ADVANCED COMPOSITE CORRUGATED CORE PANELS… A STANDARD BUILDING BLOCK OF THE FUTURE AND A GREEN TECHNOLOGY FACILITATOR

Abstract:

This document introduces a new generation of carbon fiber, Kevlar, fiberglass and other fibrous composite-based structural panels. The production method proposed is suitable for adapting current manufacturing processes used by the established and economically depressed wood products plywood/veneer industry.  This process takes advantage of the industry’s current facility, management, labor, tooling, and capacity.  It contributes to the re-invention of the wood products industry by addressing the changing needs of the 21st century with a set of product lines that complement existing veneer production methods.  It results in a new core technology that can remain viable during economic cycles adversely affecting those of wood products.

Wood And Composite Panel Production Similarities:

There are numerous characteristics that are common to plywood/veneer panel manufacture and composite fiber panel production.  Both manufacturing processes use panel sized ovens, 4-post compression presses, resins and resin-application machinery.  The manufacturing facilities share similar and complementary materials handling sizes, scale of operational processes, production line flow and layout.  Manufactured goods use the same styles of transport and distribution network.  There are complimentary organizational and management skill sets from production facility to client base.  Both distributors and retailers can use the same methods and scale of product warehousing, labeling, inventory control and tracking, transport and marketing.

This style of composite panel facilitates the transition of carbon and other fibrous structural materials to service a vast group of common commercial and industrial applications.  The panel uses are complementary to those serviced by other more mature technologies.  Wood, metal and plastic panels in their infancies were expensive to produce and were thus not common.  Each of those materials developed to become industrial/commercial building blocks.  The fibrous composite corrugated panel provides the aerospace, military, automotive and building industries with multi-purpose, reformable and standardized product lines that combine weight-reduction with impressive stiffness and stability.  This new style of corrugated paneling may now be manufactured due to recently innovated and improved material and manufacturing efficiencies. Corrugation results in vastly less material use and decreased weight than current solid walled panels, such as those used in wind turbine blades.  They provide a lighter composite panel while maximizing stiffness with a more durable panel than the common honeycomb core styles used in aviation.  The panels are made from natural, well-known plastic or glass fibers which are held together with standard resin-like plastics.  By example, most carbon fiber is made by heat-treating and carbonizing common Rayon fiber.

High-performance, commercial-grade, corrugated cores made from appropriate fibers are mated to a wide variety of surfaces including wood veneer, metal, common plastics or rigid advanced fiber composite cloth.  The increased adhesive surface area strengthens bonding and overall stability when compared to honeycomb core panels.  The panels provide an ideal combination of stiffness, toughness, impact resistance, weight-reduction, and usefulness for numerous flat and curved panel applications. This style of structural core succeeds by improving performance outcome while providing the visual surface aesthetic that is appropriate for each specific style of application.

Green Industry Impact:

Corrugated-core structural panels are a green technology facilitator.  Specifically, these panels are designed to contribute to commercial and industrial technologies that require light, efficient, environmentally stabilized, durable and long-lasting parts.  Current and future industries will succeed by offering excellent product quality with decreased environmental impact. Green benefits include:

Products require less energy to overcome inertia (to begin to move).  Thus there is energy and fuel savings when moving payloads.   While critical to meeting the requirements of electric and other lightweight motor vehicles, this applies to all land-bound and airborne transportation, both commercial and military.  This is true regardless of power source and use.

Products require less input and expenditure of energy to achieve the maximum outcome.  This is applicable to lighter moving parts for wind turbine power generation and ocean wave energy collection.  Machinery that overcomes inertia and attains maximum output at lower minimum rates of movement results in greater net energy gain.

Carbon and other fibrous corrugated panels may be produced with various environmentally sound, biodegradable and recycled plastics.

Practical applications:

Power Generation:

Wind turbine propellers

Wind turbine towers

Offshore wave energy collection buoy housing

Architecture:

Cooling towers, Storage tanks/cylinders

Platforms

Deck Supports

Select framing

Stair Structures

Walkways

Structural beams

Floor decking

Roof decking

Transportation; aerospace, military and consumer:

Door panels

Floor panels

Siding panels

Vehicle chassis and other basic structural sleds

Sporting and other consumer goods

Why now?  

Economic, energy and environmental realities dictate that manufacturing businesses continue to transition to lighter, stable and more durable goods that maximize physical characteristics. The recognized qualities of advanced fiber composite materials have not yet begun to service a broad range of common needs.

Advantages include:

In line with the current strategy of supporting industries that promote

green technologies, high tech manufacturing and family wages.

Develops a ‘new Core’ growth Industry for the United States.

Revitalizes an existing and historically dominant industry that has excess capacity.

Offers a new product category that services existing commercial needs.

Facilitates development of numerous spin-off and new product categories of industrial and consumer finished goods manufacturing.

Adds a multi-regional industrial scale product base that is complimentary with wood products manufacturing.  This is due to the ‘designed’ co-usage of existing plywood facilities, machinery, tooling and manpower.

Provides a wide set of products with broad expansion capability, and which are not dependent on home and commercial building cycles.  Thus it offers economic diversification and greater stability.

