Tashi wrote in news:bea85a55-b613-4b7d-b013-
:

On Dec 26, 11:43*am, Benoit Meulle-Stef wrote:
98% of the so called German Cellos are premade Chinese cellos... I
even got a friend who just spend his time finding new Chinese cellos
for German makers... The only differnce in them are the price tag I'm
afraid...
Benoit

I bought a Hoffner cello thinking it was German made, that is sad to
hear! Is there no intergerity left in this world?

Michael,

How did the retailer represent the country of origin for the cello?

John Sorell



A few years ago I started carrying some student guitars, and had the
choice of getting some Chinese made ones, or Spanish made, I got the
Spanish. They have held up extremely well, compared to some of the
horror stories I've heard about Chinese made guitars.

Two days ago, fellow brought by a Chinese factory made Smallman copy
guitar that had a huge crack down the soundboard.

MT

On Dec 26, 12:56*pm, John Sorell wrote:
Tashi wrote in news:bea85a55-b613-4b7d-b013-
:

On Dec 26, 11:43*am, Benoit Meulle-Stef wrote:
98% of the so called German Cellos are premade Chinese cellos... I
even got a friend who just spend his time finding new Chinese cellos
for German makers... The only differnce in them are the price tag I'm
afraid...
Benoit

I bought a Hoffner cello thinking it was German made, that is sad to
hear! Is there no intergerity left in this world?

Michael,

How did the retailer represent the country of origin for the cello?

John Sorell





*A few years ago I started carrying some student guitars, and had the
choice of getting some Chinese made ones, or Spanish made, I got the
Spanish. They have held up extremely well, compared to some of the
horror stories I've heard about Chinese made guitars.

* Two days ago, fellow brought by a Chinese factory made Smallman copy
guitar that had a huge crack down the soundboard.

MT- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

John, he said it was German made. I got it from Howard Core. They
were advertised at $3900.00 as opposed to the Chinese that were
probably half the price. I guess technically if you assemble the thing
in Germany with Chinese made parts you can pass it off as German made?
MT

There is only one thing I can add to what Kevin said: aside from the
hardness and density, the other important property of BRW from an
acoustic standpoint is it's low damping. A big reason it produces such
nice treble tones is that it doesn't 'eat' them with internal
friction. I know of at least two North American woods that have
properties that are quite close: Osage Orange, and Black Locust. Both
are common where they grow, can get quite large, and are hardly used
at all except for fence posts. We will be making good guitars of wood
for a long time to come.

Alan Carruth / Luthier

Al; Being a northern boy I don't get to see much Osage orange or Black
locust. Do they grow large enough to get good 2 pc. backs on the quarter?
Seems to me that during my gunsmithing days I heard of several US smiths
using the osage for fancy stocks, but I never ran across one.

KH
"alcarruth" wrote in message
...
There is only one thing I can add to what Kevin said: aside from the
hardness and density, the other important property of BRW from an
acoustic standpoint is it's low damping. A big reason it produces such
nice treble tones is that it doesn't 'eat' them with internal
friction. I know of at least two North American woods that have
properties that are quite close: Osage Orange, and Black Locust. Both
are common where they grow, can get quite large, and are hardly used
at all except for fence posts. We will be making good guitars of wood
for a long time to come.

Alan Carruth / Luthier

Falsifying the origin of bowed instruments seems to be a time-honoured
tradition. Back in the late 70s or early 80s I was doing some product
consulting work for a major wholesaler of instruments in Canada. This was
an old and very straight-arrow outfit which imported a wide range of
instruments from brass (to which we irreverently referred as 'bowling
trophies and plumbing supplies') to fretted and including the violin family
of implements.

Even then many of the cellos, basses and fiddles which came in from Eastern
Europe came with a selection of labels from which the importer or retailer
could take his pick depending on the preference of his particular market.
The labels indicated that the instrument was made in East Germany, West
Germany, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia and it was up to the middle man to
select his favorite.

In talking to a number of long-time fiddle mechanics over the years I am
left with the distinct impression that truth is a very flexible commodity
among that fraternity. It's one of the reasons I've left the repair and
restoration of fiddles and their ilk to my betters.

KH
"Tashi" wrote in message
...
On Dec 26, 12:56 pm, John Sorell wrote:
Tashi wrote in news:bea85a55-b613-4b7d-b013-
:

On Dec 26, 11:43 am, Benoit Meulle-Stef wrote:
98% of the so called German Cellos are premade Chinese cellos... I
even got a friend who just spend his time finding new Chinese cellos
for German makers... The only differnce in them are the price tag I'm
afraid...
Benoit

I bought a Hoffner cello thinking it was German made, that is sad to
hear! Is there no intergerity left in this world?

