Julian Lage selling 1932 L-5 ($30K) - Info via Instagram

[Jimmy blue note]

So what's the big fuss re re-necking? I read it was done by Gibson in '33. How is this worse than a '33 original neck L5? (seriously... I'm hoping to learn)

Jimmy D'Aquisto re-necked an instrument that he didn't even build himself. He imparted his touch on a damaged Les Paul. Total bastard of an axe. Probably one of the most valuable Les Pauls in history now.
Big fuss? In short, guitars fall into two categories:
Collectors' objects- fueled by myth and the ideal of untouchable perfection. The instrument leaves the maker's hands and it embodies some sense of pristine perfection and at that point, its intrinsic perfection should be preserved. It's a sculpture and a work of art.
Player's tools- these are a cooperative projects of a luthier's intention, skill, execution conspiring with a player's commitment, dedication and individual touch. As a tool, its inherent potential is not realized until long after it leaves the luthier's hands and changes in the instrument in the service of the music are part of its legacy as an instrument of music. As a tool, the player knows what is needed to make music; alterations, adjustments, even the "damage" done while part of a working musician's life are part of the instrument.

Of course reality is somewhere between these two spectral ideals, but truth be told, a luthier doesn't know what his/her creation is capable or what it can physically become after it leaves the shop in the case. Antonio Stradivari's instruments took near a century of play to break in and mature, for the varnish to cure along the same nodal resin lines that are a result of constant playing. The players make the instrument greater than the luthier can imagine. Antonio Stradivarius never heard how great his own instruments were.
I have a Jimmy D'Aquisto guitar and it's a singular instrument, but when I got it, it wasn't played a lot in my opinion. It sang but in the time I've had it it has really opened up and it's always dangerous for me to pick it up now because I can't put it down. Same with a D'Angelico that was gifted to me that lived untouched in Japan for many years.

So yes to a collector who values a guitar by the concept of immaculate creation, a re-neck (or finish checks or wear or structural marring...) is a damaged or blasphemy to the ideal. But to a player, if an unoriginal neck is mated to a corpus at some time after it leaves the luthier's bench, the question is not whether it's tainted, but rather Does it make the instrument a more capable instrument of music?.

As to how this effects market value, How do YOU see a guitar?: Do you have the knowledge to assess an object of art-- or the skill to know an instrument that has been changed over time from a form of wood into something that can do justice to the music that you put into it?

[RJVB]

Total bastard of an axe. Probably one of the most valuable Les Pauls in history now.

But still not very good at chopping I guess?

I keep forgetting that people call these things guitars too...

[Jimmy blue note]

But still not very good at chopping I guess?

I keep forgetting that people call these things guitars too...

There's a funny interview with Itzhak Perlman interviewed by Letterman, and when his violin is referred to as his "axe", he doesn't take the bait. "Did you bring your axe?" Perlman "My what?" and he makes Letterman explain the term as if he's a school teacher explaining a vocabulary word to a clueless child. Well played Itzhak!

[RJVB]

Well played Isaac!

That he could!

He didn't then go on to say that he did bring his log?

(to saw through, a better visual violinistic metaphor )

[Jimmy blue note]

That he could!

He didn't then go on to say that he did bring his log?

(to saw through, a better visual violinistic metaphor )

I "saw" what you did!
Perlman is a genius of depth and insight. At times he has the most dry and straight delivery, other times he'll say outrageously absurd things to keep the interviewer off balance.
He played Letterman like a fiddle.

(there was no small degree of distain that permeated his amiable interview. Contrast this with his appearances on Sesame Street. Pure love.)

[wintermoon]

Itzhak

[skykomishone]

One of the best sounding and playing archtop guitars that I own is a vintage Gibson that needed a reset and had the finish worn off the neck from playing. One of the best decisions I've made on guitar purchases. It was a diamond in the rough! Noncut L7. Awesome guitar. The most important thing is having someone skilled in that sort of thing doing the work. I was fortunate and it worked out perfectly.

[ccroft]

No news yet! My main point: a guitar that's been re-necked after 20 or 30 years is one thing. A guitar that was re-necked one year later by the same outfit that built it might be somewhat different. Even to collectors.

