Ovation Guitar Company - Research and Development of First Models

Research and Development of First Models

Charles Kaman put a team of employees to work on inventing a new guitar in 1964. For the project, Charlie chose a small team of aerospace engineers and technicians, several of whom were woodworking hobbyists as well. One of these was Charles McDonough, who created the Ovation Adamas model. Kaman founded Ovation Instruments, and in 1965 its engineers and luthiers (guitar makers) worked to improve acoustic guitars by changing their conventional materials. The R&D team spent months building and testing prototype instruments. Their first prototype had a conventional "dreadnought" body, with parallel front and back perpendicular to the sides. The innovation was the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties. Unfortunately, the seam joining the sides to the thin back was prone to breakage. To avoid the problem of a structurally unstable seam, the engineers proposed a synthetic back with a parabolic shape. By mid-1966, they realized that the parabolic shape produced a desirable tone with greater volume than the conventional dreadnought.

Once the engineers had settled on a parabolic shape, they turned their attention to developing a substance that could be molded into this bowl-like shape. Using their knowledge of high-tech aerospace composites, they developed Lyrachord, a patented material comprising interwoven layers of glass filament and bonding resin.

The first successful design, built by luthier Gerry Gardner, went into production soon after the company was established.

The first Ovation guitar made its debut in November, 1966. Its Lyrachord body gave the instrument unprecedented projection and ringing sustain. Compared to modern Ovation Guitars the initial instruments had a shiny bowl, that was used again for example in the Balladeer 40th anniversary re-issue.