Greetings All...Yesterday, I met an interesting man, Joe McNamara, who is a musician working for
C.F. Martin & Co....the makers of Martin Guitars, one of the oldest companies
(est. 1833) in the USA....He had some samples of the components that make up the
instruments, and showed me some of the subtle features that make these guitars
so respected. They use cross bracing on the interior front face that resembles
some of the same shapes that I have been using to reinforce my composite
prototypes....and induce a very slight (130' diameter circle) curvature and
concavity over the face, to make the skin resound....this is the same thing that
car makers have used to increase impact resistance and to reduce vibration
resonance of body panels.
They need to reinforce the joints between the sides and front and back of the
body, and use a ribbon of kerfed Mahogany as the corner block....This looked
like a place where either split bamboo, or more likely, rattan, would be a
better material for the purpose.
I have heard about acoustic Bamboo guitars, before, and wonder if there have
been any advances in that direction?...There is about 1800 lbs of tension on the
strings, and that makes the joint between the Neck and the body the weak
point....I wonder if Bamboo could be used to make a single structure and thus
obviate the necessity to make a complex joint from different types of
wood....that would allow the instrument to be less effected by temperature and
humidity....as it is now, Martin dealers must have special rooms to store the
instruments in, that keep the Humidity at 50%, at 72 degrees F...anything less
than 20% will "guarantee cracks"....
Bamboo in the round seems to be a vibration "dampener"....it is the reason that
the Bamboo bicycle is so well respected by people who ride 100 miles a day; and
that may be the case with the new veneers that I have seen; but perhaps a bit of
high pressure "tempering" would make that a variable that could be engineered to
advantage. Just a thought...
I still need 10 people to join the American Bamboo Society, so that we can form
a new Chapter that will work on grant funding for the Plantation Crop
Substitution Project...which will attempt to get the grasses going on a
meaningful scale, in the USA....the target is the Cotton subsidy, and Job
creation through Vocational Training...that's where the money is right now,
every Congressperson wants to create new jobs, so if we can make the case for
our projects on that basis, we may finally get going with the "Bamboo
Revolution" that has been ignored here, so far...The only way to do that is to
get together, and create a movement that can get some articulate young people to
help us spread the word to their representatives...so far that has not
happened...no one seems to want to have anything to do with "politics", and
that's why we are in the sad situation that we face in the next election, where
everyone assumes that the Neocons will make any chance of progress even more
impossible than it has done since Obama was elected,; alas.
Rob Roark
bambooisgrass@yahoo.com
bambooisgrass.com
415 250 3214
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