Lots of string tension

[Jeffrey Burr]

I am curious to know if any of you very-experienced guitar repairers have ever seen a guitar damaged by too much string tension. I mean, aside from someone putting steel strings on a classical guitar, or something like that.

I've been using 14's on my L5-C. The crazy of that is tempered somewhat by the low low action I favor, so it's not high tension as it might be, but.... Now I am the proud owner of a new custom instrument, with a little bit shorter scale length. And I'm thinking about 15's. The bounce of the 14's just isn't quite right for full-on "stunt bebop". It's made out of traditional spruce/maple, one-piece neck, modern two-way truss rod....

So this is why I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen permanent neck warp-age, sunken top etc, attributable to just plain "too much tension".

[Paul Verticchio]

Hi Jeff.

The answer is, yes. Too many times. Various types of instruments, each with its own unique back story.

Since you mention the new instrument is a custom build, might I suggest that the best (and only) source of a definitive answer to you structural integrity question would be the builder of the instrument. He/She knows your instrument inside & out.

Bebop on :)

[Lance Lawson]

A guitar like an L5 is built like battleship.  Archtops were designed to take the guff of heavy strings.  The physics of string tension differ widely between archtops and flattops.  The archtop is under compression load and a flattop is under explosive rip apart tension.