You have mentioned that wound or thicker steel strings, need greater compensation. But why? I have assumed that because these strings are less flexible. They start the pivot of their vibration, a little distance away from the saddle break area? What is your take?

I have that exact same string cutter.

I would never buy another product from stumac. Garbage.

Exactly what I was looking for !!! Thank you very much for sharing this tip. Your workshop seems very pleasant with sun light.

Great! So no need to put solder on the frets?

Great ! So no need to put solder on? 4

We have a large front window that faces west, and the sun coming through heats up the room quite a bit. We hired a company to come out and install UV film on the window. We can still see out normally , but it reduced the heat significantly. SIGNIFICANTLY. The film has been on the windows for 14 years and as long as you don't use an ammonia based cleaner you should have no problems

I had SS frets and didn’t like them. I could hear a harshness in there and they felt weird. I just placed a Warmoth neck order with gold frets although they only offer one size in gold which is fender sized frets, good enough for me.

I always enjoy your videos, Eric. I appreciate your generosity in Sharing your experiences and expertise. Just a word about neck weight, at least from my experience. Back when I started building I wanted to reduce weight all over the guitar, so I intentionally selected the lightest stock I had for neck blanks. However, I eventually discovered that slightly heavier necks promoted resonance in the body of the guitar. It is easy to demonstrate this, by simply putting a c-clamp (with cauls of course) on the headstock of an existing guitar and comparing the sound with and without the added weight. The mechanism for this effect is simple if you think about it. The strings are attached at both the bridge and the neck. Vibrational energy at the bridge is easily transmitted through the soundbox, but vibrational energy transmitted to the headstock is largely lost. By increasing the mass of the headstock the vibrational energy of the strings is more efficiently transmitted back to the bridge, soundboard, air cavity, etc. to produce sound, rather than being lost at the headstock. As you point out here, a very heavy neck is awkward and throws off the balance of the guitar in the players hands. I have managed to find a compromise between weight, resonance, and balance that works for me over the last 45 years. Everyone who builds will certainly do the same.

That seems to make a lot of sense but it raises 2 questions. If that joint really needs more strength, why don't you use carbon fiber reinforcement like in falcate braces instead of wood? And do you glue the half lap joint itself? If so, the glue seam must add quite a bit of strength to it.

I have a question if youre guitar top have a radius dont you need add a radius to the underside of the fretboard, its something i dont understand until now, im about to do my first fretboard.

OMG Santa Cruz, Larrivee, and several others, Martin of course blow away most of the others. Taylors are built by robots, not kidding there is less than an hour of time from a human on each guitar. As a mid market guitar they're OK but they are not in the top tier. Then there are the hand built luthier guitars (like Ryan) that are in a whole other territory. You guys need to get over to Dream Guitars (in Asheville), play some really good guitars, most players haven't heard what a really good guitar sounds like.

Hide glue also does not creep, where all the pva glues do. Fish has less shear strength.

That top was resonating like an open snare head--wow!

Thanks Eric, good video.

A fine choice with the Tasmanian blackwood B+S, but I like to call it Ancient Koa... Being in Australia we use it a lot in our builds/school. You can get a bit of a challenge with resin scorch when bending and it can get a bit a chippy with binding. But the end results are fantastic!

I think that rosette looks great on that WRC top.

Even if the video is 6 years old as I'm typing this, it's incredibly informative! Thanks for a great video, hope you're all well out there (anyone reading this)☕

string tension difference!

I dislike the headstock shape cery much. It reminds me of a nasty ass snake head instead of a beautiful guitar headstock. The shape of this headstock would absolutely prevent me from buying this guitar brand.

If what you're saying is true, how can almost any guitarist notice the difference between a Strat with a maple fretboard and one with a rosewood fretboard?

I wish the CEOs of Martin, Taylor, Gibson and Fender would watch your video and share with their teams. They could use the education. I think the guys at PRS and Maton in the land down under agree with your approach, for sure. They get it.

