BACK
|
Why tops? you may ask… Well, in the mid 1800’s Torres, a very well known Spanish Classical Guitar maker, and one of the pioneers of the Fan brace system said, "the top was the most important part of the guitar", and to prove his point he made a guitar (now in the Granada museum) with a great top and paper maché back and sides. This is a well known legend and the guitar has a good sound to this day.
Now after 30 years of guitar making I fully agree with him.
In September of 2004 I flew to Italy and Germany and spent days in each place going through literally thousands of tops. I am happy to take you on a little tour of some of these wood suppliers.
We begin at a Wood supplier in Northern Italy called Rivolta, about 30 KM from Milan. As I had a son living in London at the time, or as he put it "Chilling", I first flew to London to off load my big suitcase, pick up Nathan and fly to Milan.
|
|
|
We were met at Milan Airport by the lovely Marta Rivolta. She arranged accommodation for us overnight, and nothing was too much trouble for her. She is the 3rd generation of the Rivolta Family helping her 2 brothers (Woodcutters) to run this 100 year-old family business. They specialize in Italian Spruce for the viol and guitar family. It was there that I purchased some fantastic Italian Spruce. A soft tinge of pink , and a tap tone from heaven.
We spent 2 days there going through hundreds of tops… I was to discover that it was a huge bonus having Nathan, as he would go off and bring back piles of Master grade, and then help me select.
Wood selection works like this for me. It’s a 2 day process.
Day one …
initial assessment and selection of close to a thousand tops.
The wood must be stiff, perfectly cut on the quarter, visually pleasing to look at…year lines to be tight in the middle, and very evenly, getting wider towards to edges. The Tap tone has to be clear, loud and with lots of sustain, and harmonics.
Now this applies to all tops German, Italian, Sitka, Englemann, etc. Wood, being the living thing that it is, is different top to top.
For example, generally the tighter the grain the higher the tap tone… NOT always – sometimes a piece of wood can have wide grain be very stiff and have a treble tone.
So once the piece has passed my first tests of Stiffness, Visuals, Yearlines, Tap tones I place it on a table in 3 piles: Bass, Mid Tones, and Treble.
According to my budget I know I can afford 40 to 60 pieces or more, and then when I have selected through the several hundred matched sets I usually end up with 3 piles of 100 each. These 3 piles are the best according to my ear and 30 years of experience .
Then I go through them all again until I am down to 60 per pile.
That’s one busy day's work.
more...
|
© Maingard Guitars (2008)
www.maingardguitars.com Page 0417 (20080724) |
|