Services major, existing, well-developed and emerging markets within and beyond the United States, including aerospace, military, aviation and wind energy.

Stephen Bryant Mosher is president and CEO of Moses, Inc.  Moses, Inc. is a small Oregon-based company with a successful track record in the development of structural beams and other products for the music industry.

THE FOLDED TUBE

Given a tube of uniform cross-section, produce a finished tubular form tapered in diameter from one end the other.  The overall tube wall composition and thickness may vary, dependent on the required stiffness an other characteristics required of the final product.

Background:

A uniform cross-section tube may be made using extrusion, pultrusion and filament winding.  A nonuniform tube may be made only by filament winding.   Pultrusion is most cost-effective for producing a maximally stiff beam utilizing a continuous strand fibrous material.   Extrusion is not suitable for production of a tube which contains continuous strain fiber in tension.  Filament winding is suitable for producing a stiff tubular beam.  Both pultrusion and filament winding are suitable for producing the folded tube.  Pultrusion is most cost-effective when it can successfully produce the desired finished cross-sections.  Filament winding is a viable second choice for other finished cross-sections.

Finished folded tube beam base material parameters:

As appropriate for final outcome, the first choice for the pre-reform tube is to produce a tube of uniform cross-section, using pultrusion.

Where the required finished cross-section cannot be achieved with a pre-form tube of uniform dimension, a tapered tube is used.  This tube may be a braided fiber pultruded tube that has been ‘pulled/stretched’ along its longitudinal axis as a secondary operation.  Alternately it may be produced by filament winding.

In all cases the pre-form is comprised of a continuous strand parallel tow carbon fiber core . This may be skinned with an off-axis braided fiber exterior.

Material composition is to be approximately 65% carbon fiber, 35% thermoplastic resin by weight.

Uniform wall thickness will range from 0.100” to 0.250”.

Choice of pre-form tube cross-section:

A pre-form tube of uniform cross-section may be re-formed to longitudinally tapered final forms based on proportional calculations of the target final overall length and cross-sectional dimensions.  

The range of full finished beam length tapers (by example: tube end diameters of 1.5” and 2.75” over a 36.0” length) is dependent on the relationship of the final depths, intermediate diameters and radii required for the tubes post-formed shell exterior.

Regarding producing the required finished outside dimensions of a tapered tube:

Normally, as the target width at the narrow width end of a post-formed tube decreases, the depth increases.  By example, the outcome might look like a vertically oriented oval. taller than wide.  To produce a more minimized overall finished outside ‘circumference’, an ‘internal’ fold is produced within the tube.  At the opposing end of this folded tube, the maximum width with minimum depth may be achieved by pulling the tube sideways in order to produce a oblong, flatter cross-section.  Essentially, the tube depth decreases as it increases to its maximum width.  When a less wide final dimension is required at this wider tube end, an internal fold is also produced.  The amount of internal fold at the wide end is independent but connected to that at the narrow end.

Production:

1) An oven of appropriate dimensions for final product yield  is used.  A pre-formed tube of uniform or tapered cross-section and having the capacity to produce the proper cross-sections of the folded tube’s wide end final shape, is placed on a properly sized rod mount.  The rod serves as a base plate for holding the tube in position with in the oven.  The rod also serves as the element that will form the internal fold.  Thus, this rod’s top surface shape is that of the final post-formed beam underside/interior. 

2) Two upper rods (puldrel’s) of uniform cross-section and two to-the-side and lower puldrel’s of tapered cross-section are placed inside and through the entire tube length, with each end extending beyond the tube end openings.  The two tapered puldrel’s may be prefabricated relief-adjusting truss rod units and may be left in the post-formed tube.  When appropriate the upper puldrels may hold a tapered, uniform or compound radiused plate representing the final radii of an adjoining outside face.  This plate will then produce the shape of the outside folded tube face that is adjacent to it. The plate will be held by the uniform cross-section puldrel’s throughout the forming process.  

3) In order to produce the final folded tube shape, automated cam mechanisms are located at each end of the base plate rod.  They are attached to both the base plate and to the puldrels.  The shape of the cam plates are designed to guide the puldrels into specific final locations within the tube.  Each puldrel will be pulled along and around the guides surface after the tube is heated to a softened and flexible state.  Each puldrel will be moved into final position by activation of either a ‘loaded’ spring, or by a hydraulic or servo mechanism.  The final puldrel end locations are based on the position that each puldrel needs to be in order to pull that end of the tube into its final shape.  Through the action of pulling and relocating the puldrels at both ends of the tube, all points and cross-sections along the length of the post-shaped folded tube will represent the location of that part of the specific puldrel.  The tubes taper along the length of each puldrel will be even and uniform.  Additionally, the curvature of the outside circumference along the post folded tube will be uniform ‘between’ the puldrels and the base plate rod.

4) The oven, and thus the tube and folding mechanism is heated uniformly to the minimum temperature required of the thermoplastic used, with air flow provided through the tube interior.

5) The cam-operated mechanisms are activated, moving through a specific predetermined arced path pulling/reshaping the tube to its post-form configuration.  During this step, end plugs that will stabilize the re-formed tube openings are inserted into the tube ends around the puldrel’s.  These end caps may serve as elements of attachment during later steps in the production of the finished product.

