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March 2002
Posts: 255
| Hey this is a question to big Bill or anyone who knows.
Where exactly did the demensions and shape of the bowl come from. I was always curious. It could have been all different but similar shapes. The profile and etc. If this is common knowledge sorry. I guess I missed it somewhere, I just love the whole beginnings history of Ovation. I personally wouldnt play anything else except my own. |
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February 2002
Posts: 613
Location: Zion, Illinois | My wife says that my belly was the model. Looking down, she might be right. :D |
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July 2003
Posts: 1922
Location: Canton (Detroit), MI | The bowl shape is intended to be parabolic for sound projection, although it originally was done for strength (this is from Walter Carter's book). Once you define the shape as parabolic, I would imagine it was just fitting it to the proper size body. The size was probably taken from the Martin D-size guitar they used for testing.
Roger |
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January 2004
Posts: 648
Location: Florida | What Brad said... except I was the "deep bowl" model |
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March 2002
Posts: 255
| Ya I remember reading about that, wish I could find the book. Hoping to get a couple juicy details about the brainstorming that went on designing it. |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | They started as round modeled after Charlie and Bradley. Of course they were much thinner then so they modified what they had and the result was the shape of #6. This came out waaay to fat so then they cut it back to what you know as the bowl shape now for the deep bowl. Number 6 also has the problem of sliding off your knee although I've never heard anyone voice this complaint (!) so the waist and knee flat spots were added. Then they wanted to know what a smaller volume inside the bowl would do to the sound so they took a guitar and filled it with parafin wax. It still sounded good and it was brighter. That's where the 4 really shallow classics came from. A few years later the shallow (mid) came.
There was a Martin D-28 used as the sound reference point but the Ovation shape has always been there and different from the Martin. Look at #6, it's pretty much the Ovation shape. There was a mold of a dreadnaught made but is was never really used. The bowl for the resonator Al has was made on this mold. There was another size guitar that was made in the biginnig as a second body shape, smaller and more like a OOO size. This was supposed to be for Buffy St. Marie but that deal never worked out and that shape was scrapped. The original guitar is still at the factory.
This doesn't really answer where the shape (looking at the guitar head on) came from and I guess that answer is that they wanted something different from what was out there and came up with this shape. |
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December 2003
Posts: 13997
Location: Upper Left USA | luthier,
Requesting trade secrets here. You may want to ignore me - Is there any storage of bygone apparatus at the factory or is real estate as hard to find as it is at my work (weapons of mass destruction cannabilization and mantainance)?
The original bowl molds spoken of in the "book" would be an awesome display. Wouldn't mind playing with the process myself. Don't tell Seesquare if their around :rolleyes: |
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March 2002
Posts: 255
| Tanks Bill. |
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Bowl shape???