Hi All.

Back in 1862, the renowned Spanish luthier Antonio Torres Jurado ("Torres") built an experimental paper mache guitar to prove that it is the top (soundboard), and not the back and sides of the guitar that gave the instrument its sound. Since that time, several other folks have built them. I have even used paper mache (and chicken wire) as a kid to build a dinosaur and a moose head for an art class, and more recently a couple of Halloween masks. It seems like all I need is a guitar head, neck, and a soundboard, and the rest of the sound box can be made of either cardboard and paper mache, or perhaps chicken wire and paper mache.

There remains some doubt as to whether paper mache sound boxes can project sound as well as wooden boxes, so if they turn out to make poor acoustic instruments (volume wise), we should still be able to electrify them with a piezo or magnetic pickup or two. We also can try building one with a resonator cone to see if that could improve sound projection.

If you think about it, paper mache offers so many design shape possibilities that it seems like a natural choice for inventive instrument builders like those who participate in this website.

I can already foresee Steam Punk Paper Mache guitars.   

                                                                                                                        [Photo from Wikipedia]

So, I'll begin my research and what useful information I find, I'll post it here. If you have any additional information, comments or ideas, let's hear them. At some point in the (fairly) near future, I will attempt to build one, and hopefully a few other folks will build their own and we can compare results. With a few generations of paper mache builds, we may see such things as fiber glass coated paper mache or some other innovations that could yield a new building technology for home made instruments.

I.)  Information on the Original Paper Mache Guitar Built by Antonio Torres Jurado ("Torres")

1.) From a guitar history web site...

Up until this point the instrument (early Spanish guitars) were small and narrow. Antonio de Torres (1817 - 1892) worked with the design and construction of the guitar. He increased the size and experimented with anything that would improve the sound, and was especially interested in volume. He was the first maker to use "fan" bracing underneath the top. He once built a Guitar with a spruce top and paper mache back and sides to prove his theory that it was the top that produced most of the volume. He was the father of the modern guitar.

2.) From a Luthier's forum:

Post subject: Torres Cardboard (AKA "paper mache") Guitar

The sound box is actually made from a material more like a thick poster board or for those familiar with it, matte board or letramax. I saw this guitar when it was there in 1991 with an exhibit that was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has always been of interest to luthiers as it was thought to be an illustration of the lack of importance of the back and rims regarding guitar sound.

   
The soundboard is made with two pieces of spruce and in it's interior it has two harmonic bars with six lateral reinforcements on the sides of the mouth (sound hole) and one "pitch bar?". The range consists of seven longitudinal rods, but does not have the two typical Torres "barraje" (frame or bracing?), but between each of the seven is a little (one) that unites them. It is a truly unprecedented "barraje" in the work of the Maestro.

The bottom is internally reinforced by three cross bars and two longitudinal, (which are) much wider and higher than normal, with cedar. The "aros" (rings or hoops? - sorry) have reinforcements along its entire length.

Romanillos states it is the thinnest Torres soundboard in existence, less than 1mm at the edges. That is veneer like. It's hardly believable Torres made it so thin in the first place.

You'll need to join the web site for more details. I'll do that on another day.

II.)  Information on Modern Implementations of Paper Mache Guitars

A.) More recently (1986) a guy called John Hunt made a "Papier Mache, Chicken Wire Home Made Guitar" and a video of him playing it is on Youtube (which I can't see from China). Here is this link.

This video was reviewed for me by Oily "Strat-O'-Nine-Tales" Fool, who wrote: 

It's a good video. The guitar sounds pretty good, it has a warm tone, and the song is a jPiedmont blues with good lyrics. Can't see his amp in the pic, but he's playing it fingerstyle, no slide, and lightly amplified. The guitar is a 6-string jazzbox size and shape, with a Venetian cutaway, f-holes (which allow you to see how thick the papier-mache' is - which looks to be about 1/2 inch thick), trapeze tailpiece, Tune-O-Matic-style roller bridge, no pickguard, SSH pickup configuration, and what looks like a commercially-made regular six string neck with a shallow carved heel.The bridge is angled to address compensation / intonation issues, probably, and looks to be pressing down into the top so that it bows some.The papier-mache' itself looks like old newspaper, with perhaps a greenish tinge to it from the glue / ink?. The entire guitar body, top and sides (and presumably, back), are papier-mache'.

 

I'd say this one sounds good enough to try in this amplified config. Don't know how it would sound just acoustic.

The original paper mache guitar built by Torres used a spruce sound board as I recall, and it had internal bracing under the sound board, as well as some bracing in the back. If John Hunt's bridge is sinking down into the top, and it is a wooden sound board, then it likely needs additional bracing around (under) the bridge. If his sound board is paper mache, all I can say is he's doing great to get that far with it. The idea of a strong sound board made of paper mache sounds unlikely unless it also includes internal bracing.

I think I'd prefer a more traditional wooden sound board, but if paper mache can be made to work as a sound board, then great. And why stop there? Maybe a chicken wire neck and head assembly coated liberally with paper mache and perhaps some internal wooden support. Maybe bamboo skewers for frets. Any ideas for tuners? I'd guess nylon strings would be best.

Well that's all I have for now.

-Rand.