How Were Early Acoustic Guitars Made?
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Variability
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Even today, guitar manufacture can vary quite a bit from one company or luthiers to the next. When the acoustic guitar first began to appear, there was such variability that some are classified as different types of instruments. There are a variety of similar instruments that are not classified as guitars that pre-dated and coexisted with the first guitars, as well.
Construction Materials
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One of the biggest differences between the modern guitar and early acoustic guitar was the lack of metal parts. Every part was made from either wood or gut. While the truss rod is now a standard part of any guitar neck, it was not invented until the early 1900s. Parts such as the bridge and tuning pegs were much simpler wooden pieces than the modern variants. The size and shape could vary quite a great deal from one builder to the next, but this is still something that can be seen in modern instruments, but with more standardization as to the different sizes.
Body and Neck Construction
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The body and neck would be cut from pieces of wood. Curves would be made by bending wet wood and allowing it to dry into shape. The neck design for early guitars was simply a piece of generally light wood with harder wood veneer to serve as the fretboard. The body pieces and neck would be glued together using animal glue. The frets and nut would either be made of wood or gut wound around the neck, such as a lute. The bridge would be a piece of wood glued to the body of the neck.
Tuning Pegs
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Modern tuning pegs are fairly complex geared mechanisms made from metal. Early guitars simply used a piece of wood with a hole through it. This is why classical guitars still usually have holes in the pegboard with the tuner housed inside the pegboard. Even though most modern guitars use the newer style tuners, the classical guitars still use the traditional design. These early tuners simply used friction to hold the string in tune. These had to be precisely measured and fitted to work. Wood expands and contracts when exposed to different ambient conditions, luthiers had to choose the wood and sizing of the tuners to take this into account. If not properly fitted, the tuner could expand too much to be movable or contract so much that it could not hold the string in tune.
Strings
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Unlike the metal or nylon strings most commonly used on acoustic guitars, early guitars used gut strings. Since animal gut is an organic material, these strings could go out of tune simply based on minor humidity changes. There is still some use of gut strings by players that prefer the tone, but these strings are more prone to breakage and going out of tune than modern strings.
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