Ambidextrous guitar

[Jedaks]

Hello all,
I'm considering upgrading my classical guitar to higher end advanced student/entry concert quality. That may be a vague term, but I was looking at the $2500-$3000 price range for a factory built Alhambra or Ramirez.

I'm a left handed player and was reading on Delcamp forum about how some luthiers can make a guitar that can be played left or right handed, just change the saddle/nut and string it around the other way. The fretboard, bracing etc is all symmetrical. That would be useful if I ever needed to sell it.

Can anyone comment on this?

Thanks,
Joe from Queensland.

[nnickusa]

Joe, this forum is loaded with great makers. Many in Queensland.

My comment would be. "If you are looking for someone to make you a guitar in the 2500-3000 dollar range, ask if anyone here is interested in doing it for you."

OR....read up and check out the signature lines for these guys, their websites or blogs/fb pages etc, and contact them directly for quotes and/or ideas....

Nick

[Jedaks]

Thanks for the reply. I should have clarified that those are the prices for overseas purchases. Sorry about that. I think in Australia those guitars are $3500-$4000. So something at that level.

[nnickusa]

Joe, where are you in Qld?

[Jedaks]

Maryborough, about 3 hours north of Brisbane.

[nnickusa]

OK. Let's see who's in the area. I don't know of anyone off hand from the ANZLF there. but start a thread either here or in the classifieds for someone to build the guitar you're describing, and see what comes up. I'd have a go, but 1. I'm relatively new to the game, and 2. I've not built a nylon before, and 3. I like to have the customer be part of the build process.

You're in a bit of a limbo there, a bit far from Brissie and too far from the top end.....

[jeffhigh]

I can do you a great guitar in that price range

[Jedaks]

Thank you for your assistance. I'm not ready to buy yet, just curious about the practicalites of a guitar that can be easily be converted to left/right handed playing.

[jeffhigh]

Absolutely no problem to do one able to be played righty or lefty, it could be supplied with a spare nut and saddle to set it up the other way.
Bracing could be a symmetrical Torres style or Falcate and no differentiation on the fretboard.

[kiwigeo]

Hello all,
I'm considering upgrading my classical guitar to higher end advanced student/entry concert quality. That may be a vague term, but I was looking at the $2500-$3000 price range for a factory built Alhambra or Ramirez.

I'm a left handed player and was reading on Delcamp forum about how some luthiers can make a guitar that can be played left or right handed, just change the saddle/nut and string it around the other way. The fretboard, bracing etc is all symmetrical. That would be useful if I ever needed to sell it.

Can anyone comment on this?

Thanks,
Joe from Queensland.

Im sure Jeff could make you a guitar you'd be happy with. Ashley Sanders is a classical builder here in South Australia who is a member on this forum.

[Trevor Gore]

I might be over your budget, but happy to talk about the "ins and outs" of ambidextrous guitars. I build mine symmetrically, so there are no "structural" issues with mine. Contact details are on my website (see below). I'm in Sydney.

This is a right-hander I did for a guy up your way.

36-Cedar Neo.jpg (100.9 KiB) Viewed 15612 times

[Jedaks]

Thanks gents, I'm grateful.

If it is no problem to make a guitar that can be played right or left handed with just a string and nut/saddle change, then why aren't they commonly made?

Please, pardon me. I'm new on the forum and I mean no disrespect. It is one thing to reverse string a cheap factory made guitar. But if high-end guitars can easily be made ambidextrous, then what is the advantage of making specifically right or left handed instruments? Is it a compromise?

[jeffhigh]

It's not as easy on a Steel String guitar because of the slope of the saddle needed for compensation (unless you go with Trevor's method of a extra wide saddle) I have done a few conversions to left handed in the last 12 months on steel strings involving filling and recutting saddle slots.

In the Classical World, many makers believe

- that there is a treble and bass side to the soundboard and that non symmetrical bracing is beneficial
- that having a uniform saddle height is worth tapering the fretboard differentially on the bass and the treble side.
-that it is necessary to have more bow (relief) on the bass string side of the fretboard.

If you subscribe to these concepts, and I don't, then it is a barrier to producing an instrument which can be easily converted

[Trevor Gore]

Jeff has given you an accurate, concise answer to your questions.

