Eric Schaefer's DIY Guitar Making podcast released this 39-minute question-and-answer episode on 15 January 2026, covering saddle intonation and Chladni patterns among other build topics.
Instrument making is the one field where Chladni figures have been in continuous professional use rather than being rediscovered as an art form. Sprinkling glitter or tea on a free guitar top and exciting it at its resonances shows a luthier the mode shapes directly, and the symmetry and frequency of those modes guide how much wood to remove from the braces. It is a measurement, and it predates modal analysis software by two centuries.
The episode is a general Q&A rather than a deep dive, and a good chunk of the run time is promotion for workshops and courses, so calibrate expectations. Still useful as a reminder that the plate is a tool before it is a picture.