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I always think that if Django hadn't picked up a Selmer, they would be almost entirely lost to history.
>To be further contrarian, I don't think that any of the sort of "professional" finishes, applied thinly, are going to make a measurable or significant difference in sound. Thin nitro/French Polish/varnish/various sprayed finishes, my guess is that they all pretty much sound the same or, more accurately, don't sound like anything. They should add some damping to the system but a thin film of whatever is not going to change much.
I feel you but I also know some players who stripped the finish off of their guitars and to my ears they definitely had a more noticeable "openness" to them after the nitro was removed. And to that end, it was always nitro, not polish/varnish so while I don't disagree with your premise, I don't think I have enough reference points either to draw any significant conclusions, at least subjectively compared to what my ears are telling me.
eta:
If the finish on a guitar is HEAVY, like on some factory acoustics, that should definitely impact the sound but I don't think you'll hear a huge difference on two otherwise identical guitars finished expertly with any two finishes.
I do believe they were generally factory guitars so you're right on with that, the "thin" finishes you'd find on most luthier guitars have less impact than a super thick nitro. That said, I do think some Duponts have a decent amount of finish and the "satin" finishes generally seem more open, at least to my ears.
Yup, that was me and I've noticed the exact same thing with shims, which is why I think OP should give them a try. Incidentally, I recommended using an old credit card because in my experience after having tried rosewood shims and other more natural materials, the plastic always sounds the best...although ymmv on that lol
Sorta also depends on how the guitars were stripped. If you take all the finish off a guitar and then refinish sand it from scratch you're taking off a not insignificant amount of wood. So the top will be some amount lighter. And then I presume you're putting a few coats of a very thin finish on to replace something that maybe was heavier?
So, not the same guitar, not just a different finish. There's a lot of variables mixed in there.
One thing I would suggest when talking about guitars is that it is very, very difficult to compare two guitars or even the same guitar unless you're playing them back to back. When I'm having someone a/b my guitar and another guitar (for me to try to compare the sound), I come up to them and switch the guitars out for them and go back to where I was standing because it is super hard to be objective about sound and our ears play tricks on us.
Certainly you have dog guitars and you have great guitars but if you are trying to test two great guitars against each other it's really hard to do it by memory...
I guess maybe an easier example of this: if I make a guitar and then it gets an issue and it has to be refinished, even with the same finish, my prayer would be that it sounds exactly the same as it did before it was damaged. But in taking off the finish and then resending the wood and then applying new finish, that's a lot of guitar trauma. What I probably made is a slightly lighter guitar that might sound better but has less structural stability.
So that the sound opened up after refinishing a guitar is not surprising. But also really hard to judge.
So he had a extra bridge made that's a bit lower and I've been using that..I switched to the one it originally came with a a hair higher action but most of the annoying overtones went away ,then I tried the shorter one with some small shims that came with my k&K pickup ( a bit smaller than a credit card) it didn't really do anything I notice the overtones go away if I gently touch the strings above it, so I'm thinking the feet of the bridge don't fit perfectly with the body or the slots for the strings could be cut better
Ah yes, string slots make a difference. I was told that by the guitar makers Robert Ford and Killy Nonis. Too long and deep, and you get things happening - ringing etc. He advised me to have very lightly incut slots, almost nothing at all, and use a pencil to add graphite to the slots to allow the strings to slide.
Talking of refinishing guitars, I've had some success with transforming Gitanes - two 255s, a D500, a 270 and a 310. I still have four of them as they are markedly improved on how they were. I have an old JWC Moreno to strip and refinish - I'll get to it next year. I knocked the moustachios off a little while ago, and one pulled the finish off back to bare wood (but luckily didn't take any top with it!). It's shown me just how crazy thick the lacquer is - no wonder the guitar was DEAD! I have high hopes for it.
Anecdotally, I’ve had the opportunity to consistently compare the various Dupont MD series models side by side. These guitars are nearly identical, built with a level of consistency rarely seen from other makers. So they make a great test case for the differences of back and sides woods. And these are all laminate, so really the only difference is outer veneer, with the middle being mahogany.
So, what do they sound like? Without fail, I always hear these differences:
MD50: Indian rosewood, complex and rich tone with rounded highs.
MD50B: greater midrange coloration, gentler highs, but also a very high frequency “sheen” that adds a wonderful crispness to the overall sound, making the regular MD50 sound dull by comparison.
MD60: Santos, similar to the MD50B, but a little simpler in character but also with the nice “sheen.”
MD100: mahogany, very simple, direct tone with little overtone complexity and very crisp, cutting highs and reduced mids.
M50E: maple, very crisp, brighter than Brazilian but still has much of the same midrange fullness/complexity.
I have also wondered about this, especially as Marcel Bianchi and Roger Chaput both said that they didn't like them. Who else might not have liked them? I'm sure it wasn't much different then as now - everyone wanted the guitar Django played. And truthfully the Selmer-type is kind of a one-trick pony, unforgiving unless played with a very specific technique and not good for many other kinds of music. This seems especially true of many modern guitars
I wouldn't be dumb enough to argue with your ears Michael and you've played more of these guitars than I ever will but I would suggest that if the backs are identical thickness with 1 ply of Mahogany and 2 plys of the wood in question, you're talking about backs of fairly different densities and weights which haven't been accounted for. So while the wood species drives the density, it's not really the species that's controlling the sound differences but the density.
Michael Greenfield (high end finger style builder) mentioned talking to someone at the Martin factory and they told him they thicknessed all the backs regardless of species to the same thickness. Thus the mahogany back had much less mass than the Brazilian rosewood back. He talked to someone about making a much thicker Mahogany back to reflect the mass difference and they were like "why do you want to make mahogany guitar sound like a rosewood guitar". Kind of pointing to the idea that the contribution of the back is mostly to do with mass vs species.
Makes sense to me but I trust your ears.