Not to mention a renecked one.

So I'm still trying to learn. Do all re-neckings do the same damage to value?

[wintermoon]

No news yet! My main point: a guitar that's been re-necked after 20 or 30 years is one thing. A guitar that was re-necked one year later by the same outfit that built it might be somewhat different. Even to collectors.



So I'm still trying to learn. Do all re-neckings do the same damage to value?

Typically, but if the specs hadn't changed who would even know unless there was documentation. I don't know the story of this particular L-5 but you might be able to tell if it was originally built as a dot neck but renecked in '32 w blocks which is about when the change in specs occured..
Or if you bought a new D'Angelico and broke the neck a couple yrs later, JD made a new neck and refinished the guitar, how would anyone know unless it was years later and John's design or sunburst color had changed in the meantime. Some people even feel if they know for certain an individual builder like D'Angelico refinished a guitar it shouldn't affect the value but in the collector market it often does, though not as much as say a company like Gibson or Fender.

[Sam Sherry]

Or if you bought a new D'Angelico and broke the neck a couple yrs later, JD made a new neck and refinished the guitar, how would anyone know unless it was years later and John's design or sunburst color had changed in the meantime. Some people even feel if they know for certain an individual builder like D'Angelico refinished a guitar it shouldn't affect the value but in the collector market it often does, though not as much as say a company like Gibson or Fender.

I've been lucky to have a few big-time luthiers as friends.
One of them told me that if your violin or cello top cracks and you send it to him he will replace the top 100% of the time.
Not only is it quicker for him to just swap out the top, the result is invisible.

[deacon Mark]

I've been lucky to have a few big-time luthiers as friends.
One of them told me that if your violin or cello top cracks and you send it to him he will replace the top 100% of the time.
Not only is it quicker for him to just swap out the top, the result is invisible.

Working on Violins is completely different. They are all made of hide glue and routinely are taken apart and things done. They don't have binding as such and all those million $$ Stratovarius Violins have been taken apart numerous times. HIde glue they just melt and your violin is in pieces i a short time.

[Cunamara]

Antonio Stradivari's instruments took near a century of play to break in and mature, for the varnish to cure along the same nodal resin lines that are a result of constant playing. The players make the instrument greater than the luthier can imagine. Antonio Stradivarius never heard how great his own instruments were.

I never thought of that.

[RJVB]

I never thought of that.

And I missed the remark... Do we actually know that it took this long because of required breaking-in, or just because the instruments were too much ahead of their time and only started to be appreciated like we do them nowadays after "nearly a century of play" or mostly sitting in their cases? I doubt there are many continuous studies that assessed the instruments' performance according to a set of well-defined and non-evolving criteria as would be required to support that kind of claim

[Jimmy blue note]

And I missed the remark... Do we actually know that it took this long because of required breaking-in, or just because the instruments were too much ahead of their time and only started to be appreciated like we do them nowadays after "nearly a century of play" or mostly sitting in their cases? I doubt there are many continuous studies that assessed the instruments' performance according to a set of well-defined and non-evolving criteria as would be required to support that kind of claim

There are a number of very serious acoustical research groups, in Australia, in GB, in the USA that I know of. They've been doing very comprehensive study of acoustics for over a half century now and before that, brokers and performers, luthiers and well documented observers have been well aware of the "arc" of a violin (and guitar) from in the white to maturation. It's well known that the changes that occur are a mixture of different factours but there is no question that any instrument off the bench is nothing compared with what it can become with playing.
Once an instrument is finished, it's what we call a "green" guitar (or violin). It literally needs to be taught how to vibrate, how to break the hard resins that gave the tree strength, along the nodal lines that it vibrates along at given frequencies. This takes time as this takes place on a microscopic level and there is initially a tendency to re-form along the natural lines of the grown tree.
Have you ever played a vintage archtop that has been played in a big band? Ever played a guitar that's been kept in a case all its life? It's no coincidence that great violins are part of a lineage of great concert partnerships of being "pushed" through use.
And when orchestras became larger during the romantic era, competition with brass augmented string ensembles into modern orchestras necessitated higher string tensions and the virtual reengineering and rebuilding of all baroque violins (Strads, Amadi, Guanari, Vuillaume) to a form that was unknown to the original builders. This is another reason Strad never heard what we hear.

