Carbon fibre Cello

[woodrat]

I thought this was interesting....worth a look I think

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_gI3chGtww


John

[kiwigeo]

Where's all the fun in that? Not one hand tool in sight and the people making the instrument look like theyre straight out of a NASA satellite assembly plant.

[nnickusa]

Hmmph......no splinters.....where's the fun it that????

I have seen a number of fibre guitars on ebay recently, and they look pretty cool, but I don't know......

[Dave White]

A friend of mine who goes to the annual music camp - Burwell - that I go to has one of these. They sound fabulous. We were in a "One Night Stand Band" there and as it was raining all dry rehearsal spaces were taken so we had to use a portable toilet complex. Mark sat on the loo in a cubicle with his cello, proceeded to play Handel's "Water Music" and at the end stood up and pulled the chain - class

[kiwigeo]

A friend of mine who goes to the annual music camp - Burwell - that I go to has one of these. They sound fabulous. We were in a "One Night Stand Band" there and as it was raining all dry rehearsal spaces were taken so we had to use a portable toilet complex. Mark sat on the loo in a cubicle with his cello, proceeded to play Handel's "Water Music" and at the end stood up and pulled the chain - class

If you owned a CF cello you wouldnt need a loo......as long as the F holes were big enough

Handels Water Music played in the loo.....a perfect match.

[charangohabsburg]

Where's all the fun in that?

I think this building process is not about fun but about an alternative way of building excellent instruments, and a bit about flushing some luthierie myths down the toilet. I'd say that the CF fingerboard has some potential to be the future standard in stringed instrument building, and if there were ready-to-build CF backs and sides for guitars commercially available, I'm sure that there would be more than just a couple of individual luthiers who would use them.

[kiwigeo]

Why would I as a luthier bother spending hours building a CF guitar when a couple of "technicians" and a room full of process machinery can do just as good a job in a fraction of the time and for half the cost?

What can a luthier do with a factory made set of CF guitar components that a process worker can't??

[Lee]

Why would I as a luthier bother spending hours building a CF guitar when a couple of "technicians" and a room full of process machinery can do just as good a job in a fraction of the time and for half the cost?

What can a luthier do with a factory made set of CF guitar components that a process worker can't??

Make a huge stash

[Dave White]

According to Mark it's more about the stability of the instrument and tuning in a huge variety of changing humidity situations that make CF Cellos popular with professional touring musicians. They certainly aren't cheap.

[kiwigeo]

What fun is an instrument if you don't spend half your life tuning the thing???

[Dave White]

Having seen guitars made with epoxied laminated sides, nomex core tops and using vacuum clamping techniques, this is not a million miles away and I use CF a lot in my instruments as does another maker you know and love here

Of all of the "laminating" (sorry "doubling") techniques used in guitar making laminating the fingerboard makes most sense to me and I've been using this technique a lot - an ebony or other wood of choice exterior slice glued to a slice of the same wood as the neck. You get a lighter and to my ears more interestingly acoustic fingerboard and the scarce exterior wood is used half as much - unlike double tops/backs/sides where you use twice as much of a scarce and precious material - they don't use veneer cuts, oh no

Also using materials like CF rather than an organic material like wood you have much more predictability and ability to properly model it's behaviour. Colin Symonds sampled one guitar they made and studied at Loughbourough University here in the UK in conjunction with Gordon Gilltrap and told me it was one of the best sounding acoustic guitars he had played but not one that he would want to own or make. Wood has certain "other worldly" things going for it.

[charangohabsburg]

What can a luthier do with a factory made set of CF guitar components that a process worker can't??

It is something different, which is always fun. I don't say you had to build with it.
Some people might ask for CF back and sides just the same as they ask for a fancy wood species.

[P Bill]

I've played a cf fiddle and heard the same fiddle played by a very good player. It sounded good, no question, but it wasn't an instrument I would ever feel much for.

Don't forget cf is very toxic . I always cut rod to length outside and down wind with full safety gear.