiment where you clamp a G clamp to the headstock of your acoustic guitar and see how it changes the sustain of the instrument.

Thanks for the information Martin, interesting.
Have you ever used blackwood for a neck.?
Cheers,Bob

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

In simplest terms the energy from a vibrating string exits (via the nut as well as the saddle. The energy transmitted via the nut is absorbed by the neck..the degree to which the energy is absorbed depends to a large degree on the density of the neck wood. A high density neck wood (eg mahogany) doesnt absorb much of the string energy thus the string vibrates longer (= high sustain). A less dense neck wood (eg Spanish Cyprus) absorbs alot more of the string energy and the string doesnt vibrate for as long (=less sustain).

You can do a little experiment where you clamp a G clamp to the headstock of your acoustic guitar and see how it changes the sustain of the instrument.

Bob,
Thanks for the comments, much appreciated, i take my Instrument building very seriously, i hope it shows.

Just a bit of history --dribble--about how i decided to get serious about becoming a Luthier, if i am yet. Not that anyone is interested by the way.
All this started for me many years ago now, i started making electric guitars in about 1976 & by about 1984 or so i thought i was getting somewhere, little did i know then that i still had no idea.
At the time & until about 1990 i lived in Sydney & around 84 from memory i decided i would try to show my Guitars to an English Guitarist that was going to play a concert at the Horden Pavilion in Sydney.
So i grabbed one of my angled headstock guitars that i was very proud of & off i went, little did i know then of how hard it actually was to get to meet these blokes i was only a kid really.

Anyway after many hours of trying to convince bull headed security guards with foreheads like frankenstien that i needed to show my Guitar to the Englishman they told me to beat it.

Not being able to think of anything else the bloke at the main gate told me to go to where he was staying so i did & one of the bell boys or whatever you call them was very helpful & said he would leave my guitar behind the front desk & make sure he got it. Well i jumped for joy i tell ya, finally i thought he would get to have a look.

I was wrong, the bell boy told him but he said like a true Englishman, i haven't got time for that.
So i grabbed the guitar & went around the back to sit for a while & he had a driver there so i just walked up to him & said i had a delivery for him but no one would let me deliver the thing haha, it worked he got my name etc & he took it upstairs to deliver it.
Thank god for that because if i had of had the nerve i would have tried to climb the outside of the building ha, i was determined.

After about four hours in the early hours of the morning a door opened & my guitar hero at the time walked over to me & asked if i made the guitar, i answered yeees with a big nervous lump in my throat.

He said he was impressed & if i could make one with a similar tone but with a different Fender style neck on it of a style he prefered that he may add it to his collection.

Well bugger me, i thought for a moment & said that it wasn't possible to supply a guitar with a similar tone with a totally different neck.
He just turned around & walked off & when he got to the door he turned & said, i'll never forget this.
He said, what are you a Carpenter or a Luthier, think about it & when you have it right i'll be interested.
Well broke my damn heart i tell ya & in the true Aussie kid spirit i replied, what would you know your only a Pom hahaha!

From that day on i decided to be able to produce guitars with a variety of necks all with a very similar tone & the quest began.
Another 10yrs past & finally i was getting some results & from then on i now have a full understanding of what i require regarding this & the raw materials i use.

I gave all this away a few years back as there was a serious illness in the family & my heart wasn't in it any more but times have changed again & i'm back with a vengance & am now i'm not to healthy myself but we shall carry on regardless until the end.

The two guitars shown in the pictures are my Signature Series as mentioned developed over many many years.
The Guitar with the angled headstock has a laminated neck of three differing species & the other has a solid Qld maple neck.

Now years ago i would use the same necks & the end result was the maple neck made a much brigther sounding guitar to bright in some cases.
Now however i can produce Instruments with a very similar sounding Timbre to them with differing necks. (within a set range i have). There not exact of course but gees there close every time now.

Enough dribble for the moment, i will attach an Audio sample of a simple scale test i do of the two guitars, nothing changed setting wise in the recordings just unplug one & plug the other in.
You will hear slight differences but there close considering the totally different neck materials.

As "kiwigeo" has already mentioned, the sustain characteristics of the guitars are different due to the neck timbers. Although there are more reasons besides density playing a part, more on this later & of course it's only my personal opinion on things & in this world that don't add up to much, you have to make your own mind up.

Which one is the Maple neck?

WayneW
Linguist Guitars

Well good on you Wayne, for having the balls.
A man to my own liking persistent, persevere, never give up your dream just like me.
You will get there in the end.
As you would already know there is some great builders in this forum, Perrry included and we all have different veiws but thats good, we can all learn from each other we just have to learn to keep our cool now and then, maybe we should smoke peace pipes.
By the way I had a listen to the sound bytes and I can not work out what one has the maple neck. you should use blackwood from me of course much better.
Cheers,Bob

LOL nice story wayne

Gday Guy's,

Bob,

Yes there are a lot of people with different idea's & i agree that's good & it's needed.
I haven't used Blackwood as a Neck material before but you got me thinking & i might try a piece i think & do some testing with it. It will make an interesting exercise.

As i mentioned in another thread, sometimes things may sound a bit blunt reading things with no verbal expression associated with the words.
I for one don't lose my cool reading a couple of words nor do i express any anger towards anyone, if things sound a bit blunt sometimes from my side it's usually a lack of wanting to fill in the gaps in the writing--lazy--especially when my replies are about 4 miles long as it is hahaha!.