GAL, Journal of Musical Acoustics, Catgut Acoustic journals (archived at Montclair NJ) for three sources where you can read up on the physics of violin building and the dynamic nature of the life of a modern wood stringed instrument.

Then you can decide whether something is going on or whether it's all talking through their hats. But to your point RJVB, good point! Stradivari never imagined the sheer impact of the Bruck violin concerto or Beethoven, Brahms or even Perlman playing the Schindler's list sound track. Modern music pushes an instrument to a range never imagined on the shops of violin row. It's been the players, composers and luthier's innovations that have brought us to this point.

[RJVB]

If I may, I think you make the modernisation operation sound a little more complex (and irreversible) than it probably was. AFAIK we're "only" talking about a new neck set at a steeper angle so the bridge could be higher, necessitating a heavier bass bar and soundpost. A priori no changes were made to the box.

Then you can decide whether something is going on or whether it's all talking through their hats.

Are you forgetting that you're talking to a (former) (baroque) violinist? I've had the opportunity to hear up close and play a number of (near) top level old instruments (including a lusciously-sounding Storioni and a rather singular Stainer) plus instruments of various ages by two of the Netherlands' best luthiers. I won't disagree with the "needs to be played" idea because I know how quickly an instrument that's not being played can start to feel asleep and I've seen too many examples where someone (me included) would guess accurately that somebody's "new" instrument hadn't been played for a while. But the luthiers I spoke with about this all more or less dismissed it laughingly. And they have a point: new or old, you can still assess the quality of an instrument and 2 instruments have to be really close in quality if the lesser but played-in one sounds noticeably better across the line than the better one of the two. To human ears, I mean, of course. There are very few old instruments (in baroque set-up) of which I prefer the sound over that of my former '82 Bolink ... which hadn't been played for years when I got it in '94.
But I'm also ready to believe that guitars are a bit different in this aspect. Bowed instruments aren't built at the limit of implosion in order to be able to produce sufficient volume, and sustain is of little consideration (AFAIK), acoustic guitars are.

PS: which Vuillaume?

[Jimmy blue note]

If I may, I think you make the modernisation operation sound a little more complex (and irreversible) than it probably was. AFAIK we're "only" talking about a new neck set at a steeper angle so the bridge could be higher, necessitating a heavier bass bar and soundpost. A priori no changes were made to the box.



Are you forgetting that you're talking to a (former) (baroque) violinist? I've had the opportunity to hear up close and play a number of (near) top level old instruments (including a lusciously-sounding Storioni and a rather singular Stainer) plus instruments of various ages by two of the Netherlands' best luthiers. I won't disagree with the "needs to be played" idea because I know how quickly an instrument that's not being played can start to feel asleep and I've seen too many examples where someone (me included) would guess accurately that somebody's "new" instrument hadn't been played for a while. But the luthiers I spoke with about this all more or less dismissed it laughingly. And they have a point: new or old, you can still assess the quality of an instrument and 2 instruments have to be really close in quality if the lesser but played-in one sounds noticeably better across the line than the better one of the two. To human ears, I mean, of course. There are very few old instruments (in baroque set-up) of which I prefer the sound over that of my former '82 Bolink ... which hadn't been played for years when I got it in '94.
But I'm also ready to believe that guitars are a bit different in this aspect. Bowed instruments aren't built at the limit of implosion in order to be able to produce sufficient volume, and sustain is of little consideration (AFAIK), acoustic guitars are.

PS: which Vuillaume?

I am well aware of your knowledge and I always respect what you have to say. I enjoy the conversations we can have knowing that you're someone who has opinions backed by real life experience.
My perspective comes from that of a luthier, and as a luthier who worked with Al Carruth, Carleen Hutchins, Thomas Knatt, there was always a lively discussion on the causality of lutherie and experimentation that would improve an instrument through empirical incorporation of new ideas, trial and error. That's where I'm coming from.
What I do know is there is a period in which an instrument continues to sound better and while many luthiers strive to achieve "peak" performance faster, it's an elusive prospect and while tuning plates for an easy early response will often result in an instrument that loosens up and looses its punch early.
That's overly simplistic, of course but I still hold that any new guitar approaches an optimum during the time a player works with it; and it does make a difference. You can believe what you believe, I'll believe what I do. It's just what I've seen and tried to understand the physics of. That's my angle.

