Nylon Strings On Archtop Acoustic

[Melinda]

I saw an article in a guitar maker publication about making an archtop
acoustic with nylon strings.

Well have any of you ever strung up an archtop acoustic with nylon
strings? If so how were the results?

It could be an expensive L5 or an old moderately priced Gretsch
Synchromatic or it could be an inexpensive Harmony or anything. Could
it be done? Do you get a cross between a classical and an archtop?
Mic it up and do you get something nice?

Thanks,

James

[tomb...@jhu.edu]

I've never done it, but I doubt you would get much decent acoustic
output. Because the bracing on a normal archtop is built to withstand a
much greater tension than nylon strings give. There are makers who
build archtops especially for nylon strings, but you're looking at
probably at least three grand to get one made.

[St. John Smythe]

Melinda wrote:
> I saw an article in a guitar maker publication about making an archtop
> acoustic with nylon strings.
>
> Well have any of you ever strung up an archtop acoustic with nylon
> strings? If so how were the results?

Pretty unsatisfactory. The nylon strings didn't have enough mass to
really "light up" the top. An archtop *designed* for nylon strings
(significantly lighter construction) could be pretty interesting, though.

--
St. John
Bacchus, n.:
A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for
getting drunk.
-Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

[Mark Cleary]

No, nylon strings and a traditional archtop is a not going to work. It would
not damage the guitar but they are made totally different and to get this
type of a feel with a cross between a classical and archtop would be crazy,
at least the way a traditional archtop is made. I think you have to rethink
the whole guitar this would be very hard to do.

--
Mark Cleary
Hollenbeck Jazz Guitars the Finest
Handcarved Jazz Guitars
http://members.cox.net/ruthster/hollenbeck/

"Melinda" <Safron...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1151536608.5...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...

[David J. Littleboy]

<tomb...@jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> I've never done it, but I doubt you would get much decent acoustic
> output. Because the bracing on a normal archtop is built to withstand a
> much greater tension than nylon strings give. There are makers who
> build archtops especially for nylon strings, but you're looking at
> probably at least three grand to get one made.

My guess would be that you couldn't find a set of nylon strings that were
long enough to get from the tailpiece (classical guitars have stop bridges)
to the headstock (I think classical guitars are shorter scale than the L5
(oops: only slightly: 644 vs. 652 mm)).

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

[dhn...@sbcglobal.net]

Check out Grime's website and visit his photo gallery:
http://www.grimesguitars.com/images/GGG3/index.htm

Scroll down to the 8th row of the gallery and click on guitar pic that
is second from the right. It's a photo of a nylon string archtop.
I've always wondered that guitar sounds like.

[Dave Stephens]

The archtop needs to be purpose-built for nylon strings, otherwise the top
will be too heavy for the low tension of nylons to resonate. Benedetto has
made nylon archtops, but you can't just put nylon strings on an L5 and get a
good sound.

Dave

"Melinda" <Safron...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1151536608.5...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...

[Joseph Albano]

Dave Stephens wrote:

> The archtop needs to be purpose-built for nylon strings, otherwise the top
> will be too heavy for the low tension of nylons to resonate. Benedetto has
> made nylon archtops, but you can't just put nylon strings on an L5 and get a
> good sound.
>
> Dave
>

Yes, exactly. And, I don't know if this was mentioned, but if your
archtop bridge has a fixed compensation, i. e., if it's not
tune-a-matic, then you must change the bridge and compensate it for the
nylon strings as well. And while you're at it, you'll probably need to
re-cut the nut.

--
*********************************************************
JA
*********************************************************
The Interactive Chord Finder App for Guitar lives at:
http://www.notebeam.com

[Mark Guest]

I've played the Yamaha Nylon Archtop...the one I tried had a
surprisingly nice feel and sound when played through an amp. I did not
A/B it with another nylon, but by iotself, it sounded good. It had a
narrower, radiused fingerboard...quite a different feel from the
standard classical guitar, but nice. Under $400 IIRC.

John Rethorst wrote:
> In article <1151537087....@x69g2000cwx.googlegroups.com>,

> "tomb...@jhu.edu" <tomb...@jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> > I've never done it, but I doubt you would get much decent acoustic
> > output. Because the bracing on a normal archtop is built to withstand a
> > much greater tension than nylon strings give. There are makers who
> > build archtops especially for nylon strings, but you're looking at
> > probably at least three grand to get one made.
>

> Yamaha makes one. Dunno its price, but I don't think it's one of Y's
> higher-priced models.
>
> --
> John Rethorst
> jrethorst at post dot com