That hand plane looked just fine. There are plenty others much worse. It doesn't even seem to be missing pieces. Yall machine MDF people could try using hand tools more often and you'd see that thing with a different perspective.

...tonewoods were pick up and amplifier

If the taper was for ergonomic reasons, the entire guitar would be thinner. The taper causes the peak frequencies to flatten and stretch in duration. Without the taper and radiused front and back, the guitar would sound dry and tinny. The different radii prevent wave cancellation and allow harmonics to propagate inside the chamber. The answer given by this "luthier" is a quick Google search answer and we all know that the internet is never wrong.

Where can I download that pattern?

FINALLY it makes sense how to slot that crappy slant, all the shit is now gone and guitar sounds great. THANK YOU MY DARLING

I really wonder whether torrification is more of a curing of the resins in the wood fibers making a more stable permanent matrix (similar to fiberglass if you will) because as you said, it’s losing VOC’s. It would be interesting to see actual testing to see whether torrefied wood from something like rosewood (which is just dripping with resins ) is significantly different afterwards than say hickory.

Ive got one of these harmony banjos that was given to me. its missing everything but the tuners and tail piece. So apparently it needs to be reamed for one of these geared 5th tuners, but which one is the closest fit?

A Tip regarding your window heat: apply reflective window film. I did this to the window in my studio and it really made a noticeable difference by lowering the heat that comes in.

This was a fascinating insight for me into the world of acoustic guitar building principles. I'm primarily an electric guitar player myself and never really dove into that subject of what influences the tone of an acoustic guitar. Thank you! As for the "tonewood" debate for electric guitars: As far as comparing it to acoustic guitars goes, your analysis is on point. The body of an electric guitar obviously doesn't function as an air pump. The air pump is the speaker and the strings are coupled to it magnetically and electrically. The electric guitar and guitar amp combination is basically like an acoustic guitar split into just strings and just body, with the body being the amp. The solid body of the electric guitar is not even a part of that equation. There is still one way how the body of an electric guitar could influence the tone, but it's arguably negligible: The body cannot add to the tone, but it can remove energy from the strings. If the way the body removes energy from the strings affects different areas of the frequency spectrum differently, like removing more bass energy than treble, it might affect the tone in a "subtractive" way. My personal opinion though is that if this effect is even present at all, then it is so subtle and far outweighed by the impact of the strings, pickups, pickup positioning and electronics, that it doesn't matter in the end. There is an excellent youtube video from Jim Lill called "Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In An Electric Guitar?" that pretty much proves that.

This video is very helpful - I am working on a custom design and this ties a lot of the reading material together

thank you ~~~~~~

Hey Eric! I am working on my first guitar at the moment and just finished voicing the top and back (as a side note, I did a 3 piece back and so I attempted to replicate your lattice bracing pattern since I don't have a centered seam and wasn't sure what else to do). I was wondering if you had any tips/suggestions for keeping the soundboard and back tidy and scratch free while voicing/carving? I primarily used a sharp chisel since that's all I had, but I also played around with using a small hand plane that I made. I got lots of little scratches and marks in my soundboard that I had to sand out, and also spent a lot of time cleaning up glue squeeze out.

You are so wrong, but at least you say it confidently enough that some people will believe it.

thank you Eric

The fact is that a lot of guitar buyers have spent a lot of money on a name brand, and they reeeally want to justify spending all that money. One easy way to do it is to claim you can hear a difference. Problem solved- you were right to drop $4000 on that Les Paul, it really DOES sound better. Plus, you get to feel superior to the troglodytes who can't hear the difference!

