Thoughts on alternative materials...

[jebroad]

As some may know, my interest in alternative materials in stringed instruments has been growing. Many people have tried different things such as status with carbon fibre, alusonic with aluminium and the use of richlite and other phenolic fretboards. 

What are your thoughts on the use of 'non traditional' materials?

Edited April 21, 2018 by jebroad

[T-Bay]

Why wouldn’t you? If it works great, if not, try something else. Always worth pushing the boundaries, the next great thing could be just around the corner.

[jebroad]

Just now, T-Bay said:

Why wouldn’t you? If it works great, if not, try something else. Always worth pushing the boundaries, the next great thing could be just around the corner.

Fair point, alot of luthiers involved in classical stringed instruments are very skeptical of alternative materials. 

[TheGreek]

I had a fretless Hohner bat with an "ebanol" board back in the day - hated it - apparently it is the same as used by Status. I didn't mind it on my KBs...

I'll have to sit on the fence on this.

[jebroad]

Just now, TheGreek said:

I had a fretless Hohner bat with an "ebanol" board back in the day - hated it - apparently it is the same as used by Status. I didn't mind it on my KBs...

I'll have to sit on the fence on this.

Was the ebanol f/b finished with epoxy or left dry?

[TheGreek]

TBH I've no idea - somebody else here must have been equally stupid and bought one too. Hopefully somebody'll know...

Edited April 21, 2018 by TheGreek

[T-Bay]

2 minutes ago, jebroad said:

Fair point, alot of luthiers involved in classical stringed instruments are very skeptical of alternative materials. 

People get comfortable with what they know. I have a lot of experience with carbon fibre and have even designed and built a monocoque for electric endurance racing. It’s daunting at first but once you get stuck in it really isn’t difficult. I suppose the main issue for lots of companies is cost, both in terms of materials and time. Why spend an age looking a something new when you can sell what you have sold for the last fifty years but done in a different colour? Smaller companies may be more likely to be innovative but have less ability to fund that research.

 

[jebroad]

Just now, T-Bay said:

People get comfortable with what they know. I have a lot of experience with carbon fibre and have even designed and built a monocoque for electric endurance racing. It’s daunting at first but once you get stuck in it really isn’t difficult. I suppose the main issue for lots of companies is cost, both in terms of materials and time. Why spend an age looking a something new when you can sell what you have sold for the last fifty years but done in a different colour? Smaller companies may be more likely to be innovative but have less ability to fund that research.

 

I think large companies such as cort or fender should fund research by luthiers. this would mean that the instruments could be manufactured on mass but be prototyped and designed by a smaller company/individual.

[T-Bay]

2 minutes ago, jebroad said:

I think large companies such as cort or fender should fund research by luthiers. this would mean that the instruments could be manufactured on mass but be prototyped and designed by a smaller company/individual.

Maybe they do but we don’t know (doubt it). Composites have a reputation for being very expensive and difficult to make. With modern prepregs and the knowledge base in the UK we would be ideally situated to produce some interesting kit. But would your average Joe buy it instead of a MiM Fender?

[jebroad]

Just now, T-Bay said:

Maybe they do but we don’t know (doubt it). Composites have a reputation for being very expensive and difficult to make. With modern prepregs and the knowledge base in the UK we would be ideally situated to produce some interesting kit. But would your average Joe buy it instead of a MiM Fender?

Thats a fair point. I think the main issue regarding starting out luthiers is that nowdays people go for a cort or chowny instead. I really admire companies like this as they are able to produce amazing instuments for a third of a price that i can. The issue with that is all of us are left here with not much buisness. I think in the next few years we will lots more people designing instruments but sourcing parts and labour abroad.

[SpondonBassed]

I watched an episode of How Do They Do That? the other day where they had a fungus based wood substitute pressed and cured into preformed seating.  For large scale production it works because it takes days to grow rather than the years taken by trees.

Of course, guitar production is a significant consumer of timber but it would not have the same requirement for high volume growth as mass produced furniture.  Then again it might be that the tonal qualities of this fungus/hemp composite are worth investigating.  Also it would have great credentials for consumers with green tendencies.

I was impressed by the use of carbon fibre in the eighties mainly because the aviation industry was embracing composite technology.  I wouldn't like to own a bass made of it though.  That's purely a personal prejudice.  I just don't like the feel of the stuff.

Edited April 21, 2018 by SpondonBassed

[mikel]

My Bro has an all carbon Status he bought in 1987. I believe he has had to tune it 4 times . probably when he was replacing the strings. I dont think it looks particularly nice but that's subjective. It sounds good to me, is ultra reliable and seems impervious to temperature and humidity. I have a Masonite? bodied Danelectro guitar. Its super light and I love the quirky tone.

