Does a heavy polyurethane body finish affect the tone?

[WillyW]

My son brought me a crushed Johnson acoustic guitar. It had some sort of plastic coating on it that once I got it back together (an accordion had been tossed on it, in a dumpster) and it was just dead. DEAD. The sound was like it had old rags shoved in the box through the sound hole.

I stripped what must have been 6 or 7 lbs of coating from it and it opened up to have the best tone of any of my acoustic guitars!

So YES - in an acoustic instrument, the coating can cripple the vibrations and ultimately the sound produced by not letting the various panels vibrate.

In a slab? Nope.

I've built enough slab basses, slab mandolins, slab guitars to be personally exonerated into saying that color, coating, wood type, or finish, naked or not - do NOT affect the sound of an electrified slab instrument.

Is the accordion ok?

 

[Chop11777]

I would bet that the energy that is being put into the bridge would easily overpower any reflection that is coming from the body. Kinda like a fire hose vs a garden hose.

+1
In a sense
Try this experiment:
Take your favorite bass guitar
Put it on your lap and play it unplugged
Fold up a paper towel into a small
Tight square maybe 2 inches square
Tape it to the front of the body
Play it again unplugged
You prob dont hear a difference
But I guarantee you can feel a difference
Yes finishes effect tone
No doubt about it !
Is it enough to hear it with the naked
Ear
Prob not
But is tone affected
You better believe it
Just my 2cents !
I open the floor to any rebutles
But only after you try the experiment
Lol

 

[Chop11777]

Is the accordion ok?

Lmao

 

[SurferJoe46]

Lmao

I told my son I wasn't fixing no damned accordion; buttons snd reeds and small push-things and lots of screws.

Nope .