Michael,

How did the retailer represent the country of origin for the cello?

John Sorell





A few years ago I started carrying some student guitars, and had the
choice of getting some Chinese made ones, or Spanish made, I got the
Spanish. They have held up extremely well, compared to some of the
horror stories I've heard about Chinese made guitars.

Two days ago, fellow brought by a Chinese factory made Smallman copy
guitar that had a huge crack down the soundboard.

MT- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

John, he said it was German made. I got it from Howard Core. They
were advertised at $3900.00 as opposed to the Chinese that were
probably half the price. I guess technically if you assemble the thing
in Germany with Chinese made parts you can pass it off as German made?
MT

Kevin Hall wrote:
" Al; Being a northern boy I don't get to see much Osage orange or
Black locust."

Black locust is a northern wood, but Osage comes from the South,
having been spread from a single river valley in Texas, as I
understand it. It grows as far north as Central Park in NYC. It was
widely used as a fence/hedge wood (hence another common name, 'hedge
apple' or just 'hedge'), and Ive heard of people runnig into it pretty
commonly in Missouri and Tennessee. Another name you may have heard
for it is 'bodark', from the French 'bois d'arc' or 'bow wood: the
local folks used it for archery bows before the Europeans showed up.

Alan Carruth / Luthier

On Dec 25, 7:22 pm, Tommy Grand wrote:
Brazilian rosewood is a prized material used in crafting fine
classical guitars. However, sources of the wood have all but dried up
and luthiers are growing desperate. I've heard stories of guitars
made out of chopped down castle doors and stolen church pews, to name
a few.

Now plainly, the only materials needed to create rosewood are a seeds,
soil, sunlight, water and time. You have to wait something like a
thousand years for the tree to grow, which is the whole problem. With
modern chemical know-how, can't we find a way to speed up whatever
reaction is involved and create some new wood in say, five years? If
not, tell us whether the barrier is lack of scientific knowledge or
lack of money.

Find a wood with similar density and grain and dye it. As long
as the back and sides look good, they add less than most
people think to the overall sound. Ovation has been selling
fiberglass shelled guitars for what, 40 years? Those instruments
aren't bought for looks.

Father Haskell wrote in news:fe3f7062-de1f-
:

On Dec 25, 7:22 pm, Tommy Grand wrote:
Brazilian rosewood is a prized material used in crafting fine
classical guitars. However, sources of the wood have all but dried up
and luthiers are growing desperate. I've heard stories of guitars
made out of chopped down castle doors and stolen church pews, to name
a few.

Now plainly, the only materials needed to create rosewood are a seeds,
soil, sunlight, water and time. You have to wait something like a
thousand years for the tree to grow, which is the whole problem. With
modern chemical know-how, can't we find a way to speed up whatever
reaction is involved and create some new wood in say, five years? If
not, tell us whether the barrier is lack of scientific knowledge or
lack of money.

Find a wood with similar density and grain and dye it. As long
as the back and sides look good, they add less than most
people think to the overall sound. Ovation has been selling
fiberglass shelled guitars for what, 40 years? Those instruments
aren't bought for looks.


I don't believe they are purchased for their sound, either.

John

No, they're not. I use one which has had the top removed as a
long-handled bowl for catching waste oil during oil changes. It excels in
that job.

KH
"Father Haskell" wrote in message
...
On Dec 25, 7:22 pm, Tommy Grand wrote:
Brazilian rosewood is a prized material used in crafting fine
classical guitars. However, sources of the wood have all but dried up
and luthiers are growing desperate. I've heard stories of guitars
made out of chopped down castle doors and stolen church pews, to name
a few.

Now plainly, the only materials needed to create rosewood are a seeds,
soil, sunlight, water and time. You have to wait something like a
thousand years for the tree to grow, which is the whole problem. With
modern chemical know-how, can't we find a way to speed up whatever
reaction is involved and create some new wood in say, five years? If
not, tell us whether the barrier is lack of scientific knowledge or
lack of money.

Find a wood with similar density and grain and dye it. As long
as the back and sides look good, they add less than most
people think to the overall sound. Ovation has been selling
fiberglass shelled guitars for what, 40 years? Those instruments
aren't bought for looks.

On Dec 27, 5:46 pm, John Sorell wrote:
Father Haskell wrote in news:fe3f7062-de1f-
:
Ovation has been selling
fiberglass shelled guitars for what, 40 years? Those instruments
aren't bought for looks.

I don't believe they are purchased for their sound, either.

