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Hi.
Like the thread title asks, i'd like to hear from those who build without radius dishes.
I have been up until now an electric guitar and bass builder, but recently I built a kind of crossover instrument that worked out really well.
This year I'd like to move into the acoustic world, but there's a lot of tooling up I need to do for this. I will eventually get some radius dishes, but for the first couple I'd like to avoid the cost. I've seen threads here and elsewhere on making your own with a router, but frankly couldn't wrap my head around it, even with a pictorial to guide me, so I'm not interested in that route. When I get around to them, they'll be purchased.
So if you build, or have built steel string guitars without the use of a radius dish, I'd appreciate as much input as you can give me.
Thanks.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I made my first 3 with cauls made from 1" MDF & deep throat clamps.

It's tedious because you can only glue one brace at a time but it works.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I build with no molds , radius dishes, or bending machines. My top and back are not true radii but rather a compound parabolic shape. I radius any braces that need it prior to gluing to the plates with a jig on a router table. I have some cork lined radiused cauls that I use for support when I glue the braces with go-bars. I keep the top of the rims flat at the edge where it meets the top and shape the back side of them to a template using a block plane and spokeshave after they are glued to the top.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I have built without but......
My advice to you would be that the best items you can make or buy for acoustic building are a go bar deck and radius dishes
And I reckon the price you can buy dishes for makes building your own uneconomic.

But the most important item you need is humidity control

On big advantage to the go bar and dishes , you run a lower risk of racking the body. Of the biggest issues I see on beginners is
1 fit and finish
2 body geometry
3 racked or warped bodies.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Yeah, I think go bars would be great; fast, accurate, and easy to use. But, for just starting out, I went the more labor intensive but definately cheaper route: I just cut the curve into some 2X4's. I made 4 segments, and kept both pieces matching.

When my back dried and bowed the wrong way, I dried it again clamped in these pieces. It helped. Here is a picture of me gluing on the braces. You can't really see it in the photo, but those strips the back is resting on are cut to the back's radius. Yeah, takes a little longer, but not so bad as you learn. Trust me, I've made two of these!

One of these days, I would like to have the dishes...

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

Thanks, guys. Spyder, I think that might work. I saw a well known luthier (I want to say John Arnold, but I'm probably wrong)do something similar for the X braces on the top.
Thank to all who've replied so far.
To address some of the issues Bluescreek mentioned, I'll have to check and double check, but I'll also be building a body mold, so that will help keep things square a well, I think.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I've never used radius dishes before. I just arch the braces and clamp them with a back slat for a caul. And actually I've been building flat lately.

While it is possible to build without a go bar deck and radius dishes, John from Bluescreek is 200 percent correct. The addition of having a radius dish and go bar deck will dramatically improve the chance of having a uniform consistent instrument. A body mold will help to hold everything together but it is also a matter of focusing the sound for which consistently glued braces help alot. Even if you arch your braces and use similarly arched cauls, that is not the same as gluing all your braces to a consistent geometry.

I build classical guitars so my dish for my top is my solera and I couldnt imagine building without one. For my backs I use a regular radius dish. Neither would I do (but have done in the past) without a go bar deck.

I've actually thought of doing that. But I think there's some merit in the stiffness and strength the arch brings. But I have been consdering a flat top and arched back. Stll trying to decide.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I build freeform. Arch braces and clamp with a flexible slat to help distribute the pressure a bit. Bend sides on a pipe, and glue those to the soundboard with dentellones. My sides usually end up not quite perfectly vertical all around, but it doesn't hurt anything other than visual.

I mainly just don't want to go to the trouble of making molds. I don't have space to store them, and I like to make different shapes all the time so I'd end up with tons of them, many only ever being used one time. Big waste of plywood, time, and space, especially since I enjoy the hands-on feel of freeform building anyway.

If you desire to build with dishes but just don't have the money... then save up the money and buy one. There are definite technical advantages, and if that's what calls to you then the freeform style will feel barbaric and time consuming

Thanks, all of you. All the advice and comments ae greatly appeciated.
Dennis, thanks. It's not so much that building with radius dishes "calls to me", but rather that it seems most threads , pics or discussions on the net seem to focus around them and a go-bar deck. When you're new to acoustic building and trying to figue out what you need, you tend to rely on whatever info you can grab.
But anybody who has seen any of my electric builds knows that I build with minimal tools and fixtures, and tend to find my own way of doing things.
Which is the purpose of this thread; to explore all of my options, and find what works for me.
I'm certain that as I progress in building acoustics my preferences will change. Right now I'm just looking for the most economical way to build, same as I did for the electric. I don't mind replacing a convenient or cost-prohibitive tool with "sweat equity" in the process.
I also don't expect perfection from my first acoustic build. I'll strive for it, but am fully grounded in reality.
I've got a lot to learn yet. This is a great place to learn it.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Ah, in that case, maybe you would enjoy the freeform style. Give it a try and find out No investment other than the bending pipe, which you'd probably end up needing eventually even if you do use a heat blanket bender. Mine is a 3" diameter scrap from a muffler shop mounted to a board with L brackets and bolts, with an electric charcoal starter squeezed in a vise until it fits inside, and run through a dimmer switch for temperature control. About $25 total, I think.

