CLC Newsletter December 2011
December 2011
Hello again from the west coast of Ireland. So I'm not complaining about the weather for once. "It has actually been unusually mild - I think the mildest November on record and not too wet. " This was the first sentence I wrote for this Newsletter on November 26th. Then we had a night of serious rain and I took this picture from the sprayroom window in the morning.
The drive to our house from the road (where the two white horses are standing) is flooded up to our front gate. This is fresh water from the rainstorm. It is not so deep that we can't drive through it or walk out in wellies but it is a bit inconvenient! And until I go down and dig a channel onto the beach for the water to drain away we will remain on an island.
Update written on Dec 1st. The dogs and I have just been down on the beach and have dug a trench one spade wide to the sea. The pressure of the escaping water will widen this to about 10 metres in a few hour so in 24 hours we should be back on the mainland!
Tech Bit - alternative neck joints for acoustic guitars.
One of the most difficult parts of making an acoustic guitar is getting the neck to body angle right. This angle is critical in getting the correct action variation to suit the player - and more. For me the neck is at the correct angle when the imaginary line along the top of the frets, when viewed from the headstock end, just touches the top of the bridge. Fitting a taller or shorter saddle will then get the action to suit the player. More than this it allows for the action to be corrected as, inevitably, in time the body will distort slightly due to the string tension and the strings move away from the fretboard. If the neck angle is too low, that is the imaginary line hits the bridge below the top, it is possible that the only was to correct the action is to remove the neck from the body and re-make the neck joint to correct the angle. This is really serious repair work and is rarely achieved without some damage to the instrument.
If you think about it the neck joint is complex. The neck has to fit into the body at the correct angle and the strings have to line up with the centre of the body and onto the bridge. For this to be correct there are 5 surfaces that that need to fit together perfectly. There are several ways to make this joint. The traditional joint is the dovetail and it takes a skilled woodworker to make this well by hand. It is easier to do in a factory with fixed woodworking machinery but even so it is not unusual, when these joints are opened, to find shims used to make the fit 'right'. The dovetail joint is also difficult to take apart and re-make if adjustment is needed. This what a dovetail looks like.
Generally I have used a mortice and tenon self locking joint that is easier to make, very strong but is still difficult to re-open and re-make. This is how that joint looks.
In both the above jointing systems pushing the neck tenon into the body mortice will make the contact between neck and body snug. In the case of the self locking joint the backward sloping dowels on the neck tenon fit into backward sloping slots in the body mortice so the further in the neck goes the tighter the joint becomes. This joint requires no glue to hold it although I always smear a little glue on the tenon to be sure, to be sure!
There is a further type of joint that has become very popular in recent years mainly because of Taylor Guitars. Bob Taylor is responsible for many innovations in modern guitar making and his factory produces instruments almost entirely made by computer controlled machines. He championed the use of bolt-on necks for acoustic guitars. Many purists thought this ridiculous but the more you look at the idea of a mechanically connected joint the more sense it makes. Bolting the neck to the body makes for a very good fit without complicated joinery. In a factory situation it also saves a lot of time as it does not require so much skill to make. A real advantage over the 'normal' joint is that a bolt-on neck is easily and quickly removed if repair or a re-set is needed. It is very easy to adjust to the correct angle at the building stage or for a re-set.
I have experimented will the bolt-on option and like it more and more. This is one way that I have done it.
The bolts are securely screwed in to the tenon, pass through the mortice in the body and are secured inside by the brass nuts - you can only see one of the nuts in the pic below.
The conclusion? Any of the above methods of neck fixing work well if correctly made. I have tried them all and cannot hear any difference between them in the playing of a guitar. My thinking now is that the bolt-on neck shades it over the traditional joints as it is easier to make and has a huge advantage if the neck has to be removed for repairs or a neck re-set. In the end the way a guitar plays and sounds is the important thing, not the way it was made. I'm happy with any joint that looks like this! (it's a bolt-on!)
If you have a topic that would fit into the Tech Bit slot then let me know and I'll try to cover it. Or write your own and send it to me.
In the Workshop.
Due to unforeseen events I have not spent as much time as I would like in the workshop this month. I'm about ten days behind with the acoustic guitars I am making (apologies to the customers) but there have been some advantages. I was lucky enough to be in the UK staying with Pete Lawrence on Saturday November 12th when he hosted a private gig given by a hero of mine, Martin Carthy. If you don't know about Martin Carthy then you should and this would be a good place to start. He is a legendary singer and guitarist on the English folk scene. The gig was stunning - Martin's voice and guitar style are unique - and as Martin was staying at Pete's house too I was able to talk to him after the gig and again over a huge cooked breakfast the next morning.
Martin Guitars make a Martin Carthy signature model that is the only model of theirs that has a zero fret and Martin told me about it while Linda looked on.
Martin uses an unusual (to me) tuning of CGCDGA where the bass C is a 0.059 and the first two are ).018 plain steel! One more shot of a tune after breakfast.
Thanks to Pete for giving me the opportunity to meet Martin and to Andy Lambert for the pictures. A memorable night.
Pete Lawrence has a rich CV in the music business which includes co-founding The Big Chill festival along with our daughter Katrina Larkin. They grew and evolved it from a small indoor Sunday event in London to a 35,000, 4 day bash at various secluded venues in the UK and overseas.
Last month I said that I hoped to find a way to link soundclips from customers to this Newsletter. So another advantage of being away was that my grandson Joey was able to show me a way to do this. All I have to do now is put in to practice what he showed me!
