From
Tops: thick or thin? (prewargibsonl-5.com):
<< Author Tom Van Hoose mentions this on page 10 of his book: '
The Gibson Super 400', where he states: "The difference in thickness between the two tops was approximately 1/16 th of an inch, and the thin top version had
a somewhat lower, thinner bridge base than the thick top version". >>
<< So, did the terms 'thick' and 'thin' refer to the actual thickness of the finished top or the thickness of the blank from which it was carved? >>
<< Stewart adds: " Andre Duchossoir (author of '
Gibson Electrics - The Classic Years') suggested that the billets themselves might have been different sizes ... >>
An archtop guitar bridge can comparably easy be changed or replaced, while the guitar won't change its main tonal character.
What's more important: the guitar body or the bridge? And how would the guitar salesperson or customer know that they had to deal with a different guitar body?
Yes, Gibson, IMO, must have used spruce blanks of different thicknesses to make thick top (the regular model?) or thin top models, and that was to what the "1 1/8" had been pointing. Conversely, this would imply that they used two different soundboard templates or models for reading off when making the copies on the pantograph router.
Whether they used just one template (like on my oversimplified little drawing above) or two different ones for the routing process: not only gets the soundboard thickness changed, but also the arching curves and their height.
We all know that a thinner top, especially a thin recurve, results in a boomier sound. My 1996 L-5WM with a comparably thin top, and very little gradation differences between the center and the recurve, is the boomy monster. A thick top tends to be sharper and more percussive, just like one would expect of many prewar L-5s.
An insight into the top thickness is given on
Gibson L-5 top thickness (prewargibsonl-5.com) , and we see the thickness range reaching up to a bold 7.6 mm, with many measuring points reading around 5.6 mm.
When you thin out such a guitar top by 1/16", using the same tonebar dimension and string set, you'll weaken the top stability considerably: stiffness is proportional to thickness cubed (not squared!). The solution of the luthiers has been for centuries to add stiffness by simply increasing the arching height. Of course, this is neglected, if your CNC-machine puts out hundreds of identically dimensioned soundboards, and, yes, a
major post-processing by hand would be possible, though quite time-consuming and demanding for a highly trained and skilled person, thus hard to find in the archtop guitar world today.
Anyway, it's the
arching shape that has a fundamental influence on the timbre. The slighest change in arching will increase the amplitude of some frequencies, and decrease others. Overtones are very important for coloration, completeness and presence of tone. Also, these help us hear and project articulation.
Originally Posted by floatingpickup
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