Gday Andy B

Yeah it's funny what life dishes out sometimes & then what path you take due to circumstances. Make sure you keep up the good work or i'll be abusing you to
just a joke!
Actually i like tuning in to all you young fella's & see how your things are progressing, all it takes is inspiration & dedication & the rest is history.

WayneW
Linguist Guitars

Originally Posted by WayneW

Gday Andy B

Yeah it's funny what life dishes out sometimes & then what path you take due to circumstances. Make sure you keep up the good work or i'll be abusing you to
just a joke!
Actually i like tuning in to all you young fella's & see how your things are progressing, all it takes is inspiration & dedication & the rest is history.

WayneW
Linguist Guitars

well us young blokes have a different veiw on instruments now... well i do
times have changed, and so has music,
since i and alot of my mates play more along the lines of metal/heavy stuff, my instruments reflect that,
thin necks, big frets, smaller thinner more contoured bodies, as low an action as possible, lack of heel, and soon i will be doing baritone scale lengths and possibly a fanned fret prototype soon and a headless has been comissioned...

i personally stay out of these type of covo's cause i havnt experienced alot of timbers yet, im busy testing how little heel i can get away with, and how thin a neck i can pull off before its too weak, how thin i can get a body but still have a nice balance, etc
im very keen on taking my building further, and i will continue without getting caught on the wood/tone subjects for now

Gday Guys,

I have had to remove some images for the time being as this morning i recieved a phone call from a fairly large manufacturer wanting to see if i would like to sell my business, designs, patents & all related data.

They are at the moment considering to make me an offer on everything, this will be interesting, if nothing comes of it i will add the images etc again.

Andy B
Haha, the young blokes these days have different views on everything, some good some bad.
Yes your correct times do change, i get where your coming from with the Metal etc, i grew up with Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath & the like & still listen to them all.
I think the neck thickness will depend on what strings you will use, obviously the heavier the string the more the strain as you'll know.
I would look into some sort of carbon fibre reinforcement or some inserts of an extremely strong timber would be my choice, then you can go really thin in the neck.
There are some older guitars that have extremely fine necks as well.

Some of todays music seems to be set around electronics, effects etc, i appreciate all styles of music, some i like more than others. I am more into blues these days, when you get older & start head bashing to music you can feel your brain rattling around & it doesn't do much good.

WayneW
Linguist Guitars

Hey Wayne, can you point us to your patents? I searched for Wayne Linquist, and nothing comes up. Every patent ever registered is listed on the web, thats part of the patent process. Would love to see some of your ideas.

Gday rhoads56 or Perry if i'm correct?

Just let me see how i go with these guy's making me an offer for my business first if that's ok, i wouldn't like to share what they may consider to be proprietry information if you get my drift.

If nothing comes of it i will certainly give you some Patent information via PM though not on the forum, i have two Patents.
Just one hint about Patents, your correct every Patent is available to everybody via the internet these days, & for anyone registering a Patent this is a huge issue with many people copying things easily from these.
The idea is if you yourself want to Patent anything make sure you use wording for the Patent that really has no distinct direct connection to what you are doing & make it hard to find, bury it as deep as you can, a good Patent Attorney can do this easily.
Eg:
Method of etc etc or like some of Fenders Patents for some of there amplifiers, they use some of there Technicians names etc on there Patents--hard to find.
Many companies via there Patent Attorneys word things so they can never be found unless you stumble upon them. This is a smart idea especially today, as you can imaging once you register a patent then everybody knows what your doing so it's all in the wording to protect your interests as much as the Patent itself.

I will keep you informed for sure, only to glad if i can help in anyway.

WayneW
Linguist Guitars

G'Day Wayne, You are correct that rhoads56 is Perry Just so that you know Perry is Ormsby guitars and is one of the best electric guitar builders in Australia.
Now I can understand you want to keep things secret at the moment as Perry also keeps some of his building tricks secret, and this is fair enough in this big wide world of the internet one has to be very careful what one say's.
Cheers Bob

Originally Posted by WayneW

Gday rhoads56 or Perry if i'm correct?

Just let me see how i go with these guy's making me an offer for my business first if that's ok, i wouldn't like to share what they may consider to be proprietry information if you get my drift.

If nothing comes of it i will certainly give you some Patent information via PM though not on the forum, i have two Patents.
Just one hint about Patents, your correct every Patent is available to everybody via the internet these days, & for anyone registering a Patent this is a huge issue with many people copying things easily from these.
The idea is if you yourself want to Patent anything make sure you use wording for the Patent that really has no distinct direct connection to what you are doing & make it hard to find, bury it as deep as you can, a good Patent Attorney can do this easily.
Eg:
Method of etc etc or like some of Fenders Patents for some of there amplifiers, they use some of there Technicians names etc on there Patents--hard to find.
Many companies via there Patent Attorneys word things so they can never be found unless you stumble upon them. This is a smart idea especially today, as you can imaging once you register a patent then everybody knows what your doing so it's all in the wording to protect your interests as much as the Patent itself.

I will keep you informed for sure, only to glad if i can help in anyway.

WayneW
Linguist Guitars