Ken Parker Archtoppery - The Neck Journey 10) Neck Veneer Development

[@KristopherCraig]

I’ve been thoroughly enjoy all your videos and always been a fan of a carbon fiber neck. The first time I had seen one was in the mid to late 80’s. Amos Garret had one on his old tele. It blew me away when he let me play it. I was only about 13years old at the time. I still would like to have a neck like that on my tele.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Geoff Gould engineered these neck for guitar and bass in the mid '70's. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulus_Guitars These were very well made, and sounded really bright to me. I always thought that the bass neck was way more wholesome sounding than the guitar neck, which I thought sounded harsh. I thought they would catch on with bass players, considering how many hopeless Fender bass necks are out there, but for some reason(s) it didn't happen. Too bad, nice parts. These were hollow, and were built completely from carbon fibers and Epoxy resin, if I'm not mistaken. What a thrill to see Amos live, right? Amos could make anything sound fantastic, what a monster magician!

[@KristopherCraig]

Thank you so much for sharing this. I didn’t know it was a modulus. I just remember it feeling really good and I actually quite liked the sound acoustically of that tele. I think the body was from the early 50s. That would never happen these days. I did record using a modular bass once and couldn’t believe the evenness of the overtones. It was bright though . It’s always a treat to hear Amos, he was using 2 mid 80’s Fender Concert Amps and had a great sound. It was always a treat for me when he would come to town. I learned so much from him. And we’d hang out a lot. I was very young and he took the time. It was an honour.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

I'm so jealous you got to hang with him, I was too dazzled and overwhelmed to approach him when I heard him duet with Geoff Muldaur in the Village, about 1980. Amos asked Geoff, Hey Geoff, want to do something from the '30's? Geoff, 1830's? Amos, "how 'bout 1730's? and they played the Nutcracker Suite arranged for two guitars, with Geoff struggling good-naturedly to keep up while Amos just relaxed and Killed it. PS, this was written in 1892, so Amos wuz jes' kiddin'

[@KristopherCraig]

😂 that’s brilliant and sounds so much like Amos. I guess being a Canadian and growing up in the prairies had its perks. I hope I get the opportunity to meet you one day as well.

[@chrispile3878]

Pre-preg, wasn't it? Ken - you thrill me. You build the stuff I only dream of. My training as a tool & die maker for the aircraft industry provided me with plenty of wild concepts for tooling, machining, and materials in the world of lutherie. You manage to bring it all together and make it real. Thank you.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Oops, I forgot to mention the prepreg, well it'll have to wait until I do an unpack of the Fly design. Thanks for your appreciation, what a fun ride is this lutherie/reverie!

[@NeoAcoustix]

It's always mesmerising and inspiring to see a man of passion doing what he was born to do! Best regards Mr. Parker 🤘

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Thanks, and best to you too.

[@stickman55100]

I am always so impressed with your vast experience and innovation of creative guitar design. Absolutely BRILLIANT!!!

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Aw shucks, just trying to be part of the solution. Thanks!

[@SkyscraperGuitars]

I love seeing the breadth of experimentation. Thanks for bringing us along on this journey!

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Big fun for me!

[@louloriente7726]

Ken you are truly a master of concepts and designs driving the future of stringed instruments forward. I love watching you videos. unfortunately finding your instruments here in Australia is quite difficult to procure. Please keep going with your brilliance, it's incredibly inspiring

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Many thanks, and happy trails Down Under!

[@dlmyrs]

That’s a beautiful bass. Love you guitars, Ken. Thanks for sharing your techniques.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

My continuing pleasure!

[@mariolafontaine5853]

What a great journey M. Parker! Very very interesting topo.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@martin13rm]

yeeezzz that first 1982 guitar immediately reminded me some Rick Toone designs, but dang like 30 years before 😳🤯 love that headless ball positioning tho!

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Thanks

[@Bob-of-Zoid]

I loved the inserted story about the vacuum pump disaster!😂 I always wanted a BSA Gold Star, but ended up with a 76 Honda CB400F. It was groovy.😁

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Simpler times, simpler bikes. Vacuum pump melted, probably not simple enough.

[@johnnypk1963]

Wow. Fascinating stuff.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Oldie/Goodie! Necks have been veneered for centuries.

[@dalgguitars]

10:29 "It's always something." No truer words have been spoken. (Ken as philosopher.)

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

You sed it.