6) The folded tube, held by the mechanism is removed from the oven and cooled to a solid state, circa room temperature.

7) The mechanism is detached.  The puldrel’s are removed all appropriate.  The base plate rod is then detached as the part is removed from the base plate rod.

Subsequent steps for end product production may include:

1) Attachment of prefabricated elements to the tube ends.

2) Attachment of elements to the external circumference / tube sides along the length of the folded tube.

Stephen Mosher is a designer, innovator, and musician who consistently leads the music industry with high-tech products and instruments that feature a warm tone with full and rich harmonic content. As president of Moses Carbon Graphite, Steve Mosher produced his first carbon graphite neck for his own electric instrument, a ’64 Fender Precision bass. His motivation was to design and build an electric instrument having sound qualities pleasing to his ear. In 1980, Steve showed his first handmade fretless teardrop bass to a young bassist, Brian Bromberg, when they met at the Blue Parrot nightclub in La Jolla, California. The response was positive and Steve has been building, showing and sharing his musical inventions ever since. 

After continuing to develop composite necks during the 1980’s, Steve received a U.S. patent for his invention covering construction of carbon graphite necks. Moses, Inc. was incorporated in 1989.  That year, Moses Graphite exhibited at their first National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) trade show, an international showcase for the music industry held in Anaheim, California. Moses has consistently exhibited at NAMM shows since that time, along with periodic attendance and exhibition at other regional and international shows, such as GAL, Marylhurst, ASIA, and Musik Messe in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the years since the founding of Moses, Inc., Steve has designed, built, and sold numerous carbon graphite musical instruments and component parts to musicians around the world. His products include custom and standard necks for electric guitars, basses, banjos, violins, and mandolins. Moses, Inc. produces unique instruments that have won national attention and acclaim. His KP series electric upright bass is in the permanent collection of the Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle, Washington. The EMP curators state that these basses “represent the cutting edge in creative thinking.”  Moses, Inc. innovations have become industry standards, used by Gibson Guitar and others. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the National Music Museum.

Based on his extensive knowledge of materials and design, Steve recently launched Sound Composites, a new business devoted to using carbon composite materials to advance the acoustic properties of classical instruments. The Company has produced bridges, tailpieces, shoulder rests, violin bodies, fingerboards and many other parts. These new product developments are sparking innovative production methods for his company.  They methods are suitable for a broad range of industrial applications while continuing to provide astonishingly high-quality sound in musical instruments.  To continue his pursuit of excellence in sound, Steve has a new style of acoustic instrument pick up currently in the prototyping and product testing phase.

Through 2010, under Steve’s leadership, Moses has produced parts for many famous musicians, as well as leading music industry companies. These include Gibson, Steinberger, Fodera Basses, Zon Basses, Rainsong Guitars, Chrysalis Guitars, Soloette Travel Guitar, Palm Guitar, Goldtone Banjo, Ned Steinberger Design, Stick Enterprises, Breedlove Guitar, Tacoma Guitar, Steven Grimes Guitars, Alvarez/Yairi Guitars, Lemur Music, Spyro Gyra bassist/builder Scott Ambush and numerous mid-size and individual luthiers. Steve has also been a contractor and consultant for Fender Musical Instruments, Yamaha, and Story and Clark pianos. 

Originally growing up in the sun and surf of Southern California, Steve studied architecture at Arizona State University and landscape architecture at the University of Oregon. He received his bachelor’s in landscape architecture from the UO in 1974. While owning a full service landscape design and construction firm from 1976 to 2000 and Moses, Inc. from 1989 through the present, Steve has continued to play music. Steve has played with such notables as Curtis Salgado, Robert Cray and jazz saxophonists John Zorn and Sonny King. Steve was a member of the blues band Three Fingered Jack ( Nighthawks, Crayhawks, R. Cray Band), the progressive-rock band, Elfhouse, as well as performing jazz and Latin music with First View, The Bitterroot Sextet, Transception, The Bill Sabol Trio, Extra Texture, and Kokobolo.

Firmly grounded in the integrated unfolding process of life, Steve likes to stay receptive to the muse. “Keep your mind and heart open”.

Graphite: A Stick Story

An Interview with Stephen Mosher of Moses Graphite Inc.

January 5, 2002

The hub of the Stick world is an overwhelmingly busy place. Phones ring constantly, deliveries come and go, staff constantly work on electronics, wood, office duties. Time is of little relevance. Two or three day’s work gets crammed, somehow, into one.

A little less than a year ago, I was at Stick Enterprises doing some research for an ongoing project. For me, spending time at Stick Enterprises can only be compared to a kid getting to visit Santa’s workshop.

I addition to the regular din, while I was there the Chapman’s were in the middle of some major renovations. Adding another workshop, more space that seemed to fill before it was even created. On top of all that, for four days, yours truly took over a fair chunk of the main table with newspaper clippings, photos, papers of all sorts, my mini-disc recorder-a real mess. Before me lay a modest chunk of Stick history: early articles, concert reviews, magazine clippings. Just past that however lay something different.

