Pointy Guitars And Structural Integrity Of Sharp Angles

[Dave I]

On guitars with sharp points, like pointy V's, or the Dean Razorbacks, Carvin V220, etc., how sharp can you make the points (totally sharp or slightly rounded), and how acute of an angle can you have on the wings/points? I made a template which looks pretty close to a KV sort of design, however the ends of the wings were a bit flimsy; I made an arc 3/4" high at its peak. Granted it was ~1/2" thick particle board, but I am wondering if I should be worried about using those dimensions on a body blank or if I should make a less extreme angle or maybe more the arc a bit so it allows for more remaining wood (e.g. start the arc from a point a fraction of an inch toward the center of the tips of the wings).

So in short:

1) Is there a fairly well agreed upon angle where the wood gets too flimsy to be structurally sound?

2) Is it wise to leave points totally sharp or should I sand it down a minor bit?

-Cheers

[Flon Klar Guitars]

As a proponent and builder of pointy, sharp-cornered and otherwise precariously angled guitars, I have seen and built many such instruments. Structurally, they're all perfectly "sound" (no pun intended), but sure, you DO have to take precautions against damage. You've never seen a BC Rich Beast? The top 2 points of the body are very thin and flat, almost knife-edged; the bottom 2 points nearly ALWAYS break off the 1st time you set it down too hard; and the upper points of the headstock are EXTREMELY fragile. As long as the wood itself is good and strong, you can get very close points and edges. The main drawback comes when applying finish: the sharper the edge, the more difficult it is to get a good thick layer of lacquer on it. The lacquer will tend to run away from the point or edge, so you will need to pay special attention to these areas. Because the finish will inevitably be thinner here than on the rest of the instrument, you also have to be careful when finish-sanding, so as not to go through it to lower layers or even wood. The "rounder " you can make a point or edge, the fewer problems you'll have.

More examples:

Viszikon

Firebird

Voulge

[ihocky2]

Flon has pretty much nailed it. I am just finishing up a second build on the guitar shown below. The first one ran into some major problems late in the build that forced me to start over. So I had the body laying around, all buggered up and decided to do some destructive testing on it to see how fragile it was. I was dropped and slammed repeatedly onto a concrete floor. The two rear points only mushed up and chipped the finish, but they stayed intact. The front horn however snapped off right away on the first drop. But that is due to the direction of the wood grain versus the amount of area that it has to hold it to the body. So most of your pointy guitars will chip and ding up pretty badly, but for the most part they stay intact just fine.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b192/iho...rd/DSC03174.jpg

[Bryan316]

There's some tricks you can use to make a pointy guitar LOOK pointy, but round over the points.

First off, I've found a 3/16" to 1/4" endpoint is typically safe. If you design your layout, and then at the points draw a circle around this size, then bring your body lines tangent to the circle, you'll have a small enough roundover that the body looks like it has a sharp point. Sometimes, even as small as a 1/8" circle, creating a 1/16" radius, is small enough.

Then, you can slightly bevel the top of the body. It doesn't need to be as extreme a bevel as a Jackson Randy V, just enough that the top forms a point and edge, and that edge widens down into the rounded-over point. From any standard observation angle, the body will certainly look sharpened.