Weissenborn construction question.

Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Has anyone built a Weissenborn-style guitar without a fretboard? It seems to me that if one is going extend the sound box of an instrument the length of the neck, then it might be interesting to extend the soundboard that length as well rather then placing a fairly thick chunk of rosewood (or whatever) on top of the extended portion of the instruments resonating body. Adequate fret marking could be achieved by painting directly on soundboard wood or by placing some kind of decal. I imagine that this design would require some rethinking of soundholes and their placement as well as soundboard bracing.

Anyway I'm not a luthier, just a guy with a lot of curiousity about instruments. So... Has this already been done? Is there some obvious structural reason this might not work? Would the benefit of a larger soundboard the size and shape of the soundbox be insignificant? Thoughts?

ciao,
Laurence

Ron Yarboro · From: USA

Hi Laurence,
I think I understand what your getting at, but keep in mind that the neck part
of a Weissenborn or Weissenborn style guitar is very narrow, and probably won't offer much as far as sound projection is concerned. Thats just my non-expert opinion.

Also, the fretboard on a Weissenborn style guitar serves as a brace to the neck section of the soundboard, and plays a important structural role.

Ron

Gene Warner · From: Texas, USA

It is probable that the lack of the stiffness of the fingerboard would make it hard to keep the long part of the neck from warping. The fingerboard contributes much to the strength of a neck. I am not a builder or luthier in the true sense of the word, but I have been an instrument repairman for 40 years. It is amazing what forces can be brought to bear on wood if left under tension for long enough periods of time..
Gene Warner

Jason Hull · Posted 7 May 2010 2:46 am

Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Hey there Jason,

I can't wait to see what you come up with. It's an idea that has seemed like a logical extension of the hollow neck idea to me for some time. Do you think that you'd adjust the outline of the instrument or just the bracing? Also do you think that the extended soundboard would effect soundhole design/placement? Could some kind of a soundhole placed along the length of the "fretboard" be useful?

ciao,
LP

Ron Yarboro · From: USA

Mike Neer · From: NJ

How about a design with no sound hole and with a fret board, but the markers on frets 1, 3, 5 etc. are instead holes? Would this accentuate the harmonics on the other side of the bar too much?
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Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Hey Ron,

Brilliant design idea with the Sea to Sky instruments. I wish he had examples (pictures and sound) of his non resonator version. Also It'd be interesting to see what these looks like under the hood.

Howdy Mike,

Interesting idea. I know that bars (bracing) on the inside of the back of some violas da gamba are placed with harmonic nodes in mind.

Can some luthier pipe in here to elaborate on how sound hole placement is determined and whether it bares some relationship to emphasizing or de-emphasizing particular harmonic coloring within an instruments voice?

ciao,
LP

Ron Yarboro · From: USA

Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Hi Ron,

His website says that his full size instruments are also available in a non-resonator model, but it does seem that that is not where his main interest lies.

LP

Ron Yarboro · From: USA

Oh, I guess I didn't see that.

Thanks,
Ron

Jason Hull · Posted 7 May 2010 3:41 pm

Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the informative reply. I find these kind of design questions and the various solutions/approaches in various instruments over the centuries quite fascinating. Is there a good book that discusses such design elements that you would recommend?

ciao,
LP

Rory Dafoe · From: British Columbia, Canada

Howdy Sliders!
My first posting to this forum and I apologize right away if I seem come out guns a blazing and verbose on my first post. This topic started as a discussion of a Weissenborn without a fretboard, but quickly moved to a discussion fairly specific to Sea to Sky Instruments (Rory Dafoe) Weissenborns and my floating fretboard system, all without my input. I'm coming to this discussion over a year late, but felt it important to invite myself, address some half truths, bold assumptions and outright nonsense in regards to my guitars, my interests and luthiery theory in general. I'll address the various postings in the order they were made.

I havent made a Weissenborn without a fretboard, but trust that there is no reason it cannot be done. The neck is like a girder bridge construction and very stiff. I bet you could almost stand on it, but rather you dont try. One idea Ive had but never pursued is wood burning the fret markers onto the bare body, leaving the fretboard off completely. One day it'll happen.

Gene & Jason flat out reject the floating fretboard idea but offer no actual science or physics to back up their assertions. This is a common occurrence in luthiery-there is very little hard science out there to back up a lot of assertions and traditions. Gene and Jason have assumed there are huge stresses on the neck and that it would fail without the thick slab of fretboard on it. Mine have not failed. Mind you, my original prototype is only 2002 vintage. I retain a 2005 model and there is no evidence whatsoever of the neck bending or caving in-none at all. No customer has ever come back to me stating their neck was warping. I've had zero warranty work on 100% of my slide guitars built. If the neck was going to bend I believe at least one of my instruments would have started showing some symptoms by now. I do make some minor modifications to the bracing of the sides. If there were huge stresses in the neck, we'd see old weissenborns with fretboards lifting all the time, as the neck tries to bend. Such is not the case as far as I know.

