Physics question and guitar bodies

[yard dawg]

If laminated drum shells sound better than non laminated ones then why dont laminated guitar bodies sound better? The laminated shells resonate better so why dont laminated guitar bodies do the same?

[zeegler]

Other than acrylic or fibreglass drum shells, I have never seen or heard of a drum shell that wasn't laminated. I don't even know how you would build a drum shell from solid wood.

As for guitars, any time you're introducing a foreign material into the guitar body, you are interupting how the sound vibrates through the body. Plus, with plywood, every other layer is oriented at 90 degrees to the others, which again messes with how the vibrations travel through the material. I'm not a physicist, but to me, it just makes sense that it can't be good to use material like that.

[Stinkbug]

Interesting question. I don't have an answer, but I can speculate with the best of 'em!

Perhaps the type of sound and how it is produced is key. Sustain is good for guitars, but I am not sure if that is true for drums. Also, drums are made to produce a percussive sound with a fairly violent action or a large surface. Guitars use strings that are quite different in shape and make up than a head. The shape of drums may also be critical as I suspect it is more difficult to bend thick solid wood than a bunch of thin pieces. hmmm...just tossing out some thoughts...

[KMud]

Sound is pretty complicated...I'm used to working with ultrasound, so my knowledge isn't directly applicable, but a few thoughts/speculations of mine:

*wherever there're joins you'll get reflected waves and losses of (useful) energy.
*different frequencies travel at different efficiences in a given medium (i.e, attenuation is a function of frequency), so if you're combining media you'll get all the particular frequency losses associated with each individual media (like if you were combining coloured light filters).
*vibration is a complicated beast, with lots of different (and often unexpected) modes. It's complicated enough in a homogenous body, but composites and joins make it much worse.

As for drums...I don't know much about them. Assumedly you're looking for resonance at a particular frequency (and harmonics and sub-harmonics thereof), allowing you to fine-tune the sound with the geometry of whatever medium you're building with. You do tune drums don't you?

[fett]

With drums, I think its more of an ease of shaping and bending the wood. Not only that, laminate is more stable. As for electric guitars, it's a cost savings thing. Can anyone really tell the dif between a solid body and a lam guitar once you go to 11?

[Shawn Lutz]

Fett... yes I can tell. You also are probaly right that they laminate multi thinner layers to ease the shaping process.

Guitar bodies do lam'd maple tops over solid wood tho

[Norton]

You have to laminate wood , to bend it in a stable way. With only one layer, the wood would deform and break in time.

[emperor_black]

For one, after lamination, the guitars would be slippery as hell...

They do apply multiple coats of lacquer. Is that similar to lamination?

[Newc]

Drums are round and hollow. Some acoustics do use laminates, but then again those are usually so thin that you can't get enough layers compared to drums.

While drum shell material does affect the tone, the head is the biggest contributor.

Also, laminated guitar bodies are rarely - if ever - laminated with the same wood type throughout. Drum shells are usually layers of the same wood, but thinner so they can be shaped without cracking.

The wood shapes and filters certain frequencies that are produced by the head, and putting a drum kit together for the ideal tone means trying out many different heads and shells. My old drummer spent a ton of time putting his kit together, trying out different shell materials and heads, as well as tunings.

Of course you can just trot down to the store and by a ready-made kit, and lots of jokes have been made about the intelligence of drummers (or the lack thereof) but a drummer that puts tone above all else is a dream to work with.

[Norton]

For one, after lamination, the guitars would be slippery as hell...

They do apply multiple coats of lacquer. Is that similar to lamination?

No,laminating is simply for more strength and durability. I will explain what exactly it is.




This is one layer:






And this is how 2 layers are placed:





When the streaks are placed with a vertical angle, they stand much stonger.

[delt]

^ Pawn to king 4. Your move.

[Norton]

^ Pawn to king 4. Your move.

Check your mate