First time builder, bracing question

[David L]

I'm building my first also and I installed the braces straight out of the box, I want my first one to be built like a tank because I'm just not sure of my building skills. I will start playing around with that sort of stuff once I build up a little confidence. What's the old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" but hey, that's just my approach, another one of those sayings "different stokes for different folks"!

David L

[enalnitram]

Rather than erring on the side of dead and unmusical, you could just copy something that you like, and that has been proven to work thousands of times.

[blnote]

As with everything else so far, the number of different methods and approaches coupled with my own apprehension can be a little paralyzing. It's great to have a forum dedicated to kit building with helpful members, thanks for the input.

[David L]

I must say that although Tony and Martin you are probably right, when I said that I installed my braces straight out of the box, that doesn't mean that I glued spruce two by fours to my top. The braces that came with my kit are serviced so to speak, rounded on the top, tapered on the ends, and some scalloping. Are they still somewhat beefy? probably. Is my guitar top overbuilt and somewhat resticted acoustically? Perhaps. If it ends up tonally dead and just plain horrible sounding I would be willing to bet that the cause of that would have more to do with my lack of construction ability and experience rather than some un-tweaked braces. How do I know this? I absolutely don't. I have never braced a guitar top before and I have never even seen the inside of a guitar top live and in person, however, I have seen lots of pictures on this forum and on some of the websites you mentioned and some look exactly like mine, some look similar to mine, and some look nothing like mine at all. does this mean that the way I did it is right? I have no clue. The best that I can do is look at options and pick one. Since blnote posted this query under the catagory "Kit Guitars" I "assumed" that he is building from a kit and that his braces probably look similar to mine, My mistake, we all know about "assuming" and also I don't know to what level his kit is serviced if at all, so I really don't know what his braces even look like. I want to be clear that I was only sharing the way that I did it and in no way was I trying to give advice or even a suggestion as I am not confused about the fact that I am in no way qualified to do such, I may be confused about a lot of things, but this, I'm not! I can't even make a decision on what kind of wood to use for my end graft or wether to install it right side up or upside down without polling you guys for advice. I usually try to be very careful about how I come accross when I post so that I don't sound like a "one kit wonder" or that I am the all knowing luthier having the vast experience of closing a total of one whole box, if I was misleading in my post I humbly and sincerely apologize. I'm not here to piss anyone off or make any enemies, I'm here because I need ya'lls help and so far I have got that and hope to get more. My chances of "success" are greatly increased because of KGF and for that I am grateful! blnote, sorry for holding your thread hostage. One other thing, if my guitar does turn out to look mostly like a guitar but not sound like one, I'll just take it out to the street and wrap that SOB around a telephone pole, I'm not interested in owning something that looks like a guitar but falls in the category of "conversation piece".

David L

[enalnitram]

I guess I misunderstood you, David. when you said "I want my first one to be built like a tank" my inner referee started throwing flags and I just rushed out there and I couldn't help myself. I'm glad to hear that's not really what you want.

If it ends up tonally dead and just plain horrible sounding

It won't.

[johnnparchem]

David, I am not an expert but your braces in blogging fatso looked OK to me, I bet you will have a fine sounding guitar. As a builder without a lot of experience I could not point out where to remove more wood to where it would make a positive difference.

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[kencierp]

There is a balance no doubt -- but the idea of bracing is to keep the top from imploding, and some believe they can actually change the "tone" -- that is still questionable. For sure, resonance is affected by the total weight of the sound board and its freedom of movement (heavy bracing restricts movemnt). I follow the school of thought embraced by Roger Siminoff -- the top should be braced to a point where it begins to flex when the strings are brought up to tension --- that assures that every tiny increase in tension from plucking the strings will indeed be transferred to the sound-board. Roger even built a device to enable shaving the braces to check this tension concern before the top is actually glued to the rim -- I plan to make a copy of that fixture. Of course the total tension of the string set is a consideration -- gages, brands etc. will also make a different. Bottom line for me is a lighter bracing and top assembly is better. But then again you can get into the conversation of "over-driven" sound-boards. Pretty mystical stuff -- but in the end, seems it matters not how a guitar was constucted the vast majority are still used to make music .

[tippie53]

I think that people will tend to over brace a top . The key is like Ken stated , it is Balance . There is no one perfect scenario for top braces . If there were we would be coping it. I have seen so many different brace schemes , some inspirational and some ridiculous .
There is a simple engineering fact , build a guitar to accept the applied stress . To heavy , you won't get a good transfer of energy to the top . To light and the thing will implode .
This is the secret to building a great guitar. I want to pose a question to all the experienced builders , those with 25 or more under their belts. Of your early "theories" and beliefs about the structure of a guitar that were formed in your mind in the first 5 builds , how many of those do you still believe ?
I personally , after about 50 guitars decided I didn't know squat and re thought my entire building process. This was a big turning point for me in both quality and tone . After that , I realized that the more you learn , the more you discover there is to learn .

[David L]

Thanks guys for the positive feedback, especially to my post that was defensive and sharp. I must apologize and also I realize that the word "TANK" was a poor choice as I was really just trying to emphasize that I would rather be a little on the strong side as opposed to the weak side, as any good (or bad) newcomer building his first, I do worry about the whole implosion thing. I have a bad habit of exaggerating when I want to make a point and we all know that exaggeration is not always easily detected in print. And again blnote, not trying to steal your thread, on the plus side, I did get a lot of useful info from several different folks on bracing.

David L