Jason goes on to say there would be little to no benefit to leaving the fretboard off or floating it. I can only assume he has never seen, held or heard one of my guitars. If Jason had examined one of my guitars or read info on my website, he'd see that my neck is both deeper and wider than a traditional Weiss. My Weiss neck cavity adds a good 30-40% more air volume to the traditional neck design and therefore contributes much more to the internal air volume and therefore tone. I came upon this using what I feel is one of the most important traits in luthiery - intuition. I thought, was was Hermann thinking, what was he trying to achieve and then I made a step beyond that to try and improve on his design and add my signature to it. I am not a fan of holding each and every technique and design that's come before as holy. Sure, some designs are time tested but there is immense room in the field of instrument building for innovation and experimentation. Keep in mind that Weiss, Knutsen or whoever who attribute the original design to was 'making it up' as well. Loar was making it up. Martin was making it up. If there had been a forum back then, Im sure many luthiers would come out to slag the hollowneck idea as off the wall, unworkable and lacking merit. I highly doubt that Weissenborn examined his guitars as a Hemholtz resonator. If there is a any fact to this, Id like to hear it.

Its not just about the neck too. Looking at a regular Weiss, the thick fretboard does not stop at the neck, but extends completely into the upper bout. That slab of wood stiffens the body under it and that stiffening effect extends out sideways. Much of the upper bout is then rendered almost inert.

An assertion is made that the neck is the weakest part. I believe the weakest part is the area in front of the bridge, subject to overturning movement, where we see so many Weisses caving in. This is the point furthest from the sides and subject to oblique stresses of the strings, so this makes sense to me anyway. To address this I radius bracing on mine to counter string tension and stiffen the top a bit in front & behind of the bridge. Ive seen other luthiers take this approach as well, again they are trying to improve upon a good, but not perfect design that Weissenborn left us.

Some background-My floating fretboard arose out my travel Weissenborns-they are only 7.5" wide. First one I built 'traditional'- that is to say with a big hunk of fretboard wood glued to the top. Well, on a small guitar it left very little soundboard to vibrate and it was underwhelming, thus the next one I did was only glued to the top over the braces, leaving the rest to move. The improvement was significant and noticeable. The use of intuition and experimentation had improved upon an old design. The effect may be less noticeable on a full sizer, but I figured why not try & get the most out of Hermanns hollow neck idea?

Lastly a comment is made that regular weissenborns (rather than my reso-weiss models) are not where my main interest lies. This comment couldnt be further from the truth. Fact is I am a one man shop and my website takes a back seat to building. The website is currently a couple of years out of date and missing a fair amount of info, including regular acoustic Weissenborns and double neck acoustic Weissenborns. I hope to have my website up to date in the near future. In the meantime, I have excellent sound samples of my acoustic Weiss with floating fretboard. If you'd like to hear them, you can reach me through my website (seatoskyinstruments.com) contact page and I'd be happy to send them to you.

I'll close with an anecdote that I think summarizes my feelings on blindly accepting tradition without consideration for innovation or improvement. I built a travel violin for my wife some time ago. It had a flat top and back and was X-braced. Whoa!

We were playing at a party when a guy comes up visibly upset and asks what it is. I told him its a travel violin. 'But it doesnt look like a regular violin'? I explained the design and he quickly interrupted me- 'You cant do that... there is a long tradition of violin building with very specific parameters'. My response...'I just did do that'!

Rory Dafoe
Sea to Sky Stringed Instruments

seatoskyinstruments.com

Jason Hull · Posted 31 Aug 2011 4:07 pm **Re: Weissenborn without a fretboard**

Rory Dafoe · From: British Columbia, Canada

Kelvin Monaghan · From: Victoria, Australia

Hey Lawrence,I am building a similar design at present ,although I am using a thin 2.5 mm timber for a fingerboard stopping at the 12 th fret ,more cosmetics than anything.
I cant see any reason to have a quarter inch slab of timber for a fingerboard on an acoustic slide guitar it serves no real purpose.
The Weiss hollow neck design is extremely sturdy won't cause any warping problems and of course the deeper you make it the stronger it will be.
The plus side for not using a fingerboard is you are the able to use a lower mass bridge with a lower string height.
I have a small Weiss style 19" scale hollow neck made by a local builder,no fretboard the markers are just a subtle stain,this thing is so vibrant and loud with amazing sustain,no back or neck bracing with just a small X brace on the top,it can be done.
Cheers Kelvin

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