Yeah, I fully intend to bend on a hot pipe. My shop inside my home is 8' X 10', so space is also an issue. Which is another reason I'm looking for alternatives. No room for a bending machine. I'd be hard pressed to find room for two radius dishes and a go-bar deck. I need the space to store wood.
I do all the dirty work on my front porch.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

a +1 on all points (except that my sides have ended quite a bit off-vertical... ) i do use a solera, though.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

FWIW I've built over 50 guitars roughly according to the same method which as I said was with arching the braces and clamping the soundboard around that arch. I started reading about builders who build true flat tops so I thought I'd give it a try. I am on my third now, the first was IMO the very best sounding steel string guitar I've built to date. I have no idea if the true flat top has anything to do with that but I am going to continue down that path for a bit at least experimentally.

It doesn't really make it any easier to build flat, sure you have one less step in arching the braces but I can do that in about ten - fifteen plane strokes. So don't think of it as a lazy mans way out. Also I have made the neck angle a bit more steep to account for the natural pull of the top so that the saddle can be reduced in the future as the top takes on an arch from string tension.

[quote="jfmckenna"
FWIW I've built over 50 guitars roughly according to the same method which as I said was with arching the braces and clamping the soundboard around that arch. I started reading about builders who build true flat tops so I thought I'd give it a try. I am on my third now, the first was IMO the very best sounding steel string guitar I've built to date. I have no idea if the true flat top has anything to do with that but I am going to continue down that path for a bit at least experimentally. [/quote]
Are you using any arch to the back, or building flat like the top?
I've read a lot here and elsewhere about some builders building with a true flat top, but all of them that I know of build with a radius to the back. I am considering a true flat top.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

the "radius dish" is the same concept as the "solera", correct...?

How do you deal with getting the fingerboard extension to lay flat on the upper bout? One of the nice things about building with a dome is that it naturally tilts the upper bout back to match the neck angle. To get 1/2" string height at the bridge with a flat top, it seems like you'd either need a wedge under the fingerboard extension, or some funky geometry to angle just the upper bout back.


Sort of... They're typically used somewhat differently, though. Mainly because the solera was developed for classical guitars, and radius dish for steel strings.

like dennis said, soleras are mainly used in building classical guitars in the "spanish style" (sides go inside slots at the heel block, which is continuous with the neck). most (if not all) soleras i´ve seen are radiused (hollowed or concave are probably better words, as many times they do not follow a precise radius) only at the lower bout area and up until the middle of the soundhole (or the lower harmonic bar in some cases), and the edges are kept flat to better accommodate flat peones/dentellones. Neck angle is usually pre-fix into them. So both are workboards where the top can be domed and braced, but rather different implementation and m.o., IMHO.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I built my radius dishes, moulds and go-bar deck from scrap wood from a skip, cost me nothing. If you glue braces on with slats you need to buy quite a few cam clamps which are expensive (but the more clamps the better so worth buying).
All styles of building are great and it's good to switch from one to the other as you can learn something unique from all of them.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

No Radius Dish Here .

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Or here...

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

As Jeff said above, RH control is more important than the radius, since radii come and go with RH. Which raises another approach: if the top acclimates to reduced RH and is glued flat, it will make a dome/arch above that RH. Bob T suggested that for our student project guitars, and we've used it successfully for 3 years. For tops, I use 38-40% RH to give a small dome at 50%.

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David Malicky

Yes the back I do indeed arch. String tension on the top tends to keep the sound board honest, if you will, in other words it tends to want to pull a dome into the top. If the back was flat then it would be more tempted to go concave and or convex depending on conditions. Pluss it strengthens it and a finish gleams off an arched back nicer



I have not had any problems with this. I set the neck angle and bolt on the neck and glue down the fretboard tongue. Then I plane the arch in the fretboard and this takes out most of the fall away. I can still see a bit of fall away but it's really not an issue. I suppose I would rethink that for a cut away where you want the action to be low all the way to the 18th fret or so.