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The Ongoing Soundboard Debate

Since I started lurking around this site I've noticed every few months that a recurring debate will take place. The big question is "Should I glue my stick-through neck directly to the soundboard/lid or should there be a gap?"

Let's quickly recap the basic stances on each side of the debate:

- There should be a gap between the neck and lid to allow for better reverberation/sustain/tone/etc. from the strings though the bridge through the board and into your ears.

- The rebuttal to this is usually: it makes no difference to the sound/tone of the guitar; the pressure of the strings on the bridge can cause the soundboard to warp; weakens overall structure.

I'm sure there are other points that I'm missing but that's not really the point of this post. I think both arguments have merit and i dont want to make any concrete judgements on proper technique when I'm still figuring out what does and doesn't work for me. My rule if I'm unsure is try both and find out what I like better. There is usually a reason why both options exist. But..there might be a third option here. A sort of middle ground build that might make both camps happy.

I was pondering another foreseeable problem on a future build and I had an idea pop into my head. What if, instead of completely cutting away all of the material to leave a gap, there is a channel cut through the majority of the neck material leaving two braces on either side.

This could be done fairly easily with a hole saw and a jig saw. I would leave about 1/4" on each side. The line along the side is another idea I had to possibly cut away even more material. It would look kind of like a arched bridge. I think doing it this way would give plenty of support for the bridge yet allow the soundboard to vibrate freely. There's just as much or more bracing stuck to the top of an acoustic guitar, so I don't see how it could interfere with tonal quality.

What do you think of this for option 3? Has anyone tried something like this before? I think I'll give it a shot once I'm back in the shop making saw dust again.

Also, I'm not trying to open the old debate up again, but if you must voice an opinion about it, go ahead. I'm not the boss of you.

Nathan

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kigar on January 21, 2016 at 3:56pm

Interesting idea! My engineer side says the center slot will have no to very little effect, the board will remain fairly static, but that is armchair engineering with nothing but my gut behind it. The line along the side is more promising, basically you are making something like bracing now. It should act like bracing but at 1/4" thick it is probably still way more than what is under an acoustic. I'd say go for it and suggest making the box so you could open it and continue to relieve material and see what happens. Also the board should be tight to the lid so it doesn't buzz/vibrate.

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Permalink Reply by Primitive Acoustics on January 21, 2016 at 6:01pm

I think this is a great idea to experiment with. You could drill sound ports into the support sides if you didn't cut out the full arch. I've done that with bolt-on neck braces and it's worked well.

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Permalink Reply by JL on January 22, 2016 at 1:08am

Love the idea, like a "strum stick" it has thickness perpendicular to the soundboard to keep the neck from curving forward and turning the git into an archery bow, but opens up more of the resonant cavity and reduces the solid mass impeding the soundboard.

I would NOT do the cut from the side, the thinner the neck parallel to the soundboard, the more likely it will curve up under the string tension and give you a git that looks like it was designed by Salvador Dahli.

HOWEVER you might be able to take a forstner bit and drill a few holes sideways through the neck like Adam Savage's axe handle from the mythbuster's zombie special and get a similar effect...

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Binns on January 22, 2016 at 1:08pm

He has all sorts of cool stuff. Google his One Day Builds. The dude's building skills amaze me. His shop is pretty awesome too.

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on January 22, 2016 at 8:08am

The only way to really settle this is if you build two necks. One with your cutout and one without. Then switch them out so you use the same box, stings, piezo etc.

In the end, you should have a playable guitar (and maybe a piece of nice fire wood).

I think most of us would like to hear your results.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Binns on January 22, 2016 at 1:06pm

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm honestly surprised that there isn't already an example of this already built.

I do like the idea of drilling out holes in the side of the channel instead of taking a big chunk out. It will be much stronger that way for sure.

I have a feeling it will do very little to change the sound but I will definitely try it out. Like I mentioned before, I'm stuck in my house until April so if anybody feels like they want to try it out before then please go for it and let us know how it turned out. My winters seem to have turned into 5 month sessions of planning and pondering while I wait for the sub-zero temperatures to leave. Maybe dealing with the winter building blues needs to be a topic another post...

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Permalink Reply by Kigar on January 23, 2016 at 2:51am

Winter blues is here is Michigan too, although usually not five months! I can get into the garage and keep warm enough, but anything that makes significant sawdust is outside, and my hands can't take all the cold tools and surfaces for to long or they stiffen up, so I do work in short sessions when I can. Maybe look into building an amp, learn to solder, wire and such. And play more! I say that, but I have 2 or 3 cbg's cued up and a couple more rolling in my head as well.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Binns on January 24, 2016 at 7:13am

I have been playing more. On vey morose days I like to play sad slow licks, but mostly I've been playing my ukelele. It's pretty hard to feel bummed out strumming that guy.

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on January 22, 2016 at 4:04pm

I built two with similar necks to the rawing. They had a mid slot as per your drawing and they were cut away to have minimal contact with the top. The neck was glued to the top on two remaing wood pads at each end of the guitar top. In addition. I drilled out the sides to make the neck inside the box as light as possible. My impression was that they were louder. The tone was pretty much the same. They were built almost four years ago. I know that one of them is still around. So they did not seem prone to failure.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Binns on April 18, 2016 at 6:03am

UPDATE: I'm well underway on the experiment and ready to glue the necks into their boxes.

I've attempted to keep everything as identical as possible. The 2 necks were cut from the same piece of maple as well as the fingerboards. I even resawed them from the same piece so they are kind of book matched. Same Punch cigar boxes obviously.

There was an incident with my router tearing out a chunk of the fretboard on one of them so that guy is 3mm thinner than the other. My slot worked out ok but I had to hand saw it as my scroll saw is broken at the moment. The cut got a little wonky on me but shouldn't effect the results of the experiment.

These CBGs are also prototypes for an "economy" model for my builds. Simplified fret markers, simpler headstock, 3 stringer and a piezo pickup. Here is where I need some input. I'm personally not a big fan of piezos but I got some cheap-o pre-wired to jack discs and I'm going to use them for these "cheap" builds. For the sake of the experiment, how should I mount them for the most consistent result. I can't really sandwich between the neck and top. Is the best way for these to do the under the bridge technique? I was going to the offcuts from the fretboards, cut a dado for the corian bridge and then make a little recess for the disc and glue it in with silicone.

Any other suggestions or go ahead with the under-bridge style?