greenfield guitars

[Bruce Haugen]

Having only ever built one dulcimer and one ukulele, I know a little more than nothing.  Still, most of what I've seen use solid sides, but Greenfield says he laminates his sides.  Is this a common practice?

[EricU]

I haven't been paying attention to lutherie much, but I don't think laminated sides are common at all. Seems like a good way to use 3 times as much wood.

The real art in acoustic guitars is carving the braces and getting the thickness of the top right. It doesn't look like much from the outside. Of course, the level of craft that a good luthier uses to build a guitar is very high, and somewhat difficult to achieve. There isn't much gain to be had with rearranging the structural elements, at least not without a lifetime of study. Obviously, the voicing of a production guitar is almost always left to chance. So even a beginning builder has a good chance of doing better

[AHill]

Having only ever built one dulcimer and one ukulele, I know a little more than nothing.  Still, most of what I've seen use solid sides, but Greenfield says he laminates his sides.  Is this a common practice?

Laminated sides are common on less expensive guitars, and actually kind of rare on high end guitars.  Laminated sides do change the tone vs. a solid wood side.  Lower end Taylor guitars are still pretty decent guitars but they have laminated sides.

[EricU]

one thing I was curious about was the tail block.  It looked like plywood. Didnt notice the neck block