Ha, I knew you'd catch the mention of Vuillaume. I was going to take his name out but I thought it might elicit a red flag and conversation over the ever contentious mention of the Messiah. Strad or updated strad design from the inception? Always a lively argument for an evolutionary art.

And it might also be an interesting discussion of archtop guitars vs violin family instruments, not made any less complicated by the absolutely different tradition of how to make a fiddle vs a guitar. There is much to be said for the guild system and the master apprentice tradition that has very little tolerance for revolution in violin building, and there's something to be said for the sheer open frontier of guitar builders, for better or worse. Another thread, another discussion. But I will say there's a lot more myth and misinformation I've seen from first time archtop builders or by the book luthiers. But that argument and its pedantic counterpart in learning the language of improvisation are more apropos to this forum anyway.

Always welcome your perspective RJVB!

[Cunamara]

Once an instrument is finished, it's what we call a "green" guitar (or violin). It literally needs to be taught how to vibrate, how to break the hard resins that gave the tree strength, along the nodal lines that it vibrates along at given frequencies. This takes time as this takes place on a microscopic level and there is initially a tendency to re-form along the natural lines of the grown tree.

Huh. I guess that explains why laminate guitars really don't ever go through that process. There's multiple layers of wood with the grain oriented differently, not to mention a layer of glue between each veneer. It might "break in" a little bit, I suppose, but not to the same extent.

[Jimmy blue note]

Huh. I guess that explains why laminate guitars really don't ever go through that process. There's multiple layers of wood with the grain oriented differently, not to mention a layer of glue between each veneer. It might "break in" a little bit, I suppose, but not to the same extent.

Exactly. Also there's an incredible strength to weight ratio in a top that's cut from a single wedge out of a tree. That wedge isn't just a top on your guitar, it's an integral part of a tree that supported literally tons of weight. A solid top takes that pillar, slices a wedge that maintains the orientation of grain that made the tree that strong, sculpts that wedge into an arched shape along the grain lines so it forms an engineering weight supporting shape like a bridge, and gets thinned down and tuned until all unnecessary wood is removed.
A laminate guitar has the same shape, but not the "tree nature" that supports the weight of the tree. It takes slices from that tree and relies on weaved layers glued and pressed into the shape of an arched top and back. Those sheets (laminates) are no where near as strong as the natural properties of the tree but it does borrow the arching; so its got the integrity of wood but not the natural strength to weight of the tree. You can't optimize plywood to the miraculous strength to weight ratio of natural wood along the grain line.

I kind of look at a solid carved top as a sculpture that respects the nature of the tree. It's remarkably light and has its own resonance that can be artfully tuned to make music. A laminate is not unlike a tree sliced into thin pieces like a quarter pound of cold cuts and held in place with glue. It's wood, but just not like the tree intended it. So it uses mass to achieve that strength and doesn't ring.

In the end, the true nature of the material is how the player uses it to make music. It's not there to realize a wonder of strength to weight, but rather to covey the wonder of thought to music. Solid wood still has tree nature in it. It's a dynamic and aging material. Laminates will change but there's a lot of layers and glue learning to vibrate in ways it was never meant to.
It's kind of miraculous. But not as amazing as one chorus of a master playing a really great solo that you'll never hear again.

[RJVB]

That's overly simplistic, of course but I still hold that any new guitar approaches an optimum during the time a player works with it; and it does make a difference. You can believe what you believe, I'll believe what I do. It's just what I've seen and tried to understand the physics of. That's my angle.

You'll probably have noticed that I tried to make a distinction between guitars and violins in terms of breaking-in effects, plus between the physics behind it and the results of those processes that we actually perceive

Ha, I knew you'd catch the mention of Vuillaume. I was going to take his name out but I thought it might elicit a red flag and conversation over the ever contentious mention of the Messiah. Strad or updated strad design from the inception? Always a lively argument for an evolutionary art.

