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Acoustic Guitar Design

  • Book
  • © 2022

Overview

Authors:
  1. Richard Mark French

    1. School of Engineering Technology, Purdue University West Lafayette, West Lafayette, USA

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  • Explains the design of acoustic guitars in a rigorous yet accessible fashion immediately useful to guitar designers
  • Reinforces concepts with detailed illustrated, ensuring readers connect the discussion with features of acoustic guitars
  • Maximizes reader understanding of important historical instruments, construction details, parts, and materials

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Introduction

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 1-3

  3. Background

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 5-110

  4. Iconic Guitars

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 111-135

  5. Basics of Guitar Design

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 137-196

  6. Physics of Acoustic Guitars

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 197-231

  7. Detail Design

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 233-334

  8. Technical Reference Information

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages 335-341

  9. Correction to: Detail Design

    • Richard Mark French
    Pages C1-C1

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 343-347
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Keywords

About this book

This book is for experienced luthiers and guitar designers in the industry, novice builders wishing to improve their designs, and guitar owners interested in knowing more about their instruments. It includes the most important technical information gathered from many sources, including the academic literature and the author’s own work, presented here in a clear, actionable form with a minimum of mathematics. The book begins with a historical survey on how important features of the acoustic guitar evolved over centuries. The review leads up to a chapter focusing on three iconic instruments that represent the most important types of acoustic guitars: classical, steel string flat top and archtop.  As the guitar market is so strongly conditioned by familiar, traditional instruments, a successful builder must have a thorough working understanding of the most important designs to underpin their own work. Through this volume, Professor French lays out the entire design processand collects detailed information in one convenient source. Luthiers quite often compile notebooks of measurements, part numbers, specific design features and other details they routinely need. This book organizes much of that information, with tables of dimensions, material properties, and other details in one essential final chapter. The book also features concise side bar contributions by top guitar designers and builders including Tim Shaw, Chief Engineer at Fender Music; Bob Taylor, Co-Founder of Taylor Guitars; and Andy Powers, Master Guitar Designer and Partner.


Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Engineering Technology, Purdue University West Lafayette, West Lafayette, USA

    Richard Mark French

About the author

Dr. Mark French is Professor of Engineering Technology at Purdue University. He began his career as a civilian aerospace engineer in the Analysis and Optimization Branch of what was then the Flight Dynamics Lab at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Over the course of 10 years there, he worked on a range of problems in optimization, aeroelasticity and photomechanics. He then moved to the automotive industry, where he spent nine years as an engineer and a lab manager, specializing in noise and vibration problems. While there, he also began to do informal work for the guitar industry. He came to Purdue University in 2004, where he is now a professor in the School of Engineering Technology. He has authored numerous papers as well as two books on the technical aspects of guitar design and one on optimization.

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