Christoph Navratil regularly features here. Well why not? He's a great guy and has ordered some of the most interesting basses I have made from me. One of his bands Stranzinger recently launched a new cd and at the launch concert Christoph played three of my basses, two of which are original models that he designed - The 5 string V bass and the 4 string Razerbird.
I think Christoph probably owns more Hiwatt gear than anybody else.
If you have any shots of you or your band featuring any of my instruments I'd love to see them and maybe put them in a future Newsletter. Also any soundclips or videos now that I know how to link to them!
Reader Article.
Not really an article but more a resource! Do you like musician jokes? Jimmy Canty sent me a link to a lot of them and some of them are funny!
So it could be you!
Why not contribute an article for the Newsletter yourself? Write a paragraph or two about something relevant and get a chance to shamelessly publicise yourself and/or your project in the Newsletter. Send your effort to me along with a suitable pic/video/soundclip/url/link, etc., and I'll see if I can include it (if I don't lose it). It does not have to be about how good your guitar is (even if it is!) but maybe something about a situation it got you into, a gig experience, the design and ordering process or anything related to it. Use your imagination! Or simply send me a pic of you and your Chris Larkin gigging.
Stocklist plug!
Last month I wrote "Hopefully there will be an ASAP CAW acoustic guitar in superb flamed Swiss maple on the Stocklist by the next Newsletter...." Well since I am ten days behind with the building it isn't ready but here is a little teaser - a couple of pics of the body in the sprayroom.
I am unsure whether to finish this with a slight tint or to leave it as it is. The fine flaming in the maple is superb and set off beautifully by the rosewood binding.
And STILL available to buy right now from the workshop we have these beauties.
Want to play heavy stuff, rock and scream? This Superstrat in Irish flamed maple with a fingerboard in the same wood would help you!
For you Cool Daddys this archtop has the classic looks in spruce and quilted maple and has the classic sound too thanks to the floating pickup and hand carved top and back.
And for those of you in-between why not this ASAD 2HB that could handle almost any gig with aplomb (whatever that means!). It is so versatile I'm sure it could do it with two aplombs if asked.
All available now. More details on the Stocklist and you can contact me for other pics and details if you would like to know more. If you are in Kerry, call and arrange to meet with one or more of them and it could be the start of a long term relationship.....
And Finally..The Recipe.
We like chocolate and so does this month's recipe author, Andea, my BikerBabe from Vienna who is currently in some sort of body cast after tangling with a 450 Husaberg MX bike that spat her off and broke a few vertebrae (!) Get well soon Andrea.
Warning this recipe is not for anybody who is worried about their cholesterol levels or is allergic to alcohol!
Mousse au chocolat
Ingredients (6 normal people)
160 g finest bittersweet chocolate 2 large eggs (separated)
2 teaspoons of sugar
250 ml cream
2-3 tablespoons of Grand Marnier
Small chocolate shavings for garnish
HowTo:
Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pot of hot water, stirring. Remove from heat. In a clean bowl beat the egg whites until soft peaks start to form, add sugar and beat until stiff. In a third bowl beat the cream until it becomes frothy. Put the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and stir until no white speaks appear. Gradually put whipped cream into mixture, reserving about 1/4 for garnish. Transfer everything to nice glass bowls and put in fridge until well chilled. Before you serve it, put some whipped cream (reserved) on top and garnish with chocolate shavings.
And finally, finally....
Those of you who have known me long enough may have met me at a trade fair in Germany, the Netherlands, France or the UK. For a long I had stands at guitar shows, including 13 years at Frankfurt (the world's leading music biz show) and this helped me to get my guitars to an international audience. In 1999 I did my last Frankfurt as that year I put up my first website which was considerably more efficient in economic terms than 'doing' a show. Sometimes since then I have wanted to do another one so next year in February in Dublin I will have a stand at the Music Show organised by Hotpress. The venue will be the RDS (hang on Chris weren't you there last month supporting the Lovely Syra at the Art Fair?) and the dates are February 25th and 26th. Syra will show some guitar themed paintings and I will endeavour to have some stock there for people to look at and try out. This may require me borrowing stuff back from customers! There is also the possibility that I will do a workshop during the weekend.
Mr Odello" by Syra can be seen hanging in the beautiful Bodega Bar in Cork. So if you are in Cork and have time on your hands go in have a coffee or a pint, listen to some music and admire the excellent art.
So that I will have something to wear for the show I am making an order for some more of the Chris Larkin Custom T-shirts. If you missed out on them the last time this is what these highly desirable high fashion items look like. Actually you don't get a guitar neck with it, just the T-shirt with the lovely logo.
If you think you might like to have one or more of these then please email me with your requirements. They are going to be black and can be in any T-shirt size. I can't give a price now because the final cost will depend on the size of the order but I will email the estimated cost to anybody who is interested once I have an idea of the numbers. And if you don't like it you can cancel. An opportunity to be seen in this 'must have' garment next season should not be missed!
Earlier in this (enormously long) Newsletter I mentioned that our daughter Katrina Larkin was the co-founder of The Big Chill festival. In July 2012 she is starting a new smaller, boutique festival in Pulborough, Sussex, England called Nova - "a re-imagining of the great British festival" which will be arts and music based. There is an interview with Katrina about the Nova festival here. We are looking forward to it. Check it out.
And finally, finally, finally....
If you have any suggestions for the Newsletter please send them to me. If you think anyone you know might be interested in this Newsletter please send it on to them with their permission. If you do not wish to receive future issues please email me with unsubscribe as the subject and I'll remove you from the mailing list. If you are a new reader and would like to subscribe to get future editions please email me with subscribe as the subject or sign up on my website. There is an archive of previous Newsletters on my website.