Or because they're comfortable to play.

On Dec 27, 8:29*pm, "Kevin Hall" wrote:
No, *they're not. * I use one which has had the top removed as a
long-handled bowl for catching waste oil during oil changes. * It excels in
that job.


Congratulations Kevin, word for word one of the funniest RMCG posts,
ever!

Andrew

Ovations are a sore point with me, although they do have their merits.
Some of the older ones from the late 60s can actually sound fairly decent
and have great projection. Those are very rare however. They were only
built very briefly with shiny, un-pebbled backs which made them very tricky
to hold while playing.

When they first came on the market Ovations gave incompetent recording
technicians a weapon with which they belabored any poor musician who would
put up with it. They recorded dead flat, which meant that recording
engineers who lacked the skill to properly record the true sound of a 'live'
acoustic guitar could take a musicians' real instrument off him and demand
he play a soup bowl in order to make the life of the recording crew easier.
If the musician objected, he or she was often told 'oh don't worry about
it, we can add the overtones in the final mix.' Nonsense, of course,
and the techs failed to take into account the negative effects of denying an
artist the use of his familiar instrument under trying circumstances.

Over the years acoustic artists came to expect to have to use the musically
dead Ovation in the studio, and gradually their sound became the accepted
norm on a huge percentage of recordings. This wasn't quite as prevalent
with classical recordings as it was with steel string acoustic tracks, but
it did eventually mean that the flat, unmusical sound of plastic and epoxy
became the accepted norm. When plywood Take Mines etc. started to appear
with sophisticated onboard electronics, they fit right in. As a result we
now have an entire generation of younger players who mistakenly think the
febrile gruntings of things like Takemines and Ovation Adamas etc. are the
sounds of real acoustic guitars.

On the other side of the coin, Ovations did offer several advantages
especially for touring musicians. They were tough, and they had good,
playable necks with decent intonation and reasonable scale length. Enviable
qualities, especially in the time frame of the late 60s and early 70s.

I actually suspect Charlie Kaman was on an interesting tack with his
'parabolic reflector' theory for his instrument bodies, but the
heavy-handed use of epoxy and assembly line production methods tended to
ruin any possible gains. Workmanship inside most Ovations is terrible,
with rough-sawn bracing held to the top with lashings of epoxy.

It is possible to retro-fit the 'Lyrachord' bowl with a carefully made top
of good materials and surprising results can be had. Unfortunately
re-topping them is a genuine chore and very few techs will bother. When an
Ovation top is irreparably damaged or fails due to its' original structural
inadequacies almost all repairshops advise scrapping the thing due to the
cost of repairs vs. value of the instrument.

Years ago I developed a cheap and nasty method of retopping them without
removing the original binding. In effect I inlay the new top inside the
purfling lines. Given that the tops are epoxied onto a fibreglass 'L'
bracket 'round the inside of the body in the first place, it is an
acceptable and workable solution. It certainly beats scrapping an
instrument some poor bugger may have paid $1,500 for a few years ago.

KH


"Andrew Schulman" wrote in message
...
On Dec 27, 8:29 pm, "Kevin Hall" wrote:
No, they're not. I use one which has had the top removed as a
long-handled bowl for catching waste oil during oil changes. It excels in
that job.


Congratulations Kevin, word for word one of the funniest RMCG posts,
ever!

Andrew

thomas wrote in news:bf255d1e-f14b-4446-925f-
:

On Dec 27, 5:46 pm, John Sorell wrote:
Father Haskell wrote in news:fe3f7062-de1f-
:
Ovation has been selling
fiberglass shelled guitars for what, 40 years? Those instruments
aren't bought for looks.

I don't believe they are purchased for their sound, either.

Or because they're comfortable to play.



That leaves the burning question...why are they purchased?

John

In article , Kevin Hall
wrote:

Al; Being a northern boy I don't get to see much Osage orange or Black
locust. Do they grow large enough to get good 2 pc. backs on the quarter?
Seems to me that during my gunsmithing days I heard of several US smiths
using the osage for fancy stocks, but I never ran across one.

Kevin --

Check out the osage orange classical Alan built for me:

http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot...09/guitar.html

I have bad ears, but far as I can tell, the sound differences between
it and my Indian rosewood guitar are negligible.

--
Steve

http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.com/

Concerning the bullpucky Kevin, as I understand it, it is chrome
plated on the east coast, and gold plated on the west coast, but you
would have to have an advanced degree and a parchment to be entitled
to understand it all. And you will have to recalculate to pucky per
hectare in europe I might ad....

But if anybody can do it, it is you!

Federico