Actually, I don't have a particular place in my heart for French violins. I'm aware the French school is often seen as having taken over from the Italian school during at least a part of the 19th century (a period I've long been less interested in musically). I just associated Vuillaume with that period, and after checking there's indeed 1 who's violins probably have never had to be re-necked

There is much to be said for the guild system and the master apprentice tradition that has very little tolerance for revolution in violin building, and there's something to be said for the sheer open frontier of guitar builders, for better or worse. Another thread, another discussion. But I will say there's a lot more myth and misinformation I've seen from first time archtop builders or by the book luthiers. But that argument and its pedantic counterpart in learning the language of improvisation are more apropos to this forum anyway.

Exactly. At the same time, esp. archtop guitars are such a recent development that there cannot yet be much "guildship". I do know of several guitar builders here in France those who do training workshops, so there's a bit of master/apprentice things going on.

Always welcome your perspective RJVB!

I suspected, but thanks

[Cunamara]

At the same time, esp. archtop guitars are such a recent development that there cannot yet be much "guildship". I do know of several guitar builders here in France those who do training workshops, so there's a bit of master/apprentice things going on.

Not having done any kind of guitar-making other than bolting together pre-manufactured solid body parts, which certainly does not count for much, to the somewhat untutored eye it would appear that archtop guitar luthierie has much less orthodoxy and received knowledge base than does violin luthierie. To some extent, every person who goes into building archtop guitars has to figure out a lot for themselves and develop an understanding of and a relationship with wood as David described above.

There is some degree of a chain of luthierie wisdom amongst archtop guitar makers, though. I'm thinking of John D'Angelico, who learned to make violins from his uncle before turning to the guitar. Jimmy D'Aquisto apprentice with him. Other luthiers apprenticed, to some degree at least, with Jimmy and some of them are still in business like Roger Borys, John Monteleone, etc. So there is a chain of accumulated knowledge being passed on there. Bob Benedetto has his own vein of luthierie and there are quite a few following in those lines, in part because he embraced writing a book and making videos about how to design and build archtop guitars. However, archtop guitar knowledge is not yet like the many generations of knowledge accumulated in making violins and bows.

[RJVB]

However, archtop guitar knowledge is not yet like the many generations of knowledge accumulated in making violins and bows.

That's more or less what I tried to say too.

[Dennis D]

{ " However, archtop guitar knowledge is not yet like the many generations of knowledge accumulated in making violins and bows. " }


I'm not so sure most of that quest for archtop ' guitar knowledge ' didn't slow down drastically with the advent of pickups / electrification. And why not ? I mean once players demanded more volume, why should the manufacturers keep beating their heads against a wall for acoustic volume, knowing a pickup and or amp can pretty much compensate for any acoustic volume shortcomings ?
So maybe the thinking amongst the manufacturers was " Ok, make it as playable and comfortable as possible, and once players ask for more volume, let the p/u's and amps take care of the volume. "

???

[xavierbarcelo]

Because maybe the point is not sheer volume, but sophistication in sound quality? Dynamics?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Cunamara]

Both Dennis and Xavier raise valid and I think parallel points. Guitar manufacturers did do what Dennis described by the 1940 or so. As Tal Farlow pointed out, what's good for acoustic tone is bad for electric tone and vice versa. But boutique luthiers took up the mantle of acoustic tone.

[RJVB]

I'm not so sure most of that quest for archtop ' guitar knowledge ' didn't slow down drastically with the advent of pickups / electrification.

Clearly that's not just happening with archtops but with acoustic guitars in general (except classical guitars). I'm not even convinced that high-end steel-string acoustics (and crossovers) that aren't intended to be pluggable aren't meant to be played through a mic - look at how someone like Michael Watts plays and ask yourself how well he'd be heard beyond the 1st row...

But I also had this discussion with a few guitar builders who confirmed/confessed that it would indeed not be that easy at all to build a steelstring flattop that has the same dynamic range as a similar-quality classical when both are played with comparable technique.

There's been a resurgence in interest for the acoustic archtop and its potential "applications" in not just jazz, including new studies of the acoustic properties of representative vintage instruments. See e.g. Login • Instagram .