[uk_lefty]

I am for it. However for me the material needs to strike the balance between improving the sound, making the instrument cheaper to produce and being less environmentally harmful. The environment point is a difficult one, because plastics etc are so cheap and efficient to produce they can be less impactful than some natural alternatives. I like the idea of the fungus though, very innovative as an alternate material.

This is where I think independent or small instrument makers may suffer, because using newer materials and technologies won't become cheap and easy until they are available on mass and understood by the ordinary person in the street.

[Skybone]

Mikel, Danelectro's "Masonite" is basically the US term form what we know as Hardboard (high pressure compressed cardboard?), which again is derived from timber. So although it's probably less wasteful than using wood, it takes a lot of energy to produce.

I'm all for the use of modern materials in instruments, but the thing that gets me is the processes and raw materials used to make these products. Some of the glues used to make things like carbon fibre aren't very environmentally friendly, and some of the processes used to make carbon fibre itself are very energy intensive.

You could argue that timber IS a renewable resource, though many exotic species take longer to grow, and the plantations need to be managed. All of the main manufacturer's use timber from plantations that are managed (or at least that's what they tell the consumer). Remember a few years back when Gibson had all their wood stocks seized and they couldn't produce anything? We now have the new CITES rules on some of the popular timbers used in guitar manufacture, so the manufacturers have to utilise timbers that conform with CITES.

Although the trend on guitars & basses is for exotic figuring on tops, we may see that this will tail off as the prices of the exotic timbers rise, because they'll start to become less available in managed plantations (unless they have figured out a way of managing the woodland in order to produce the figuring).

And after saying that, I'm still in favour of luthiers making instruments that utilise any and all materials for their craft, and I'm pretty sure that any luthier using these materials will do their damnedest to make a playable instrument.

[Dad3353]

One can go quite a long way down the 'alternative materials' route. I have a set of these; they're environmentally friendly, and very good indeed...

Aerodrums ...

[steantval]

Harry Hill had a piano made of cardboard on his show last night, didn’t last long.

[Woodinblack]

 

[TheGreek]

Air guitars??

Sorry...now where did I leave me jacket???

[BrunoBass]

Everybody will have to accept shifts to alternative materials and production methods in every aspect of our lives in the coming years, including musical instruments. The world is changing. As a company car driver I have to accept that all fleet vehicles will soon be hybrid or electric. I’m not fond of the idea, being a bit of a petrolhead, but I accept the inevitability. It’s the same with basses, I’d rather play something made from wood, but I’m not averse to playing something made from, say, a composite material. Vintage (wooden) instruments could be an even more astute investment in the future than they are now.

[lojo]

There's always going to be a soft spot for traditaional methods but everything evolves 

[SpondonBassed]

No-one has voted "against" out of 23 members so far.

[Woodinblack]

Well, the use of alternative materials doesn't preclude still using wood does it, it is using other things as well. If you don't want that you simply don't use it, but who knows if there is not something that will turn up that is better? We don't know until it happens.

I had a Squier fretless bass with ebanol and had no issues with it (well, it scratches, but so does the wood).

[BigRedX]

I think for solid electric instruments too much emphasis is placed on the qualities of wood, when at best it is unquantifiable and most likely has negligible impact on the overall sound of the instrument compared with the electronics.

IME what a solid electric instrument is made out of is irrelevant so lang as it plays, feels, looks and sounds like you want it.

[uk_lefty]

I was a hockey player. We went from mulberry sticks to reinforcing those with fibreglass wraps, then carbon wraps, to aluminium sticks with a wooden head. The aluminium ones were unreliable, needed to be kept warm, and could be quite dangerous. Then composite materials came about and changed everything. Now it's almost impossible to find a wooden hockey stick within less than twenty years of the technology being about. However, this is a market for people who want performance and not one where we hark back to tradition as musicians do. 

I can see the future being a split of high end sustainably sourced wooden instruments being produced at astronomical prices, a surge in the price of vintage instruments, but all new instruments worth up to say £1,500 in today's money being some kind of synthetic (even recycled) material. There may be a wooden "tone block" in the middle holding the pickups. Think a Hohner B2A with an added fibreglass body... 

They will be delivered by drone from Alibaba after the robot wars of Amazon Vs Alibaba is fought in the desert in between east and west Australia, destroying New Zealand in its course. Alexa will not only be our president but also our God. Google will have self destructed before able to join the war after Alibaba repeatedly googled the word "Google" until it frazzled out like a knackered cassette. Elon Musk will be a brain in a jar orbiting the earth planning to save humanity by creating human robot hybrids that run on solar power. Maybe.

Edited April 23, 2018 by uk_lefty

[Andytre]

https://www.prismaguitars.com/

 

always though this was a nifty idea, love the colours that come through from the old stained ply from the decks. 

Edited April 23, 2018 by Andytre