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I am building an accoustic CBG, How do I get the biggest Sound ?

Should I make the Body Volume, as Large as possible, and does the Sound Hole Size or

Placement have anything to do with it ?

Right now, I plan on making the Body, 3 boxes Deep. See Attached File pic.

Thanks for any advice.

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Attachments:

15 the 3 cut boxes, stacked.JPG, 2.5 MB

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Permalink Reply by wormil on January 6, 2013 at 5:37pm

The bigger the box, the bigger the sound. There are of course other things that influence volume like a proper resonating top and good wood selection. Wood is better than pressboard. Paper will dampen things. A proper sized sound hole will help immensely. There is a long discussion here somewhere on the math involved to estimate the sound hole size or you can just make a conservative guess. A guitar sound hole is 3.5 - 4 inches. Someone figured out that a 1 - 1.25 inch sound hole is pretty darn close for a regular size box so you'll be somewhere in between.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 6, 2013 at 9:48pm

Ha practice!

I am of the humble opinion that many of those suggestions are only opinions too ;)
Depth certainly helps with bass response imho

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Permalink Reply by wormil on January 7, 2013 at 4:56am

It's magic. Magic makes guitars louder. Oh, and steel strings. ;)

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on January 7, 2013 at 3:35pm

I like the practice recommendation. I was going to say strum harder. That seems to work for me.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 8, 2013 at 7:29am

:D I meant practice building, noone can expect to nail it immediately, if that we're the case it would hardly be the obsession it is would it?

I gotta couple suggestions, not so much oh this box will be better cos its bigger/deeper/thinner top, but more getting the most from any given box..

(All my opinions only, there is no definitive answer, if there was all the companies with big r&d budgets would build em the same right?)
1. Pitch your neck. An angled neck will allow you nice low action with a taller bridge. =better break angle, better transfer of energy from the tightened string into the soundboard..
2 pitch or slot the head.. Ditto..
3 avoid glueing fretboard down onto soundboard.. Sure it looks pretty, but you want that thing to ring right?
4 avoid bits metal bling grommets etc on the soundboard. See above. To me this is the single most puzzling fashion in this culture.
5 build more frets clear of the body in order to bring the bridge forward towards (but not all the way to) the box's centre. I routinely join at fret 25... There is a sweet spot, experience will help you find it. Note that this fundamentally changes the sound, a bridge closer to the edge has a spikier sound with more odd order harmonic content, not at all unlike the sound difference between neck and bridge pickups...
6 on the subject of sound holes.. If you wanna make fholes that are actually functional and not just ornamental try to locate your bridge BETWEEN them. Many builders here (the majority?) push f holes right into the corners.. Standing the bridge between f holes fundamentally changes the way the soundboard reacts to energy from the strings, try it and see.. Refer to the cremonese viol family...

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on January 7, 2013 at 7:33am

Pine tops? What type of pine are you using? I can get white pine here. I want to build some boxes this spring but I do not see amy clear spruce to buy. If I can use white pine, problem solved. I will make an oak box wit a white pine top ... Lumberyard guitar, here I come

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on January 7, 2013 at 1:01pm

I've read that article. It is really well written and is recommended for anyone doing luthier work. I have been Kinda-Sorta looking for validation, which I now have.

I only have a small table saw (8 1/4"), so the re-sawing I can do is limited to about 2 1/2". This is not bad as a multi-part top and bottom can be glued together. Sides are no problem. Actually for sides in Oak, I can just buy 1/4" stock. The problem was getting wood. I have done a test re-saw of spruce, but I cannot get clear and the knots fall out. I can get what one local hardware store calls"Hobby Pine", which is clear white pine of the correct dimension. Now, once I have a box joint jig together, I will give it a stab.

thanks for that.

dave

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 7, 2013 at 6:59am

That will boom. Probably. Try testing PK's "Opinions" hypothesis by the following:

Add yer neck, string it up with the middle (A-D-G) strings from a medium phosphor bronze set. No soundhole. Play it, record the sound, report it here. Then remove the paper from the top. Rinse, repeat. Then see if you get even cleaner sound by removing those cut-out "ribs", e.g., make the insides of the triple box as smooth as possible. Rinse, repeat. Then, add a small (1/4") soundhole, in either the upper left bout or shoulder nearest where the neck joins the body, if you've built a right handed instrument, or the upper right bout if lefty. Rinse, repeat. Then, make your soundhole bigger, in 1/4" increments, up to about the size of a quarter. Rinse, repeat after each soundhole size increase. Let you us know what you find out. Then, it won't be "opinion."

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on January 8, 2013 at 11:29am

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on January 8, 2013 at 11:44am

I did the stacked box thing once, I'm not sure it was really better than a single. See my big mac pic on my page. Try to get the glue joints between the box's as tight and clean as you can. Good luck, if nothing else I think they look cool.