Question: purpose of the mustache

Phil

Is there a purpose for the mustache other than as a guide for bridge placement?

If less contact with the top of the guitar is better...what if the 2 mustache pieces are removed? Would this permit more sound to resonate from the top?

Just a thought.
cheers
Phil

Bones

On my Gallatos they came NOT installed. I guess they figured the customer would place the bridge for intonation and then install them. I never did. No problems with the bridge sliding sideways.

Michael Bauer

Selmer, Busato, and Favino always had them, but a number of lesser marques did not. My Joseph di Mauro still has the original bridge, and I think the bridge on the Couesnon is original as well. Neither have moustaches. You usually only see them on lower-end vintage guitars when the bridge has been replaced with a modern one, which is pretty common. It's normal to see them on modern guitars, which are mostly copies of the Big Three.

I have no idea how much moustaches affect the tone/volume of a guitar (calling mssrs. Holo and Bumgarner!), but it can't be much. The perceived benefit is that you always know where to place the bridge for maximum intonation. In reality, time changes these guitars, and you will rarely see the bridge/moustaches lined up "correctly" on a vintage guitar. I have a couple that are almost perfect, but some are way off.

Manouche guitars used to recommend using double-sided tape for the moustaches, which allowed easy relocation for anyone who cared.

Be careful about taking one off that's glued down; you could take some of the top with it, or leave a really ugly, hard to remove, blob of glue for the world to see.

Jeff Moore

The moustache's are a gift to the Gods of Art Deco. They have a metaphysical affect on the sound. People who remove them have a much higher instance of foot cancer.

Craig Bumgarner

The purpose of the mustache is, of course, to look suave and debonaire like the Master.

Actually, all things that appear cosmetic on a guitar can usually be traced to some specific function. The rosette reinforces the grain around the sound hole. The bindings seals and protects the edges of the top and back. The mustache both provide a guide to location but also prevents the floating bridge from moving side ways under string tensions, which can and does happen.

Response (mobility) in a guitar top assembly (top plate, braces, bridge, mustaches) is complicated but boils down to the ratio of stiffness to (effective) mass. The mustache pieces add mass right at the most effective portion of the top, but add no increase in stiffness, so this works against responsiveness. Rosewood mustaches, however weigh a gram a piece and ebony ~ 1.5g each, so the affect is pretty small. I've not been able to notice the difference.

And they do look cool!

swing68

... the 'tache on Tchavolo's guitar in the Sainte Marie Sequence in 'Latcho Drom' may be a tiny bit overdone, though ...

Goatherd

I think I can go along with both the cool and debonair theory and the bridge placement theory. But, I have an old guitar made by Busato at the Rue D'Orgemont shop. From the looks of the footprint, it never had mustaches. But, who knows what alterations were made over the years? Maybe they were trying to save a few francs. Attached is a picture of a similar guitar, but, the owner did not know if the bridge was original or not. The footprint on my guitar looks compatible.

I wish my ear were good enough to tell if they affect the sound. I think you would see a bunch of empty imprints and such on the guitars of the luminaries if they had a negative effect. I have seen Stochelo Rosenberg play a guitar with only one mustache. I'd certainly bust one of them off my guitar if I thought it would help me sound like him. Somehow, I don't think that's the problem.

Michael Bauer

Goatherd, I know your guitar very well. I owned the 12-fret sister guitar, which I also bought from Jacques, and yours spent a couple of months with me awhile back after it had some work done. Have you ever noticed the huge oddity about your guitar? It has a 13th fret marker! One of my Busatos, "The Beast", also had a 13th fret marker, even though it was a very late one, probably from right near the end (late 50's, early 60s). Since it was just a dot, I very reluctantly moved it. I remember seeing another 30s Busato with a 4th fret marker as well. Very odd...

It is possible that some of the early Busatos did not have moustaches, but they certainly did post-war. My 12-fret had a replacement bridge, so I can't tell if it originally had moustaches or not.

I'm glad to know where that guitar ended up. I hope you have many enjoyable years with it.

Goatherd

Alas Michael, I wish this were my guitar. Mine is a similar one.

But, my encounter with it really changed my life, both as a "musician" and a luthier. I pretty much stumbled onto it. It was perplexing because the early Busato products have some dodgy elements. At least the humbler products like my guitar do. When it arrived, I really wasn't sure what to make of it. The tap tones were very promising but the laminate sides and not so carefully aligned neck made me think of "writing the purchase off as a learning experience."

The butt joint neck turned out to be a very friendly feature. There is plenty of gluing surface and if you place a shim against the face you can reset the neck without removing a molecule of original wood. It was the simplest neck reset I ever did.

Finally, it drove home the thing that I have always felt, thought and believed about guitars, it's about sound. Sound is the soul. When you meet with a guitar that has been silenced and you make it sound again, and it's voice is so illuminating, you have to change the way you have been thinking about sound. That's a pretty big change.

I bought a Martin D-35 back in 1976. I still have it. A few decades ago, I discovered Ramirez and Washburn. They had had a similar effect on me. I still love them. But, the Busato makes them all sound like dead sticks. Well, maybe not the Ramirez.

The mystery, to me, is, "How did Busato produce such a humble looking guitar that sounds so great?" The person that answers that question will be much more gifted than I am .

Sorry to have gone on so long, but now it's time to feed the goats and horses. I really do have a herd of goats.

Jazzaferri

i think they are very poor mustaches indeed....no Ability to strain soup at all

galvanometr

Goatherd wrote:

I have seen Stochelo Rosenberg play a guitar with only one mustache. I'd certainly bust one of them off my guitar if I thought it would help me sound like him. Somehow, I don't think that's the problem.

I believe it has been removed because it was source of a buzz noise. At least that's what Denis wrote and I read.