Nomex Sandwich-top model

The german luthiers Gernot Wagner and Matthias Dammann did in the early 90ties experiments with new materials and top designs and lamination techniques. The conclusion was that top response can be significantly increased by making it lighter and also a bit more flexible. To allow the top to maintain its structural integrity they started to use a material witch has its provenience in aeronautics – it is a honeycomb grid made of aramid called Nomex, a kind of nylon fiber.

It was Gernot Wagner who became aware of the Nomex honey-comb grid and had the idea to use it for instrument building, this was in fact a mayor break through and did open new possibilities. I had the honor of Gernot’s visit in my workshop in 2014, when he was on a holiday in Lisbon and was able to show him my work and exchange different perspectives about his technology. I had also the generous help of the Canadian luthier Marcus Dominelli who gave me very precious information about the procedure and the details and encouraged me to develop my own top design and I am very grate full to both of them.

Meanwhile a lot of builder started to get familiar with the procedure and made their own top design based on it and double-top building has become very popular but most builder do forget that this was only possible because of the innovation and investigation for new methods, which once had to be carried out by someone. Beside other vantages, the nomex sandwich top guitars have a more uniform tonal characteristic between instruments from the same builder, which were built in the same way, because the overall characteristics of the top like weight, flexibility and directional stiffness do depend much more of the quality of the sandwich and the bracing, in opposition to a traditional guitar where the specific characteristic of a piece of wood has a mayor influence of the outcome. Even like that the quality of the wood is still important and tops made from spruce or cedar do not sound the same.

Since 2013 I build successfully a nomex sandwich-top model of my own design. The vantage of this procedure (nomex laminated between 2 thin layers of wood), is to have a top which is more responsive and has a somewhat lower top resonance frequency than a traditional build, which gives the instrument a special sound characteristic – generally the sound is warmer and fuller, with more fundamental content and some more volume with very good sustain.

My sandwich-top model has beautiful and rich timber with good balance over the hole scale. The sandwich-top is my top model and I have it regularly in stock for demonstration and sale either in spruce or red cedar. If you are looking for a high quality instrument at an affordable price this is a very good choice, and you shouldn’t hesitate to visit my workshop when ever you are in Lisbon, if you are looking for an instrument of course. For soudndsamples: click  soundcloud   Youtube