Arlington Fret Works

      I've always enjoyed tinkering with guitars, maybe even more than playing them. I'm an A.B. guitarist -- After Beatles. In the 70s  I studied classical and later chord melody jazz .  I've always thought guitars were beautiful, even the funky cheap ones. Getting one to play well is a pleasure. 

     I was a biology major at Swarthmore College, spent a few years as a Montessori teacher, then 7 years teaching Homeopathy in New York City. But my main career of 35 years has been woodworker/cabinetmaker, so my first interest in guitar making was the wood, and the sound qualities of various woods and finishes.  I also enjoy the precision required to get  a guitar to play really well. 

   Here are a some of my favorite electric guitar tone-wood experiments.  I always keep the finish as thin as possible, to let the wood sound through. It's amazing how this effects tone, even on an electric guitar. (These are all French polished -- many thin coats of shellac.)

      My favorite guitar is cocobolo on walnut with a chambered body:

    Another favorite is this ash strat:

    This next one is ziricote on top of cherry, also chambered. The wood is so dense it came out more of a rock guitar than the jazz guitar I was hoping for.  Great sustain. Maybe I'll give it the "Beethoven Treatment" to open up the wood ... I'll put it on top of a stereo speaker and play Beethoven Quartets really loud for 15 to 20 hours.  I did that with the strats above and the results were dramatic, especially with the ash. I have to wait for the neighbors to go on vacation before I do this one:

   Several people have asked about the "Beethoven treatment", and yes it really does have an effect.  I was at the PRS factory and I asked Mr. Smith about this at a Q&A session. He said there are machines for vibrating the wood to improve guitar tone, although he doesn't use one. (The great tone of his guitar woods comes from an intense drying process.) Then he asked Howard Leese (of Heart), and he said they used to put a guitar in front of an amp in the garage for a month! 

 A new device for vibrating and opening up the wood is called the ToneRite (from ToneRite.com - $149).  Maybe I'll use this next time because it won't bother the neighbors. 

 Here's an interesting article from the New York Times about the effect of music on wood:

Do String Instruments Get Better as They Get Older?

When Violinists Play, Their Violins Improve

Researcher in England say that laboratory tests conducted on wood commonly used to make violins support age-old claims by musicians that the regular playing of a stringed instrument improves its tone.

By Warren E. Leary (Excerpted from the New York Times)

Dr. David G. Hunt of the School of Engineering Systems and Design at South Bank University in London sways his studies with pieces of spruce show that continuous forced vibrations similar to those experienced with regular use of a musical instrument changes the nature of the wood.

In a letter published in the current issue of the journal Nature, Dr. Hunt and a graduate student, Emmanuel Balsan, said that wood vibrated in condition of high humidity increased in stiffness and saw a decrease in dampening coefficient, a measure of cycles of vibrations emanating from the material. Both factors are know to help provide more pleasant tones in spruce, mature pine and other woods used in instrument sounding boards, experts say.

Dr. Hunt, who studies the structure of wood for the construction industry, said the results concerning musical instruments were a byproduct of research in the effect of moisture in wood. A music lover and avid concertgoer, he said he built a guitar several years ago but was not a violin expert.

"People don't understand entirely the structure of wood, even after using it and studying it for centuries," he said in a telephone interview, "Part of the strength of wood is based on the amount of water in it and the way it bonds."

The researchers vibrated beams of spruce at 10 cycles per second for 48 hours and the damping coefficient went down by 5 percent. The changes persisted when the vibrations stopped, they said. Lower damping coefficients mean that a single note is heard longer, which is considered a beneficial attribute.

When the wood was vibrated in a chamber where the humidity was taken up to 80 to 90 percent, the damping coefficient went up fast before drifting downward, they reported. This resulted in a decrease in damping and increase in stiffness during vibrations that persisted when the vibrations were turned off, they said.

Dr. Hunt attributed the changes in the wood to a redistribution of moisture in the wood caused by the vibration that remained stable for several days after the test. Over time perhaps months, he speculated, the wood was expected to go back to its initial state of equilibrium unless the vibrations were applied periodically.

"Musicians have said that the sound of an instrument gets better the more you play it, and we have found a basis for that," he said.

"Although for the best care of a musical instrument, both high and low humidities should be avoided," the researchers wrote, "the results suggest that at intermediate or high humidities, the sound quality may be improved by regular playing."

Carleen Maley Hutchins of Montclair, NJ, considered one of the world's best violin makers and researchers, said she found the British work interesting and consistent with much of her research. Among other things, she has vibrated violins for 1,600 hours using frequencies from radio broadcasts and found that this changes wood resonance.

"This would appear to complement work I have been doing," Mrs. Hutchins said in a telephone interview, "but I would question their conclusion that moisture bonding is the reason. There is research to indicate that the molecular bonds of wood actually break because of vibration and that this what affects the tonal qualities. So I think there may be more to it than moisture bonding."