On a couch in an adjoining room lay a small, neat stack of Stick blanks, ten or twelve in all. A Stick blank is exactly that, just the Stick, no components or hardware, no frets. These were no ordinary Sticks though. These were the first batch of what would become the new “structural graphite, continuous strand carbon fiber, long-scale Sticks.”

As I buried myself in Stick past, every now and then I would glance up, look at those new instruments and marvel at how odd it felt. In one instant I was back in 1970 with Emmett and Barney Kessel playing at Shelly’s Manne Hole. In the next instant I was staring at The Stick’s future.

In this installment of Talking Sticks I’m going to be talking to a Stick. Well, all right, I can’t think of any crafty way around this so I’ll come clean. I’m actually talking to the guy who sub-manufactures the graphite Stick through-neck beam structures.

Stephen Mosher is the president, founder and force behind Moses Graphite Inc. Moses makes graphite necks and all sorts of components for different instrument manufacturers as well as a couple of their own complete instruments.

In addition to building necks for the newly re-released Gibson Steinberger guitars and replacement necks for Fender instruments, Moses Graphite can now boast that it holds the contract to make the new structural graphite, continuous strand carbon fiber, long-scale Stick blanks.

Jim Reilly: What got you started in this?

Steve Mosher: I basically started out as a Southern California beach kid. I got involved in making surfboards pretty early on. Then I made hydrofoil belly boards, doing things a little differently. As I look back on it, I was playing with plastics long ago. I was playing my Fender bass with various people around Eugene Ore., and I just got bored with it. So I started screwing around, trying to make myself a neck that I would like to play. And it got out of hand.

JR: Where did the idea to use the graphite come from?

SM: I was quite familiar with boat building. I sailed boats a lot when I was a kid. Carbon fiber started coming in for use in stiffening up masts. I looked at it and decided to nix the wood. I was interested with the material and just started using it because it was interesting.

JR: When did it turn into a business?

SM: I incorporated and did my first NAMM show in 1989. But I didn’t really begin production in any meaningful way until early 1994. I was told at the time that, as is normal in most of these businesses, you’ve got to hang in for five years. Nothing really is going to happen, unless it’s an unusual situation, for five years.

And in truth, those guys where just about right. If you take a look at what we were doing in 1999, that’s basically when things began to turn. We started making all kinds of stuff, from working with Tacoma Guitar up in Washington, to making this wild Chrysalis Guitar to working with the SoloEtte Travel Guitar. It took a while to develop. I was at this basically in 1980 and the business didn’t really start to happen until 1999.

If you look at Taylor Guitars, which is a real success story, those guys were slugging it out in a small shop in San Diego for 20 years before they made the turn. It’s not terribly unusual. One would love to have overnight success and some businesses do but that’s more rare than common.

JR: The overnight success takes seven years.

SM: Exactly. And sometimes business look successful when they’re not and sometimes businesses don’t look successful and they are. There’s sleeper business. Businesses that don’t advertise a lot could be highly successful and nobody would know it.

JR: How did the connection with Emmett come about?

SM: I knew Emmett was making Sticks out of polycarbonate and so in about 1989 or ’90 we got together, went to his place, sat down and talked things over. He revisited the situation about a year and a quarter ago and said, “Let’s try this.” He was ready to rock. He sent me up a Stick or two, I had a look at it and said, “Yea, this is how to do it.”

It’s designed differently internally than some of my other products. Each product is designed to accommodate different sonic and technical parameters. We designed the first ones, he brought them to the NAMM show last year, they weren’t on the market yet but he was just playing it and loving it and showing people.

We finally got down to brass tacks around March and provided him with instruments later in the year. Now he’s on line with the 8/10-string version. We will soon have the master for the 12 and are working on getting ready so he will be able to introduce that.

JR: Take me through the process of a creating these Sticks.

SM: Emmett had a parameter for finished weight. He also stated that he felt there was no way that a graphite version was going to appreciably alter the sound. Based upon his fairly extensive use of various woods and the polycarbonate, he found almost no differences in the sound quality, probably because it’s a tapping instrument, metal on metal.  I designed the initial Stick structure so it had stiffness where it was appropriate. We could get lightness without worrying about sonic parameters so much, no tone chambers or this or that little trick or gadget. He needed solid footing to attach various things. And he needed durability; to know that if somebody throws it across the stage, it’s durable.  As with all our neck products, we integrated linear tow, which means continuous fiber in the same direction as the string tension.

JR: Does that add stiffness?

SM: That’s for stiffness and for carrying energy from one end to the other with a continuous strand of a very conductive material. Just like you’d want to have continuous, linear fiber in wood to do the same job.  We took all this into account and made it work just fine from the first one. We made some changes based upon where Emmett was going to fasten parts and other things he had to do afterward. And then he said, “I can hear a subtle difference in tone, a smoothness and solidity.”

JR: Did you approach The Stick differently? The neck is the instrument; there is no resonating body. Did you approach it like a large guitar neck or did you have a different angle since you’re constructing the entire through-neck beam out of graphite?

SM: I approached it differently because Emmett said it was not going to affect the sound that much. It freed me up to think differently.

