Voiding the Warranty

There are some decent beginners guitars, held back in part by trying to be as indestructible as possible -- tops that are too thick, over braced, and encased in way too much finish. I always wondered how they would sound if the finish was stripped, scrape down the top,  and thin the braces.

Let's find out.

My test mule will be an Orangewood Oliver, which I picked up for $170.  Solid mahogany top & neck, rosewood fingerboard/bridge, bone nut/saddle, the tuners tune, and well pretty much everything else doesn't matter.

With a couple thousand dollars worth of labor, we *might* be able to make this sound as good as a $500 guitar!

Initial thoughts on Oliver before getting to work:  the fundamentals are good. My only real complaint as a "beginner" guitar is that the frets are very rough / not polished - otherwise the setup/playability is solid.  It is not very loud, which is probably a positive for a beginners guitar, and I like the fundamental tone.  The overtones are lacking-to-non-existent, which isn't much of an issue for a beginner.

And it is really pretty nice looking, very dark. 

December 14th: let the abuse begin.

Starting weight (w/o strings): 1899 grams

Started to sand the back. That was slow and not a lot of fun. With a little experimenting I found using a razor blade as a scraper made pretty quick work of thinning down the finish.  Between the top and back I shaved off 5 grams worth of finish. A quick wipe down with boiled linseed oil and it doesn't look much worse for the wear - the matte finish does a good job of hiding the crime.

I strung it back up and it does indeed sound a little better.  Not a huge difference, but noticeable.

The top thickness is not too bad, it is at least in the ballpark.  So I think I'll skip trying to sand that down for now, which is nice since I like the dark stain.

The braces on the other hand.... those need a whole lotta love.  It doesn't look like much fun trying to thin those down through the sound hole, so probably the next step will be to remove the back....

Ending weight for the day: 1894 grams

December 15th - at this point the warranty is probably void.

Top and back are both 0.10", not too bad. The top's braces start off at 1" tall, are "scalloped" to a minimum of 3/4", and are mostly square... which let's say is a bit more robust than may be optimal for a responsive guitar.  Tap-tone on the back is ok, the top not so much.

December 19th - finished brace thinning, glued the back back one

I shaved about 25g off the braces.   

I'm used to voicing the braces before the top is glued on, so I'm not 100% sure I got it optimal.... but is definitely much much better.  We now have a tap tone rather than the original dull lifeless thud.

No photos - it pretty much looks like it did in the original photos, just now less so.

Now we wait for the glue to dry

December 20th -- better

Strung it back up and it is better -- especially the base response.  It sounds good, but not yet great.

Action is now slightly too low, so will need to fiddle with that if it doesn't naturally settle back into its original geometry. 

Sound volume is still quite muted for the player, so Oliver here will most certainly get a sound port cut into the side.

But for now, I'm going to leave it on a tonerite for a while to help break it in / loosen it up before I submit it to more abuse.  

Jan 7th -- more abuse

The action did indeed settle back in, but the volume and tone was still in the better / good range.  So I drilled a couple sound ports into the side.... and that helped a bit with the volume but not as much as I would have liked.  Still not great.

So off come the back once more.

The bridge plate turned out to be mostly mahogany laminated with a thin layer of rosewood.  So off that came and replaced with a solid piece of Padauk found in my scrap bin.  While I was at it, I removed quite a bit of material off the rather large and thick bridge.

Some of the kerfing came loose while pulling off the back.  The sides were pretty thin and flimsy, so I dug through the scrap bin and pulled out small pieces of top off cuts - spruce & cedar - and glued them in all the way around. Much stiffer now, hopefully that will result in more energy producing sound rather than being lost in wobbling the sides.

Finally I thinned down the braces even more....  and then glued on the back, hopefully for the last time.

I didn't weigh how much I added by replacing the bridge plate / laminating the sides. So no point now in trying to figure out exactly how much of the original bracing has been removed.

Now I get to wait a day for the glue to dry.