[@normbarrows2]

As an engineer, I always find the evolution of designs fascinating.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Evolve, Learn, Grow, = Happy

[@jamesmitchell3357]

First comment again Ken. LOL FYI the Nitefly has arrived to my studio. I will send you some pics of the weird neck issue. Loving this series. More of the treasures I got to see back in the Boston days.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Can't wait!

[@MaJuice209]

you're a legend! thank you!

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

"He's a legend in his own mind." I just have never been able to stop giggling over this one. Thanks!

[@karukan430]

Thank you so much ! Mr. Parker You’re my true hero! I wondering know what degrees about your headstock and why you choose that to make your neck? Please help me to know more about your knowledges and philosophy and your whole pictures! Thank you to share those experiences and knowledges with us thanks again!

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Awshucks, just trying to solve the problems is all. 4 1/2 degrees is about the lower limit to keep the strings in the slots, so that's my angle. You might get away with 4. Thanks for your kind words.

[@thumpitypop]

Thanks, Ken!

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

You bet!

[@jarnoverhoeven3118]

Oh my god, that white 5-string, very nice! Much nicer than the later basses, IMHO

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Me too. It saw red cedar and weighed 5 pounds. Days of toxic sanding involved. By the time the bass project was started, I wanted a design that used fewer "golden arms", and designed a molded body without carving, and a laminated mahogany neck with carbon/epoxy. It would have been a better idea to take the time to experiment with several directions of this promising manufacturing method, but we were out of time ( remember time is often said to be = to money) and were soon headed for game-over as a company.

[@frankiechan9651]

Seeing a few decades on evolution of an idea in 11 minutes was so enlightening. Having spent some time as a research scientist working with polymer composites - I could see that at each stage, the idea had to wait for technology to catch up. Building a Parker Fly now would be so much cheaper as pre-impregnated carbon fibre sheets is more readily available. Plus jigs and blanks could be made more precisely with CNC. I dream of something like the Fly with an Evertune bridge and Fishmann Fluence pickups. (Although it might have to be thicker due to the space that these components take up)

[@erikrummel6277]

I’m working on that, but with Alumitone pickups.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Perhaps you didn't know that all the composite in the fly products was pre-preg? We used several styles, the strongest hi temperature formulations, and multiple resin systems with very closely controlled fiber/resin ratios. Also, we had a row of brand new CNC machines, the best cad/cam software $ could buy, and a couple wizards at the keyboards, not to mention me as full-time tool designer/fixture builder and manufacturing engineer. The guys I toured from NASA were Floored. What were we missing? I'd be happy to know what you think we could have done to lower costs and achieve what we did.

[@frankiechan9651]

@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I do recall that it was pre-preg - and it's not about the amazing work you and your fellow artisans and engineers did. What you did at the time was more than fair for pricing. Actually - weren't you losing money per guitar? It is more that in 2024 pre-preg CF is much more readily available (and at likely less cost per square metre), that CNC machines are cheaper/ faster and can get the outputs to a much finer finish more easily and thus lower the amount of hand work that follows. That various epoxy resin formulations can be readily bought and are used by YT creators every single day. That stainless steel frets are appearing on production guitars from major brands so that the pricing should be better and that many other parts like locking tuners, graphite nuts etc can be bought cheaply. Also the quality and skills available at overseas manufacturers like Cort that produce guitars for many brands. It is economies of scale. paired with technology improvements and greater general acceptability for what was science-fiction like appointments on the Fly. So my point was that in 2024 you could possibly get more Flys into more hands and be more profitable than in the 80's.

[@nebo1186]

ty sir

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

?

[@nebo1186]

@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 you posted a guitar building instructional video, true gold of this shitty platform, i said thank you, like , what's not to understand here??

[@bluearchguitars]

Thank you Ken! (Unidirectional, or UD).

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Yeah, we always called it uni.

[@mass271]

I've watched all 10 of the videos back to back. Such amazing insights. Thank you. Might you go into your view on headstock angle in this series?

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Just try & stop me.

[@GuitarQuackery]

This is the first time I see a Fly-shaped bass. I didn't know any such basses were ever made.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

the Fly basses came first in development, but in the Parker Guitar Co, it was the last of my designs

[@edwardx.winston5744]

Pure genius.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Impure thoughts?

