A Fiberglass Coated Guitar

[Nitefly SA]

I was thinkning it would be kind of cool to make a guitar made of wood but coated in fiber glass, i dont know why i dont know if there are any benefits but if any body knows if its possible or just more trouble than its worth that'd be great, thanks.

[unclej]

you can definitely put fiberglass over wood but i sure don't see any practical benefit to it. it would probably change the tone of the wood you're covering but i don't think that it would make it any better. any color or design that you might be able to do over fiberglass you can do over wood so there wouldn't be any cosmetic advantage.

you might do a google search on fiberglass guitars. i imagine someone's tried it and i may be way off base but i can't see it myself.

[Nitefly SA]

now that i think about it i think the 1960's Airline res o glass (what jack white plays) was coated in fiberglass jack white sure makes it sound good

[jnewman]

No... Jack White's sound engineers make it sound good. If you listen to one of his CD's through a decent sound system, you can tell it's been heavily, heavily EQ'd - there are no highs and thundering lows, which result from the drastic work they had to do to make his guitar not sound like a shrieking piece of crap. I have nothing against Jack White, in fact I think he's a pretty good guitarist - but he needs to get a guitar that sounds good through an amp, not a guitar that sounds good through post-production EQ.

[GodBlessTexas]

Yes, you can do it. Parker coats the back of their guitars in carbon fiber, so there's no reason you cannot do it in fiberglass. I don't know if it will get you anything, but I'd certainly be interested to see your results.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

[blackburncustomguitars]

Hi,

Let's see: Fiberglass over wood. Of course, you could always put strings on a brick! Just kidding. The comments about Jack White IMO are correct. There is a reason the best guitars are made of wood with a niro or an oil finish, IMO, of course.

Peace,

Dave

I was thinkning it would be kind of cool to make a guitar made of wood but coated in fiber glass, i dont know why i dont know if there are any benefits but if any body knows if its possible or just more trouble than its worth that'd be great, thanks.

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[jnewman]

Oh, I just want to say - I'm not necessarily saying that a fiberclass coated guitar wouldn't sound good - I'm just saying Jack White's guitar isn't a good model for ANYTHING. It was cheap cheap cheap thirty years ago, has been beat to hell and back, and only has one working pickup. It's just a bad guitar .

That said, you might make something everyone absolutely loves - I'd go light on the epoxy to bond the glass together, though.

[Sparky]

It would be very simple to do it. You could even use a gel coat and get a finish like a surfboard. But as others have said, there isn't much of a point. If you are trying to add strength and save weight, you wouldn't want to use a wood core, you would want a foam core, but I can't imagine that sounding anything close to good.

Sounds like more trouble than it's worth...though fiberglass repairs a lot easier than wood. You could get tricky and shape it so it has a huge carved look to it, that might be something where fiberglass would be easier than cutting down a very large piece of wood. Who knows.

[Nitefly SA]

i have seen the white stripes live twice, all he has on stage is 2 fender amps a midi pedal to control his digitech whammy,a compressor,a digitech whammy, a noise gate and a distortion/overdrive. some describe airlines pick ups as very sweet sounding, different strokes for different folks. he only uses the bridge pick up thats why the other is gone, and he produces the albums him self and computer free so how could it be engineered? any way, i like the look of carbon fiber but it seems a little expensive, and could i get it to be smooth like if i wanted it on a neck? (as in the parker basses) also how would i get a surfboard like finish (what products are necessary)

[Devon Headen]

Check out http://www.fibreglast.com/ that'll give you any info you need. The folks at the forum seem to know their stuff.