(*Note: Emmett was concerned with creating a structure that enabled precise setup. Moses’s unique production methods and construction materials translated into great tone from the outset. These new Sticks have the rich highs you would expect from a graphite instrument balanced very nicely with smooth, solid lows.)

SM: On guitars and basses, the further away from the body, the smaller the beam gets. From the point of view of wanting stability, one wouldn’t want that. You’d want something more like The Stick: a standard even cross section.  In terms of a standard product, a tube is very stiff. When you hack it off and it becomes a half circle it’s not near as stiff. A guitar neck or a bass neck is less than half a circle. So you’ve got this thing tapering, getting smaller and smaller. The further out the more the strings have the ability to pull and bend the neck, which presents its own peculiarities. That’s why you get warped necks. Now The Stick doesn’t do that, it’s a standard cross section. That makes it, from that point of view, a lot easier.

I could say a lot about The Stick, in terms of the innovations that Emmett has come up with. I think he’s a genius for having taken a component system of elements and figuring out the simplest way of producing something that has such gigantic possibilities. You get these ‘gadget guitars,’ certainly a player could do a lot on a guitar, but they stick all these little switches and knobs and all these fancy finishes that look all sparkly and this and that and the other thing, and what do guys do? They slam a bunch of chords and then play single note solos.

Then you take The Stick. This thing is an even cross section, no radius, the body is on the same plane as the neck. He’s got components that just pop together afterwards-the damn truss rod goes in from the outside-a component pickup system that does the whole thing-including the knob right on it. All these things pop together. You take this thing and you look at it. From the manufacturing point of view it’s simplistic but it’s elegantly simplistic and look what people can do with it. It’s scary. It’s a whole other way of looking at things. In essence I had started out looking at The Stick as this separate thing but it turned out to have some tonal qualities. I’m very sensitive about not wanting our necks being perceived as being bright and brittle sounding.

JR: That’s the knock against graphite. When people talk about it in negative terms, that’s what I keep coming up with every time, that it’s a brittle, sterile sound.

SM: Yea, and you know that’s unfortunate. The feedback we get from the players we sell our necks to and one of the reasons why Ned Steinberger suggested to Gibson that they have us make their necks rather than anybody else was because our necks aren’t sterile and brittle. They just plain old aren’t. But you’d have to hear that for yourself.

JR: How’s your shop set up?

SM: Well I’ll tell you, a year ago I expanded because I’ve been able to see an accelerating trend toward acceptance and normalcy being created in alternative materials, including composites. Also, the vintage thing is burning itself out. All that’s left is cheaper and cheaper, what I call the race to the bottom. They’ve pretty well hit rock bottom prices now and so that race has been run. From there things start getting more expensive again or stay where the are and creep towards more expensive. But after everybody has a cheap instrument, how many more cheap instruments do they need? Sales will start dropping and that’s when something else will come in.

There are two basic tricks in the music industry. One is vintage and one is high tech. The industry flip flops back and forth. They milk one as long as they can and once sales start dropping they move toward the other. Until they find a third or fourth trick, they’ll just keep going back and forth. The vintage phase has been around for quite a long time and they’ve milked it to the point of absurdity.

JR: How long do you think that’s been going on?

SM: Mid ’80s. The last vintage thing started quite a long time ago. Prior to that, the creep toward high tech was pretty short lived. Then alternate materials, including graphite composites where coming in and those alternate materials, that creep toward high tech didn’t last all that long, no more than seven years, from ’78 to ’85 at most. Part of that was marketing and part of that was having products being produced with new materials not living up to their expectations. There were things said about materials including graphite composite necks that were great in theory but were not showing to be true in fact. There were claims being made that weren’t exactly accurate.

JR: Was the problem with the production of the instruments or was it the material that was being used?

SM: The production. There were theories being thrown out, aerospace style theories being thrown out, and being applied to musical instrument necks in particular that were great theories and still are great theories. Some of which eventually panned out some of which didn’t. Things were being said like, “the necks being produce in that early ’80s period were absolutely stable.” And they weren’t. “They don’t need a truss rod.” And they did. There were also claims like, “Sound just like wood.” Well, it’s sort of in the ears of the beholder but to most players ears, they didn’t sound just like wood.

JR: I see a trend now, I’m thinking about the Rainsong Guitars in particular which are a complete graphite instrument, and they’re not claiming to sound like wood. They’re claiming to have a richer, fuller tone. So maybe the whole thing about trying to sound like wood isn’t the way to go. Have a unique rich sound on its own.

SM: Some people are going to want that sound and some aren’t. But then some people choose Gibson guitars and some people choose Strats because of the differences between sound and feel and look. Not everything is for everybody. There’s a known standard and the standard is wood. If you try to work it up to the standard, you’ll never get better than the standard. The standard is the standard, it’s what you’re comparing it against. You could put all this work into it and what do you do, you finally get as good as what was already there.

JR: That’s an interesting shift in perspectives. I’m a Stick player. A lot of people play the instrument to sound like a guitar and a bass player at the same time but Emmett himself has said that a guitar and a bass player will always be able to sound more like a guitar and a bass player than you. The whole thing is to come up with something unique.