I appreciate your analysis. You are the 1st person that I have heard that has made the excellent point that that the notion of "tone wood" came from acoustic violin and guitar makers. I have heard that STRADIVARIUS violins have such wonderful tone because the wood that they were constructed of was uniquely modified by microorganisms that lived in it. That tone will NEVER be replicated because it is dependent on the activity of these bacteria and other lifeforms that cannot be controlled in a manufacturing environment. I personally believe that Paul Reed Smith targeted a customer base who had a lot of disposable income. He intentionally incorporated rare, precious, endangered, EXPENSIVE wood into his guitars to justify charging $5,000.00 for a new guitar. 🤔

This is Perfect Eric! I am going to be cutting my binding and purfling channels on my current guitar. So I see you did the binding channel first. I found that I might have problems with the router bit being in the wrong position by doing this first so I previously done the purfling channel first and then the binding channel so both passes use the side of the guitar where as if I did the binding channel first, when doing the purfling channel, the bearing might be riding up against the binding channel I just cut. Have you run into that problem? Just wondering. Thanks.

Thanks Eric, good tip about keeping the binding close to flush. I had that "to thin" part a few times. Every time, making these channels with the router is for me the most dreaded part😉. It never went really wrong, but the sound is unnerving and i am always a bit afraid I mess things up.

thank you Eric . very interesting . you do good work in explaining stuff .

Thank you. I've watched lots of videos about nut slotting, this is the most useful and straight to the point. The gauge and fret rocker method is perfect...

Very informative

I have a Hammer N4400, 17inch bandsaw, and resaw most my own guitar woods. I can resaw logs up to around 12 inch. With 1/5 inch it was impossible for me to resaw 10 inch wide wood. In the end i used a 1 inch. It is more rough, but i sand that out with ease. I received an old Sycamore log (Platanus acerifolia) form Spain. Very tight grow rings, a lot harder than thought, and beautiful figured guitar wood for back and sides. It turned out to be one of my best sounding classical guitars. Here is the clip of that guitar. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWjXmX1ombx-Y9kfeature=shared

Great video. You are a tru craftsman.

What a great explanation! I'm an electronics engineer that have been playing guitars (acoustic and electric) as a hobby since years and have never agreed to the wide misconception of tonewood in the electric guitars.

thank you Eric . i have a 17inch grizzly 2hp bandsaw 220v .i have used it to resaw logs using a 3/4 - 3tpi to cut logs lots of em. i also used a disk grinder to reface the blades takes 20mins on a 131 1/2 inch long bandsaw blade . the pushing pressure you use to push logs / billits through is critical . i have had some weird cuts mostly the logs were to big for me to handle .

I have visited two ukulele factories in Hawaii and one custom shop. The factories did the resaw work with horizontal bandsaws. Big commercial machines 20 HP, 28" wheels, auto feeding. Safe for the employees to operate. See Grizzley G0503 if you have 15K burning a hole in your pocket...

My 18” jet is fair but I wish it had a foot brake. After having a 18” bandsaw the 14” looks like a toy. The bandsaw is such a great tool having two could not be bad. Its a ripping machine there is nothing this thing can’t cut but don’t get slack as it could be the most dangerous machine in the shop.

I resaw local woods that I use on ukuleles. As ukuleles are small, my 14" Rikon is big enough. I have tried many resaw arrangements. My Rikon saw came with a tallish fence. I found that it gave me lens shaped cuts to resaw thin planks with the fence offset the plank thickness from the fence. It worked better to cut the side away from the fence, but that felt dangerous. I ended up using the "little ripper" to guide the log. It fixtures the log with strong clamp jaws and guides it with an aluminum track. If you Google "little ripper stockroom supply" you can see it demonstrated. I tension my bandsaw blade using the "frequency method". I use my cell to measure the frequency with an app called Spectroid. I tension the blade before resawing. The frequency I target ("wood turners blade" from woodcraft) is 59Hz. I don't have the tonal memory that Eric must if he can tune his blade by ear. Cudos Eric! I'll stick with my app. Best results come from a sharp new blade, proper tension, slow steady feed rate. No other magic that I am aware of....