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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Now that I have your attention; is there somewhere that lists the internal bracing patterns for different models, and years of manufacture? A trifle esoteric, I grant you. I did a cursory archival search, and didn't find much info in this regard. I will, as usual, defer to The Fountainhead of All Things Ovation, Mr. Templeman, for guidance and direction. Thanks, Paul.
Mucho gusto,
Chris |
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Location: SoCal | Chris:
Are you looking for info on specific models? The catalogs over the years have that information. |
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Location: Scotland | Mr Moody is correct, the 76 "guitars Of The Stars" catalog & the early '80's "Award Winning Guitars" catalog had diagrams of the various patterns. After that most of the US models had either the A brace or Quintad pattern, though there were the odd few shortlived patterns such as the K5. Which guitars/era did you have in mind? |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | If someone wants to scan those patterns we can post them.
miles |
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Location: Scotland | Miles, I'll do it & email them to you |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Youse guys are da best! I just knew we could solve this one without too much blood & sweat!
Thanks plenty,
Chris
Oh yeah, I'm rebuilding a CC057, and I'm considering several design options- one of which is a resonator. I don't think I'm going to be real concerned of putting Kim & The Crew out of business, anytime soon. |
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Location: Scotland | After seeing the Ovation Reso at the factory I'm planning to build one also, as soon as I find a suitable guitar. I spoke to Kim about the practicalities of using a Celeb for such a project & he said the neck set will be too shallow. Also purely from a cosmetic standpoint I reckon a 12-fret guitar will look better than a 14, as the resonator will be placed right in the centre of the lower bout. The reso at the factory was a 12-fret. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Thanks for the info, Paul! Like I said, I'm considering several options here. Hell, I may end up altering the neck to get the 12th to land on the body! More guts than brains, I suppose. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Yeah, but think about it....a cutaway reso. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | a reso really needs to be 12 frets to work the layout. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | It may be an engineering nightmare, but it's worth a look, I guess. I may end up bailing out to a redwood top critter, or some other weird fabrication. |
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Location: Scotland | brace pattern scans from the '76 catalog
http://www.ovationfanclub.com/gallery/PaulTempleman_braces1.JPG
http://www.ovationfanclub.com/gallery/PaulTempleman_braces2.JPG
This is from an '83 leaflet & shows the Adamas pattern & also how the 14-fret 12-string pattern differs from the earlier 12-fret verson.
http://www.ovationfanclub.com/gallery/PaulTempleman_braces3.JPG
Missing are the early VT6, the K3 & K5 and the quintad. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Great work, Paul! This is exactly what I needed. I will keep you all posted on my progress. I think I'm engaging in mental masturbation until the 1127 comes back from The Mothership. Oh, this is an actual project, to be sure. It's just that I really don't have a clue what the final design is going to be. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | OK, Paul, a significant, albeit ignorant, question: Are the bracing diagrams pictured as the pattern viewed from the inside, or outside? For instance, on the VT-10 design, is the "pointy" end on the bass side, or the treble side? When I'm laying out my bracing pattern on the workboard, it's with the treble on the left, and bass on the right. I think this might have a significant effect on the tonal outcome, eh wot?! |
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Location: Scotland | The diagrams are the view from the inside. On the VT patterns the open part of the V is on the bass side. While you're right about this having an effect on tonal response I remember seeing a factory left-handed VT-braced Legend which had "right-handed" bracing. |
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Location: Fort Worth, Texas | Gentlemen,
Those scans of the bracing are great! Very informative.
One question I have is where it says the 12-strings are tuned to a "concert pitch". What exactly is "concert pitch"? Is it just the "normal" tuning you're taught in the first guitar lesson? I have seen people talk about tuning the 12-strings to a C, is this to lessen the tension?
Thanks
Good luck with your project seesquare, whatever it turns out to be! |
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Location: SoCal | Concert tuning is the standard tuning that you would tune a 6 string guitar to. I believe that the A string's frequency is 440 cycles?
Regardless, tuning a 12 string down to a C in not to lessen the tension (as all Ovation 12's are fine tuned to concert pitch). It's to get a different and deeper sound out of the 12 string. Almost a baritone guitar sound. |
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Location: Scotland | One point about down-tuning. If you go down to C or lower you need to up the string gauge considerably. If you use light or extra-light gauges with low tunings the strings slop about and rattle and don't have enough tension to drive the top and produce any volume |
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Location: Fort Worth, Texas | Just one more clarification. Is tuning down to a C lowering all the strings so that when a "standard D finger position" is actually playing a C chord? Or is the tuning to a C when strumming all the strings open you have a C chord?
Hope I'm not sounding too dense in trying to grasp the concept (maybe topic for another thread), for years I new nothing but a "concert pitch" tuning and just recently have been trying out some different tunings - drop D for example.
Thanks! :) |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Thanks, Paul! I had made the (erroneous) assumption the paterns were depicted as a "transparency", and had reversed the pattern for my project. Intuitively, it does make more sense to have the "fan" opening to the bass side. On the "A" pattern, it's basically a "wash" in terms of differential flexibility in the soundboard. Interestingly enough, even the "X" pattern is unconvential, in comparison to most other manufacturers' designs.
So, as this has evolved into Chris' ShadeTree Luthiery Enterprise; what are your thoughts on tapering the top from (comparatively) thicker at the neck, to thinner at the tail? |
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Location: NJ | ". . . Is tuning down to a C lowering all the strings so that when a "standard D finger position" is actually playing a C chord? Or is the tuning to a C when strumming all the strings open you have a C chord? . . "
Neither.
The first one, " . . D finger position = C . .", would hapen if you tuned down to D.
The second, " . . open strings = C chord" would occur if you tuned to "Open C".
"Tuning Down to C" refers to tuning your low E string down to C and tuning the rest of your stings down that same degree. A first-position D chord would be Bb. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Cliff, In Florida we like to get down with the tuning and that can happen no matter what you tune the bass strung to. It's just impotant that the other strings are also in tune correspondingly or chordally which is better because then you can get down with a hole chord without fingers and you cna use a slide. Make sure you gots Exliers cause they don't make much noise with the slide. |
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Location: Fort Worth, Texas | That explains it well, Cliff. Your tuning everything down 2 steps....
Thanks!! |
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Brace Yourselves