SM: Yea, so from my point of view, you just have to acknowledge that you’re creating your own sound. You may judge it to be ‘as good as’ or ‘better.’ But if I say, “It’s just like ebony,” all I’ve done is stated that ebony is the standard and I’m a copycat. Does that place me in a position of being dominant or new or exciting? No. I’m just trying to get ‘as good as.’ And I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to spend my whole life trying to be as good as something else if I feel like I can be better, in my own way, and help move traditions in a direction.

So with all that happening and all that changing, a year ago we moved to a new facility and kept the other one as an R and D place. We’re a business down in the industrial zone and we’ve got 6,000 feet. I bought a bunch of new tools. Let’s say, “We got fancy” and set up a nice production line. I’ve got a capacity, which I’ve not met yet, of 1,600 to 1,800 necks per month along with our other products. We sent our first orders to Gibson. We’re doing the new Gibson Steinberger necks. They’re re-introducing the American made Gibson Steinbergers now. We’re doing that and we’re doing a lot of other things. Things keep expanding. We were certified by Fender earlier in the year. Fender gave us a very good agreement that helped with those replacement neck situations.

JR: Just to wrap up, from the Stick side, I know Emmett is very happy with the instruments and he speaks very highly of the work you do. He considers you to be at the top of the heap.

SM: I appreciate that, he’s a luminary and he’s been at it a lot longer than I have.

JR: His words to me are: “These graphite Stick models represent the state of the art. They’re the best instruments I’ve ever made.”

SM: I’ll just say this, even though I’m approaching 50, I’m younger than some of these guys. I got into this business kind of late at 30. When I first got into it, I had been just a working musician. I had my heroes and idols, guys who would just make your jaw drop whenever you heard their name or their records. I now have an opportunity where I’m friends with a lot of these people. I just look back and go, “Wow, what happened here?”  To the same degree, I feel like it’s an honor when I look and go, “I can hang with Emmett.” I was just blown away and in awe of The Stick ever since… And all of a sudden, here I am helping him make an instrument that is a pretty fine instrument.

Could life be any better? No way. It’s amazing what happens sometimes. I’m still just a guy who lives out in the forest. I live on five acres, out of town, in the forest with deer and stuff wandering around. And yet I’m doing some pretty high tech stuff. I get the best of both worlds. And I get hang with some of these people.

JR: So life is good?

SM: Yup.

Find out more about Moses Graphite on the web at http://mosesgraphite.com/

Jim Reilly can be reached at play_stick@canada.com.

Link to article

March, 2001

A few weeks ago we had a chance to do a back-and-forth Q&A with Steve Mosher, president of Moses Graphite, via e-mail. Some of us here at BunnyBass are very interested in the use of non-traditional materials in the construction of bass guitars, and we’ve had a few jazz-type basses built using Steve’s graphite necks with great success. So an opportunity to chat with Steve Mosher a little about his perspectives on graphite necks turned out to be very informative and fun for us. I hope you find some of the information included in this interview useful to your overall bass-knowledge too! ~bunnybass

P.S. A special thanks goes out to 31Hz for helping to set up this interview. Thanks Tim!

bunnybass: How did you come to specialize in making graphite necks?

Stephen Mosher: In 1979, I was an acoustic bassist performing extended jazz around the northwest US. When I was asked to play electric bass, I picked-up my ’62 P-bass and was dissatisfied with the results. (As an aside I now consider that old bass a great instrument.)

I had previously designed and built many things out of plastic-based materials; surfboards, hydrofoil belly boards, Plexiglas facsimiles of stain glass windows, automatic live fish food feeders, etc. I became interested in using high tech boating materials, and applied them to constructing my first composite neck. The rest is history.

bunnybass: What was it, in particular, that you were dissatisfied with? and how did using plastic-based materials become part of the solution?

Stephen Mosher: At the time I felt that the wood instruments (especially bass) were lackluster in tone. Although they provided depth to the sound of the music, I wanted to have a voice that the average listener could recognize, without sacrificing depth. Most listeners, even now (but less so), do not know how to listen to the bass. They feel it, which is great, and not something to be ignored. However, they do not appreciate the instrument as melodic voice. I felt and still feel that the bass can have both depth and a texture that stands out to the average listener. I believe the bass can provide both the depth and rhythmic bottom, and have melodic impact at the same time. In other words, this is more like being the supportive bottom end while providing/adding true melody/harmony to the music. I do not believe that it has to be one or the other at a time.

I have heard great players using perfectly well constructed instruments, usually wood, but some graphite, who lose the low end and depth when they solo. This is due to the responsiveness of the instrument, and sometimes due to the pre-conceived notion of the player, that they have to get ‘thin’ and trebly to be heard. Without trying to sound prissy and ego-driven I will point out two examples: Wooten has this problem a lot in live performance mixes. Quite often all most of the average ear audience hears of his solos is the upper clank and pop. I think that Oteil B. has found his voice as a major guitar range bass soloist due to the way his basses speak to him. I have been at concerts where there were multiple bassists, and the Modulus players were all playing guitar roles while the other bassists were in the lower range. This was not arbitrary.

Regardless, my question was: Why can’t the bass do a solo that listeners will both rhythmically and melodically appreciate, using the the full potential range of the instrument?

