Top layer of wood on cheap acoustic is super soft?

Dave Locher

Dave Locher

New member
Short version: I was gluing the bridge back on a cheap acoustic guitar today and the top layer of wood is SUPER soft. Like balsa wood soft. Shaving it level with a wood with a chisel was like ing cheese. But the next layer down is like real wood. Why would they do this? It is a cheap Chinese guitar with a thick red finish but why build it to fail?

I got it for free so I can't complain but I wonder why the plywood wouldn't have the toughest layer on the outside? Is this common on acoustic guitars?
 
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Dave Locher said:
Short version: I was gluing the bridge back on a cheap acoustic guitar today and the top layer of wood is SUPER soft. Like balsa wood soft. Shaving it level with a wood with a chisel was like ing cheese. But the next layer down is like real wood. Why would they donth8s?
Click to expand...

If it's a thin layer of spruce, spruce is pretty soft. Not balsa would soft. But softer than most hardwoods. Balsa, is technically a hardwood, btw, because the balsa tree has leaves. Softwoods, like spruce or pine have needles.
 
I'd say the second layer is maybe spruce. The top layer is so soft you can easily rip it with a fingernail. The thick plastic finish is the only thing keeping it al, together. The bridge pulled off because it was glued to the wood. If they'd glued it on top of the finish it might have held more than a year or two!

A woman I work with bought it for her son a year or two ago. They took it to get repaired and it was more than the guitar was worth. She asked if I could fix it. I thought she meant fix it for her, so I said "probably." Next day she brought it to work, I looked at it and said it was a pretty easy fix. She said "great, maybe one of your kids will like it!" and handed me the gig back to go with it.
It's only the second acoustic I have ever owned. The first was a warped-up one I bought from a Goodwill in 1987 for $5. That one had a very thin finish and was definitely topped with much harder wood! It also had a chrome sheet metal tailpiece so no pulled bridge. Hopefully this one sounds better than that one did.
 
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Sometimes things just aren't made right and are better served as a vessel through which you can therapeutically channel your inner frustrations via a fence post, as ehdwuld said :lmao:
 
Glue on bridge is dry, i bought strings today, so tomorrow I will string it up and find out if it is worth keeping intact or if I will release my inner Pete Townsend. I haven't smashed a guitar since 1996 and that was awfully fun...
 
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