[@edwardx.winston5744]

@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I’ve posted wordier praise to your work in other videos, so I’m sparing your audience of yet another of my long-winded bloviations. “Pure genius” should suffice. A “like” is a “like,” and a “comment” is a “comment,” be it a 300-word treatise or a two-word phrase. Both count for your channel’s stats. Thank you again for preserving your luthier insights for all time.

[@wombatau]

We have a wood where I am called Buloke (bull oak), it’s the hardest wood in the world. We burn it for firewood, and I only just discovered it existed. I am definitely going to try veneer bending it after watching these. It has a janka hardness of 22.5 kN and an MOE of 21 GPa, with a density of 1175 kg/m3. For comparison, Lignum Vitae is 19.52 kN janka and 15.7 GPa MOE, at 1250 kg/m3. When you burn it it’s like coal, I had the fireplace top glowing orange once. I wouldn’t call it a brittle timber, but when splitting it if you don’t do it right the splitter will take a left or right turn pretty easily and a cube of wood will come off straight along the grain line, so it’s relatively brittle given the mechanical properties. I’ve never seen it for sale, but it’s the type of tree that one day likes to just fall over so there’s always plenty on property, ie it’s a free wood with a bit of maximum effort processing it. I will comment about it in about a year.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Wow, what a story! Looking forward to hearing your observations.

[@wombatau]

@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 Thanks, will give it my best. A glass reinforced dugout canoe might be the right analogy, technically the tree is still shaping the neck.

[@Charles-Darwin]

I'm not too superstitious, but perhaps the vacuum issue on the primary prototype was some kind of omen to some of the production issues you've discussed prior haha I really like hearing about the engineering iteration that went into all of your designs. Engineering is often an unwavering persistence it seems. It's motivational and inspiring.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

I don't go superstitious, so me & Stevie Wonder have that in common. Vacuum clamping has its issues, but those were not the problems we faced at Parker Guitars. Good labor was nearly impossible to find, just ask any manufacturing employer. Thanks for your support!

[@dalgguitars]

That first guitar looks similar to Ulrich Teuffel's electric guitars.?. I think he's a Swiss dude. I could be wrong. (always love your videos, thanks)

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

I love Uli, and count him as a friend, a brilliant, one-of-a-kind master of materials!

[@jason.b896]

The 0 degree cloth is called Uni directional.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Yes it is, also referred to as "uni" or "zero degree".

[@nigeldaddyo]

i still feel that if the Parker Fly guitars had better pickups they would have survived. I still remember the first time i played one. It was at EU Wurlitzer in Worcester back in '97. It was a busy Saturday and very noisy in there. I pulled a Deluxe down and hit an open chord, unplugged, and was absolutely floored by how well i could hear it over the din of all the noise in the store. I'd also never felt a guitar resonate so strongly against my body. It felt SO alive. Sadly what came out of those pickups never did any justice to what those guitars sounded like unplugged. Still, Parkers became my main guitars from '97 until around '04 because, "nothing plays like a parker". I still have a Nitefly SA that i'll never sell, and play regularly. As much as i prefer the look and feel of the original Fly, the Nitefly allows me to put in whatever pickups i choose, and make it the best sounding...to my ears anyway.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Everybuddy got her/his own groove, so long may yours endure. Thanks for your kind words.

[@entropy1454]

It's my understanding that fiber composites have very poor torsional performance(both in strength and stiffness) in the configuration you show at the start. Carbon fiber driveshafts are made by wrapping the fiber around, for this exact reason. Having the outer shell might be better just because of the stiffer materal, but I don't know if I agree that's it's *good* in torsion, it's just not as bad.

[@kenparkerarchtoppery9440]

Let's start by agreeing that fiber direction is key to both designing with wood and also composite engineering design. Torsional strength can be easily gotten from composite fibers by making tubes or half tubes, and you can vary the fiber crossing angles and proportions depending on what you require. Of course, in designing a good neck, longitudinal stiffness is the most important, and good torsional stiffness will help the neck behave properly, so as not to wiggle around frivolously too much and turn your precious small amount of string energy into heat instead of sound.

[@entropy1454]

@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 ​I agree with everything you've said here. My disagreement is with your statement that it is "very good in torsion". For viewers here who aren't knowledgeable about composites or even general engineering principles, I think it's important to create an understanding that these constructions("wood-like") have fundamentally poor torsional performance(compared to what can be done). Perhaps it's plenty for what we're doing here, but from an educational point of view, I think it would be best for everyone to know the limitations. I love what you're doing here, I simply wanted to add to that.