It just so happens that the sparkle inherent in our necks works extremely well for guitar. The sustain is great, and the other technical aspects of the graphite material produce stability. However, my prime focus has always been tone generation.

bunnybass: What exactly is the material you use in your “graphite” necks?

Stephen Mosher: The definition of a graphite neck varies by who you talk to. My definition is that it is a neck that is not wood-based, while primarily using graphite or carbon fiber with epoxy resin (as the adhesive/stabilizer) for its stiffness. Phenolic fingerboards, wood blocks in the heel, adding Kevlar, fiberglass, aluminum, polyester gel coats, etc. all seem to be a part of some manufacturers ‘graphite’ necks, but I do not think that these are the essential trademarks. We do not use any of the above additives, so would be considered more purists. However, we do have models with Diamondwood, stabilized wood fingerboards, and we do use silicon-based products in our necks, along with Epoxy and graphite fiber. In what configuration, you may ask? Well, we aren’t talkin’.

bunnybass: what are the steps involved in making a moses neck?

Stephen Mosher: Although I will not disclose the particulars, I can say that we prepare our raw materials, produce a molded part from them, process the neck through a Computer Numerical Controlled Machine (CNC), do inlay and fretwork, and then do final clean-up and inspection of the product. In the development of our product(s), we have paid close attention to producing proper tension/compression ratios, and insuring stiffness with adjustability in the neck beam. We have additionally done extensive R&D, resulting in our approach to and outcome relative to tone modeling.

bunnybass: how did you arrive at your neck shapes? the jazz necks we’ve purchased from you felt noticeably slimmer and faster than most jazz basses…

Stephen Mosher: Although we started out with j-bass neck profiles; that were like the pre-CBS units, we eventually wanted to produce what we and some others consider a more modern profile style. You see these on Zon Basses and somewhat on Soundgear, amongst others. Unlike some necks, ours do not become weaker with a thinner profile, so we could get away with it. We basically split the difference between the old ‘neck getting thicker and thicker until it becomes the heel thickness’ style and the parallel fingerboard and back of shaft style. Keep in mind that Leo set some interesting electric bass parameters without advanced information and based upon perceived ease of production. This is reflected in the neck profile, that they basically just wanted to run an elliptical cutter along the back of the neck shaft and exit at the shaft to heel transition. It was easier to run this cutter in a straight line and pull out. This leaves more meat in the neck, which they needed for stiffness. Thus players came to expect the shape. As an aside, 34″ was just an arbitrary guess that stuck. Fender could have just as easily made them any old scale, like 35″. Then (Geoff) Gould would have had to innovate the 36″ scale, heh.

bunnybass: When you were developing the “recipe” for your graphite necks, what kind of sound were you going after? what kind of variables did you have to play with in the search for that sound?

Stephen Mosher: Due to my background in music, and like many others, I have been drawn to the sound of fine wood instruments. However, many instruments that sound pretty good solo, get lost when part of an ensemble. For instance, if you listen to a beautiful Gibson L-5 guitar, the tone is really great in a quiet solo setting. However, the sound gets quite unclear in the mix of a group performance. And if your life depended on correctly pinpointing the tonal center of such a note played under ensemble conditions, you might well not live to enjoy the next song. So, I decided to produce a beam that would produce notes containing a strong fundamental and a complete harmonic overtone series, while cleaning up some of the superfluous ‘fuzzy’ transients that make a note indistinct. I determined that these fuzzy transients cancel out some of the more fundamental aspects of a note, altering the overall development of the struck note, and resulting in less sustain. Given a note that has ‘fullness’ in the initial attack, sustain allows for development of its harmonic content. I believe that this results in development of a sound with character. I essentially wanted a warm tone with sparkle. I believe that we have achieved that.

The variables we look at include stiffness in tension/compression, and the effects of relative placement of materials to effect density within various parts of the neck beam. We produce neck beam structures from scratch for both technical and sonic reasons. This is very different than choosing an already produced material, and honing a shape out of it.

bunnybass: So in summary, how would you describe the fundamental characteristics of your bass and guitar necks?

Stephen Mosher: A strong fundamental, a complete, balanced harmonic overtone series, increased swell and sustain, full rich tone.

bunnybass: Relatively speaking, how much of an instrument’s sound is owed to the structural and material composition of the neck, versus that of the body?

Stephen Mosher: Both have a significant impact, and they are dependent upon one another. You can take a great neck and put it on a terrible body, with delirious results, and vise versa as well. With neck through body coupling you have much better control of the continuity of the sound and dead/hot spots. In a de-coupled bolt-on situation, you can only do so much, depending on the body (and the bridge). I’ll go one step further and say that you can put together a great neck and body, and if the hardware does not match up, it may suck. We have taken a particular good neck-body unit with a complete set of parts and simply swapped bridges around. The results were everywhere from great to disgustingly poor. Builders/manufacturers mostly just choose their idea of a good set of parts, assemble them and present them to the players based upon relatively incomplete information. I don’t believe that anyone in the world has taken all the potential necks and bodies, mated them with all possible electronics/hardware/string combinations and compiled an objective catalogue rating the best to worst combos. It is unrealistic. So builders just do what they think is best at the time. And, even if one were to construct what in their own eyes was the absolute ultimate match of elements at a moment, someone is going to make a part that is different, all combinations would have to be tested with this new part to see if it improved it, on and on. And after all that, it really comes down to the proficiency of the player. A great player can make a mediocre instrument sound darn good; a bad player can’t make a great instrument sound worth beans. As Rick Turner has said, “You want ten tone controls, look at your fingers.”

