Double-top

 

What is Double top construction?

 

"Double Top guitars",  "composite top",   or "Sandwich top" guitars are the same???

 

When the luthiers Gernot Wagner and Mathias Damman created this “style” they differ between double top and composite top.

Composite top was created to define the guitar made with Nomex and doubletop for the guitars that where made with all wood and no man made material.

Initially, Gernot used Nomex as the core material for his laminations, while Mathias experimented with wood as the core or even sculpting the soundboard .

By the mid 90's both were using Nomex for the core material, rather than wood. Lighter weight can be achieved using Nomex.

At this days I decided to go with Nomex core because I can achieve more consistency in the sound, but I still build with balsa as well .

 

What is Nomex?

Is a kevlar polymer, manufactured in a honeycomb pattern, originally developed for the aviation industry.

 

How is done the top?

Is sandwiched between two layers of spruce, cedar, or a combination of these two woods glued with with glue like poliuretano or epoxy.

 

 Now  I'm able to create soundboards with a much higher stiffness to weight ratio but unlike a lattice braced soundboard, double tops remain fairly thick, so they sound much more like a traditional solid top guitar then a lattice that the top is really thin.

 

My double tops have a very traditional sound - not a nasal or boomy sound. 

Another advantage with nomex is, unlike wood, it is a man-made material. This helps achieve consistency in the sound from guitar to guitar. 

 

So how does a double-top guitar work?

Lightness, of course, is a very important aspect of composite construction. For a given stiffness, a composite top may be 25% lighter than the equivalent solid top, which translates into a significantly greater ability to respond to the motion of the strings. But one of the surprises that came from my research is the realization that,  in thin cross sections, at least, composite tops flex very differently than solid tops, almost as if the grain of the wood has disappeared. The result is a structure that can respond much more easily to a wide range of resonances.

 

One of the aspect of double top construction is that the instruments sound like the traditional tonality of the classical guitar, players need not learn to appreciate a new tonality

 

What you can find in my double top guitars?

Significantly more power and volume, creating a true dynamic range for the instrument

Excellent projection

Exceptional balance and note-to-note

Excellent clarity and separation of notes

Excellent sustain

An extremely large spectrum of colors, tones, and textures

An extremely responsive instrument that reacts to the lightest touch, yet can also be pushed hard without breaking up the sound;

A rich, meaningful guitar sound with powerful, firm basses and brilliant trebles.