Cnc Acoustic Top And Frame From 1 Piece?

[billm90]

I am sure I am not the originator of this idea, but it crossed my mind long ago. recently I got to thinking about it more, and I wonder if it would defeat the purpose of the sound board.

I gather no one here actually would know what would happen, since I am sure no one has done it, but speculation is what I am looking for.

Say one had a solid piece of wood, say 1" thick and just cnc'd the top and all the bracing into this one piece.

I gather this would alter the vibrations, and thus the tone.

Any thoughts?

[Woodenspoke]

Since you have never built and acoustic and I am gathering this by your question. The whole idea is silly and frankly would not work for this reason:

The bracing adds strenght and allows the top to vibrate, without the bridge and strings pulling it apart. The wood in bracing is straight grain spruce wich follows along the lenght of the brace. To make the top out of a single piece would work mechanically but the grain direction would be all wrong and the top would in fact be weaker than a standard guitar.

Ever see a person Karate chop a board in half. It always breaks along the grain. The same reason they dont use plywood. The same principle applys here. If all the grain is in line then it could be broken in half very easily or pulled apart.

[billm90]

Correct, I have not built an acoustic guitar the real way.

I have cheated and made them semi acoustic electric guitars with thicker tops. They sounded better then I thought acoustic, but far from right. decent enough when plugged in.

Been thinking about a few real acoustic builds I would like to try. The lack of some tools made me think of alternate ideas with the ones I do have. Not that I have a CNC or anything. It was just a what if. I did not even think about the grain. Good call.

[Mattia]

What Spoke said. Same reason I think carving integral braces into a top or back of an archtop is pretty idiotic. Grain orientation makes a huge, huge amount of difference here, and you get to be really picky about which pieces of bracewood you use. The cross-grain gluing also serves as a degree of protection against cracks.

[masterblastor]

Sounds like a pretty big waste of wood even if It did work but couldn't you lam 2 pieces of wood with the grain running in different directions and then cnc it? I've never built an acoustic before BTW. Just curious.

[Prostheta]

Since you have never built and acoustic and I am gathering this by your question. The whole idea is silly and frankly would not work for this reason:

The bracing adds strenght and allows the top to vibrate, without the bridge and strings pulling it apart. The wood in bracing is straight grain spruce wich follows along the lenght of the brace. To make the top out of a single piece would work mechanically but the grain direction would be all wrong and the top would in fact be weaker than a standard guitar.

Ever see a person Karate chop a board in half. It always breaks along the grain. The same reason they dont use plywood. The same principle applys here. If all the grain is in line then it could be broken in half very easily or pulled apart.

I would like to see somebody karate chop a well-laminated board made from QS Wenge and hard Maple with the grain running perpendicular to the "chop-ee".