bunnybass: Given the consistency you’re able to achieve from neck to neck (as opposed to people who construct necks from wood), perhaps you’re in a good position to comment on how much difference fingerboard materials have on the sound a neck produces…

Stephen Mosher: We do not use unstabilized wood fingerboards due to instability factors. No reason to set-up stresses in a stable neck by gluing a fingerboard on that wants to move. Then the neck beam has to work against it to maintain. So, I am truly not well versed in wood fingerboard effects. Our Diamondwood boards are stable and even in density. They produce a clear woody warmth, that is bell-like, especially in the upper register. The Graphite boards are warm, but a little fuzzier sounding with somewhat of a more natural compression.

bunnybass: What are the most common misconceptions people have about instruments with graphite necks?

Stephen Mosher: By far the most common misconception is that all graphite necks are the same. In fact, graphite is simply a fibrous material that can be used in an immensely wide range of embodiments.

Another is that a graphite neck is made out of this one stuff called graphite. As described above, different graphite neck manufacturers use graphite fiber with an epoxy base, combined with a broad range of support materials inside as well as for fingerboard and neck shaft surfaces.

Yet another misconception is that if you want to have an instrument with old ‘vintage’ materials, wood is the only stuff. My humorous perspective may twist a brain cell or two, but petroleum-based (fossil fuel) products are a heck of a lot older than any tree harvested on the earth’s surface by man. They include fossilized fauna and flora (trees), along with other truly old organic and mineral materials from the bowels of the ancient earth. Additionally, carbon/graphite is considered by the scientific community as the basic element of all life forms. So, what could be more down to the bone than a graphite neck, eh?

bunnybass: What do you think of the idea of people trying to create a neck, using new materials technologies, that is identical in sound and feel to a traditional wood neck (flat sawn maple or something…)? useful endeavor? stupid? theoretically impossible?

Stephen Mosher: I believe that all areas of exploration are fair game. I completely support the efforts of both traditionalists and cutting edge innovators. I think that coming up with new solutions to better solve old problems, and to re-discover old solutions that are redeemed as superior for resolving both old and new situations, are both great. To leave convention behind, developing entirely new, previously unimagined ideas with their unique problems and inventive solutions, is vastly intriguing yet not realistic for most of us. This is because it is so utterly common that ‘new’ ideas truly emerge from the existing cosmic pool of ideas already in our stream of consciousness.

Regarding copying tone: I think that it is possible to get close enough that most people will not recognize the difference.

bunnybass: “New” design innovations are often introduced as a response to some very old problems. on the other hand, new designs sometimes encourage the investigation of new directions in traditional artistic forms too. where do you think the use of new materials in electric amplified instruments are leading us? where do you situate yourself in relation to this question of “technology-driving-art”?

Stephen Mosher: The technology of the day always contributes to art, whether it is the quality of the paints and brush hairs available to a painter, the carpentry tools available to a woodworker, the quality of the charcoal or lead to a sketch artist, etc.

Any inventor, innovator, etc. is just in the middle of an endless process of exploration. I don’t really know when it all began, and I doubt that it will ever end as long as life exists. The only reason that man continues to re-visit the same old problems is from lack of vision to see things fresh and in new ways, being willing to let go of pre-conceptions and baggage of the past. At the same time, it is certainly valuable to refine human ergonomics. Fender-style guitars and basses are certainly not the ultimate in ergonomically friendly instruments. However, I kind of like them in a nostalgic way. Anyway, I believe that innovation will continue to expand the horizons of musical instrument aud nausium, with variable outcome. It’s great. Can’t seem to find a better way to spend my time.

bunnybass: I’ve heard a lot of people say that bass players are generally more receptive to instrument-design innovations than guitarists. do you think this is a fair statement? (why?)

Stephen Mosher: I believe that this has been true in recent years because the role of bassists has changed to incorporate more melodic flourishes and solo input in modern music. Bassists needed to re-define their sound to make it audible to the average listener’s ear. Rather than solely being a rhythmic thump, an extension of the bass drum, they now at times come to the forefront. Since guitarists, for instance, were already there, they didn’t require such a boast. There is only so much that one can do to change a guitar and have it still be a guitar, and not for instance, a synthesizer trigger. But there seems to be a lot more range of possibility for bassists. This will probably level out in the not to distant future.

bunnybass: What are some of the things we can look forward to, insofar as where moses is headed in the near future?

Stephen Mosher: We have been increasing our OEM manufacturing substantially. You will see a great increase in the use of our products on other finished instruments. Gibson Steinbergers, Chapman Sticks, and Soloette Travel Basses are three, with lots coming. We will introduce our own of solid and framed body headstocked and headless 5-string basses late this year. And we are work some exciting big surprises that really won’t mature for about 6-7 years.