Ever wondered how acoustic guitars are made? While they might appear a simple instrument on first impression, there’s a lot of history, ingenuity, and expertise that goes into producing a quality acoustic guitar, far more than an electric guitar. In the following article, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the entire process.
Acoustic guitars are made by sourcing the materials (tonewoods), shaping, marking out the soundhole, planing and thicknessing the top (soundboard), and installing bracing to handle the tension from the strings and distribute vibrations. The back and sides are then cut to shape. The back is also braced, and linings are installed on the sides of the body to increase the surface area for gluing the top and back. The neck is then built, using a scarf joint to connect the neck to the headstock. The fretboard is constructed next and calculations are made to provide accurate fret spacing for the guitar’s intonation to be correct. The bridge is then built. Finishing products are then applied before being sanded and polished. Once cured all components are assembled and detailed work e.g. inlays and construction of the nut and saddle are completed before the tuners are installed and the guitar is strung up and ready to play.
Before we get too far into this guide. I want to point out I’m not a luthier. Luthiers are highly skilled craftsmen who do magical things with wood.
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Consider the fact that an average guitar might weigh between 2 and 5lbs, but must be capable of handling up to (and in some cases beyond) 200lbs of tension from the strings. So, while I’ve been around guitars most of my life, luthiery is a different beast, it’s an art form and one I greatly respect.
With this in mind, the process below is not a tutorial by any means. It’s intended as an overview of the process. Hopefully, it provides a taste of what you might encounter if you decide to learn how to make your own acoustic guitar, or helps you learn more about, and appreciate, the guitar you currently play.
Keep in mind also, that guitars differ from body style to body style and brand to brand, and processes vary, based on the use of machinery, experience, and expertise. So, the information below is simply one way to go about building an acoustic guitar. Ok, with that out of the way, let’s discuss how acoustic guitars are built.
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For a relatively simple instrument (simple, does not mean easy) the process of building an acoustic guitar is highly sophisticated and involves the following steps:
As you might imagine, there’s a lot to cover in this article. We’ll get things underway with an overview of perhaps the most important component, assembling the raw materials, or tonewoods.
The guitar building process begins with the assembling of raw materials, aka tonewoods. When it comes to building an acoustic guitar this means selecting the wood for the body (soundboard, back, and sides), the neck, fretboard, and bridge.
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Each component of the guitar plays a different role in how the guitar sounds and plays, and as a result, may utilize different materials and different species of timber that have different characteristics.
The most important component of the acoustic guitar is undoubtedly the soundboard or top wood. This is the component most responsible for the tone, responsiveness, and projection of the guitar and is usually constructed from a strong, yet light species of timber such as Spruce.
Spruce has also been used extensively in the design of aircraft due to its strength-to-weight ratio. Countless other materials are often also used including Mahogany, Cedar, and more exotic wood species such as Koa.
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When you order wood for the soundboard and back of the guitar body from a luthier supplier the timber is first split and then cut into pairs. The pairs are generally matched, so they appear as a mirror-image of one another, this is known as book matching.
Tonewoods are graded based on their quality with regard to defects e.g. knots. A skilled luthier, if trying to create a specific sounding instrument, not only selects wood for each guitar based on its appearance, but also the acoustic properties of the wood.
Some luthiers can get a good idea of the acoustic properties of the wood by tapping on the wood (tone-tapping) and listening for the sound it makes. For tonewoods especially suited to acoustic guitar construction, the sound is often described, even in this raw state, as bell-like.
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The timber for the back will follow much the same process as the top but will often be of a different species of wood. The back and sides are usually paired and made up of a more rigid material, allowing the top greater resonance, much like the skin of a drum.
The wood for the sides is normally ordered as a prepared blank, consisting of two adjacent sections of wood that are also matched with regard to color and grain pattern. The most common wood species used for the back and sides are Rosewood, Mahogany, and Maple.
The neck must be light enough for the guitar to feel balanced in the hands of the player, but also strong enough to maintain structural integrity under tension. If not, the intonation of the guitar (how in tune the guitar is with itself) and action (string height) will be affected negatively.
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This is important over the lifetime of the guitar also, and as a result, guitar necks are usually made from hardwoods such as Mahogany and/or Maple which are known for their density and therefore structural integrity.
The fretboard, aka fingerboard, must be durable enough to handle the steel strings being pushed down against it, not to mention the fingernails of the fretting hand. Ebony and Rosewood, along with Maple are the most common fretboard materials, with the majority of acoustic guitars featuring a Rosewood neck.
Rosewood is a particularly well-suited species of timber for this purpose as it is naturally oily, reducing friction between the guitarist’s fingers and the fretboard.
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Ebony is similar, but darker in appearance and more sought after, but is often more expensive and takes considerably longer to dry.
Rosewood has become more difficult to acquire over the past few years due to regulations protecting it from over-harvesting. As a result, engineered Rosewood is now also commonly used.
The soundboard and back of the guitar are reinforced to retain their structure against the tension of the strings, this is known as bracing. The bracing pattern also disperses the vibrations passed on from the bridge throughout the body.
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As the struts are attached directly to the underside of the soundboard and back of the guitar they must be sufficiently light, so as not to reduce the vibrational energy of the soundboard significantly, but also, like the soundboard, have sufficient strength to maintain its structure over the life-time of the guitar.
In many cases, the individual struts are made from the same species of timber as the soundboard and in some cases scalloped to reduce weight while maintaining strength. Scalloped bracing, refers to some of the material being removed e.g. scalloped to reduce the weight of the bracing.
The video below from Tony Polecastro, formerly of the Acoustic Letter YouTube channel, and now acousticlive.tv provides a great side-by-side comparison of scalloped V non-scalloped bracing.
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If you consider the soundboard and the top and bottom edges of the sides of an acoustic guitar, there isn’t a great deal of space for the glue to be applied for joining the back and soundboard to the sides.
Because of this linings are used to increase the surface area so more glue can be applied. In many cases, the same materials used to construct the sides are also used for the linings.
Bindings are the thin strips that separate the soundboard and the back and sides, and are sometimes used on the back of the guitar as well (double binding). While appearing mostly decorative, binding serves a couple of useful purposes.
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For one binding protects the hard edges of the guitar which are most likely to be damaged by impact. Secondly, they shield the end grains of the soundboard from absorbing moisture.
Many necks are also bound. This can prevent fret ends from sticking out (fret sprout) on the edges of the neck, which can happen if the fretboard timber shrinks due to changes in humidity e.g. you purchased a guitar overseas, or from a more humid environment and the fretboard timber loses moisture when you bring it home.
The mold is the template used for marking out the back and top of the guitar and bending the sides of the guitar body. Molds are made to specific body styles and sizes.
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You can buy molds from luthier suppliers, or even sites such as Amazon and eBay, or many luthiers simply make their own.
Book matching involves matching two sections of wood (your blanks for the soundboard) so that it appears the grains are mirror images of one another.
Once you have assembled the required materials the next step is to book match the soundboard of the guitar by aligning the wooden blanks so that the grain pattern aligns.
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