I'll give you a longer one, with some conjecture as to how things got to how they are. It seems to me that it stems from the the advent of the steel string guitar in the USA and the reluctance of the mainstream classical market to adopt some of those innovations.

In Europe, guitar marking followed the traditions of various regions, Austria, Germany, Italy, England, France and, of course, Spain. Post Torres, the Spanish method dominated. Guitars were built using relatively weak neck woods (mahogany or cedro) with one of the most unstable woods, ebony, as the fretboard, which I presume was a hangover from the use of ebony on violin family instruments where its wear resistance is required due to fingering directly onto the wood (rather than on a fret). Ebony changes length much more than most woods as humidity changes, which makes the neck act rather like a bimetal strip responds to temperature changes. Every time there is a humidity change, the curvature of the neck changes, which means that set-ups have to have the strings higher off the fretboard than "optimal" to accommodate the changes in curvature of the neck with the weather. The basic set-up requires that strings be higher on the bass side and so all sorts of tricks were employed to make that happen whilst accommodating the changes in curvature of the neck. The various tricks include tapering the fretboard across its width, thus tilting the fret plane, adding more relief to the bass side so as to get a twisted fret plane, having the bridge thicker on the bass side, having the saddle taller on the bass side, etc. etc.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic (from Europe) the American steel string guitar was being developed, originally by the Larson brothers, then by Martin and Gibson. Development was rapid, with the introduction of the adjustable truss rod by Gibson in the 1920s. This allowed the neck relief to be adjusted to counteract the variations in humidity and wood properties that made some necks bend more than other. The adjustable truss rod meant that playability (and to an extent action) could be easily adjusted making things easier on the fingers with those steel strings. Elite players got used to lower action and more precise set-ups as a consequence and these improvements spread over the SS guitar playing community.

Steel string players thus got used to much better levels of playability than classical players, who still believed in suffering for their art.

Enter a generation of builders who build both classical and steel string guitars, still pretty rare in the professional guitar building community. Builders tend to strongly favour one style or the other, because they are very different markets with very different customers often with very different prejudices i.e. they have very strong ideas, frequently based on myths and hearsay with no basis in fact. These builders can see both sides of the story and for example, have no apprehensions about putting adjustable truss rods in classical guitars. And suddenly classical guitar playability is much better and the need for fretboards tapered across their width, twisted fret planes etc. is much reduced with the result that classical guitars can be symmetrical (bar the nut and saddle) on the outside, just like steel string guitars. On the inside, the bracing can be symmetrical or not. However, guitars inherently like to behave symmetrically, so forcing an asymmetric response takes a lot of bracing, to provide the extra stiffness that forces the asymmetry, which unless very thoughtfully done (but it can be done) results in a rather unresponsive guitar, due to the extra stiffness and mass that has been added. As the benefits of asymmetry are purely a matter of taste (they are not fundamentally "better") and there is a big down side to not getting it exactly right and just as tasty a guitar can be made symmetrically without the down side risk, most classical guitars are basically symmetrical. Most steel string guitars are asymmetrically braced, but those with scalloped bracing (at least) tend to behave symmetrically at low-mid frequencies where most of the radiated power is.

Hence, if builders know their stuff, there is only the nut and saddle to change to switch from right to left handed.

Per Jeff's mention of my nut and saddle compensation methods, some pictures showing the scheme on SS guitars are in this thread. The saddle is 5mm thick.

The bridge and saddle of one of my classicals is shown below. There is no fretboard/neck asymmetry.

Meander Front.jpg (114.51 KiB) Viewed 15472 times

[P Bill]

Thanks for the posts Trevor and Jeff. I know a lot more about classicals than I did 5 min ago.

[Jedaks]

Thanks Jeff and Trevor, that was just the kind of answer I was hoping for...to the point and very clear. I suppose every craft/trade/art eventually develops adherants for doing things a certain way even if there is no real need for it.

[Jedaks]

You're in a bit of a limbo there, a bit far from Brissie and too far from the top end.....

Yes, this is a very "basic" area and if you have any interests in life that are not rubber stamp made in plastic, then this indeed limbo.

I took my Alhambra into the local music store once to check out some amplifiers. The shop attendant didn't even quite know what a classical guitar was. He thought nylon string guitars were only the $100 Ashtons that parents buy for their kids.