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On an earlier guitar I had some cracking issues while bending the macassar ebony sides. I decided to line them with 3 ply aircraft plywood. They turned out very sturdy and the guitar sounds great.

Now I am considering lining future sides just for the added rigidity and strength and I find it hard to imagine that anything could be better suited as lining material than the plywood. It's very strong, bends easy and is only .75 mm thick. However I hesitate because I worry that the word "plywood" will turn potential customers away as they associate that with a guitar of lower quality. Any comments or opinions?

Thanks,
Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I make my own laminated sides with tone wood on the outside and commercial veneer for the inner plys. This allows me to select the interior show face from something that looks nice and doesn't visually look out of place. Also, I can orient the grain direction of the inner layers in a fashion that I think enhances the tone. Using the aircraft ply doesn't provide many options regarding the look and grain direction, but it sounds like it's working for you.

Barry,

Yes, the "look" is something I should have added as a detriment as well as the term "plywood". I can't think of a way to make it look good. I have considered a dark stain. Never-the-less, I still think that structurally, it may be the best.

Not sure what you meant by "orieinting the grain of the inner layers to enhance the tone". By that do you mean in a way to make the sides most rigid or something different?

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I use "capped" linings and they essentially do this as well. They look better than plywood, but structurally they would be similar. I am a big believer in stiff rims.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Brock,

Thanks for the picture - I like the look of your linings although I don't know what you mean by "capped". Can you explain? What are your linings made of? Are they dyed or stained or painted? It looks to me like the colour extends right over their edge as I can see black between your kerfed linings and your sides. So is the colour all through the wood?

I don't want to get off topic, but as an aside I will mention that I have been using the plywood for side bracing. It's thin enough that I run strips of it the whole width of the side before I put on the kerfed linings. This avoids a stress point between the side brace and the lining when using braces that go only between the linings. Mostly for appearance, on top of the plywood braces, after the lining has been installed, I put the same wood as the sides (that I got when trimming the sides to size). I think this looks good and works well, but structurally not as well as having fully lined sides.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I can shoot some pics of them before they are installed. But essentially they are 2 pieces. The bottom piece is a kerfed lining with the webbing glued to the side of the guitar (you can see the tops of the kerfs in my pic). The lining has a rabbet cut into it and a secondary solid "cap" is then glued in.

Those are made of basswood, but you can make them out of anything.. mahogany, cedar, etc.

Paul Woolson turned me on to those, and he got the idea from Charles Fox. It really stiffens up the rim a lot. The only two downsides IMO are 1) They are time consuming to install. 2) They don't go around venetian cutaways well. But other than that I love them.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Gotcha covered on that one Brock. I already have some pics of mine. Charles Fox taught me about these.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Ah, OK, I know what you mean - no need for additional pics on that, thanks.

I've been talking about fulling lining the sides of the guitar ("double" sides if you will) whereas you were talking about lining your linings. But looking at your picture, I also had thought you had done double sides. At the edge I am seeing your linings, a black line (like the inside of your sides) and a brown line (which I took to be the outside wood of your sides). Am I not seeing it right, and if so, I go back to the other questions in my previous post, i.e. what is the wood and its treatment on the inside of your sides?

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Yeah, I do double sides too. What you are seeing is an exterior side of Macassar Ebony and an interior side of African Blackwood. Both are around .04" thick.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Wow, no wonder it looks good. May I ask why you use African Blackwood to double your sides?

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I had some extra sides of it. In general I try to use premium tonewood for the interior sides. Most are good quality but sometimes have some small cosmetic issues (this set had a number of worm holes that needed to be fixed). I generally use Mahogany or EIR, but because this guitar was ebony I wanted something black.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com