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The Anti-Murphy Concert

The Anti-Murphy Concert

by Alan Carruth

Originally published in American Lutherie #39, 1994



I recently had the privilege of attending a somewhat unusual concert by the Tokyo String Quartet, with some acoustics experiments thrown in. Or maybe it was a physics lecture with live accompaniment? And then there was the quiz show part... I guess I’d better explain.

The whole thing seems to have started with the coming together of a number of good ideas. One of the first was a plan by the Acoustical Society of America to produce an educational video on acoustics for grades K–12. This, of course, would require money to do, and the suggestion was made that a benefit concert be held. The members of the Tokyo String Quartet were contacted, and graciously consented. So far, so simple.

But remember, we’re dealing with acousticians here. Why not use the opportunity to do a little research? For one thing, while the acoustics of empty halls are reasonably well understood, nobody is really sure what happens when you put in the audience. Since the object of most concert promoters is to have as large an audience as possible, and nobody likes to listen to music in an acoustically lousy hall, it seemed like a good subject for an experiment. And how about that violin thing; you know old vs. new and all? And while we’re at it...

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Wood Bibliography

Wood Bibliography

by Nicholas Von Robison

Originally published ?, 1994 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998



The literature covering trees, wood, and wood technology goes back many years. Unfortunately, much of the information one desires on a certain wood or species is scattered about in the form of articles or abstracts in obscure scientific or trade journals. What follows is an annotated listing of the major works from which gleanings in the notes or bibliographies of these will enable one to delve into the literature more fully. Many, possibly most, of these books may suffice in answering any questions one may initially have. Many are out-of-print (OOP); many are unique and have no current replacement. They may be found in libraries, used book stores, or by having a search done by a specialist bookseller. Prices change frequently so the following categories are used for those books currently in print: inexpensive (up to $10), moderate ($10–$25), expensive ($25–$50), very expensive ($50+). This list is not exhaustive, but I believe it to be fairly comprehensive and it will aid anyone who wants or needs to learn more about woods or the trees they come from. Finding some of these books is very difficult but half the fun of it.



Nomenclature Bailey, L. H. and Bailey, Ethel Zoe Hortus Second. New York, NY: Macmillan Co., 17th printing 1972.

A concise dictionary of gardening, general horticulture, and cultivated plants in North America. While this 800-or-so page book covers plants other than trees, it’s a useful reference for spelling, checking families, and looking up archaic plant names. Hortus 3rd now out. Very expensive.

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The Acoustical Characteristics of the Concert Cimbalom

The Acoustical Characteristics of the Concert Cimbalom

by Janos Pap

Originally published in American Lutherie #61, 2000



We may be surprised that the sound of the concert cimbalom, or Hungarian hammered dulcimer, is occasionally similar to that of the piano. But we can be sure that it is not a piano, only related to it. The cimbalom produces a little more nasal sound, with a rougher timbre. The acoustical differences derive from the construction of the instrument and the manner of playing. I have devoted much time to making acoustical measurements on concert cimbaloms at the Acoustic Research Laboratory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in an anechoic chamber, and on a cimbalom model at the Institute of Musicology at Cologne University, hoping to satisfy my curiosity about the causes and effects of the cimbalom’s sound.

In instruments of the hammered dulcimer family, the form is determined by the mode of playing. The player strikes the strings with two hammers. The strings must be divided to give a large range of notes, and the struck parts of the strings must be raised for playability. The string-dividing determines the damping features, and thus the timbre and the decay. The raising of the strings results in high downward force on the bridge, which determines the sound indirectly, by the mode of energy transport and radiation.

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Router Jig for Shaping a Neck

Router Jig for Shaping a Neck

by Mike Nealon

Originally published in American Lutherie #62, 2000



This jig is designed to carve a guitar neck with a constant thickness of 5/8" from the nut to about the 10th fret. The shaft of the neck has a circular cross section and is cut so smoothly that only a minimal amount of finish sanding is required. To carve a neck to this shape profile while also tapering the neck width requires that the neck billet be placed at an angle to the axis of rotation, shown schematically in Fig. 1. These particular necks, which I make for thin-body (2 1/4˝) acoustic guitars, are cut to the specifications found on the Martin dreadnought blueprint (except for the taper and the length of the heel). Since the heel is only 2" tall, the router can pass over the top of the heel. The necks are 14.05" long from the nut to the body; the region of constant thickness is 11 1/4" long, leaving 2 3/4" for the curve of the heel.

The jig is made in two parts separately mounted to a base plate: an inclined router table, and a rotation stage. The router table shown in Photo 1 is a wooden box on top of which will be a template to guide the router along a straight line. The rotation stage consists of a long narrow wooden platform, Photo 2, into which will be embedded a steel rod. The rod acts as the axis of rotation and is parallel to the base plate. The top of the rotation stage is tapered at the same angle as the router table. The neck billet is clamped, fretboard surface down, to this platform.

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Conical Fretboard Radiusing Jig

Conical Fretboard Radiusing Jig

by Mike Nealon

Originally published in American Lutherie #66, 2001



How flat does the top surface of a fretboard need to be? A good working estimate would be to equate the tolerance to the gap between the top of the 2nd fret and the bottom of a string fretted at the 1st fret. The tolerance must be less than this gap or the 2nd fret will come into contact with the string. With the bottom of the open string about .01" above the top of the 1st fret and about 1/16" from the top of the 20th fret, the gap between the fretted string and the top of the second fret is about .005".

Making a hardwood board flat to within .005" is not too difficult using ordinary woodworking tools. The router table and movable plate described here will produce a machine-carved surface smooth enough to require only a minimal amount of sanding or leveling.

Photo 1 shows the jig fully assembled, with the router. Photo 2 shows the jig partially disasembled to show the function of the parts. The conical fretboard made with this jig has a 10" radius at the nut, flattening to a radius of 16" at the last fret. The fretboard blank is 3/8" × 2 1/2" × 21", and is flat on one side. The finished fretboards are 7/32" thick at the crown, and taper from 1 11/16" at the nut to 2 3/16" at the 12th fret (12.670" from the nut).

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