www.KitGuitarsForum.com

Hi Everyone

So I am now on the step where I needed to create the lap joint for the x braces. Everything I have read and watched says they must be tight. Welp - I filed a little too much because I saw the angle was off and I needed to get the braces to line up with the blueprint.

The joint is loose - a good 1/8th of inch wobble.

Is there a way to repair this and continue or do I need to contact stew mac and ask them for a few more sets of "sticks" so I can practice more and try again?

Thanks for any assistance.

-Patrick

post a pic. Glue should handle this and be sure to cap the joint with a cotton cloth. I think you should be fine.

When assembled, is it so loose that the joint will come apart if you pick up the upper brace? If not, I think you're okay. If need be, you can always shim it with a shaving.

Personally, I use a sliver of brace wood for the joint cap, not cloth. but John (and the Martin company) seem to do fine with a piece of cloth and they have been building guitars for a lot longer than I have.

I might glue down the X-brace, then tap a tapered sliver of wood into the gap, then cover with a 1" diameter piece of fine cloth as a cover patch.

Ed

Cutting these X braces has been the most disappointing step so far. Braces were pre-scalloped which makes it impossible to strike a straight line down the side of the scallop from the top ( the brace that sits on bottom. Clamped the bottom brace and gun sited down the pencil line on the spruce top with the saw to make the cut. Sorry you had the gap, I certainly understand!

your technique may the problem.
I use my table saw but before that I did it this way
tape your braces together on up one down. Use a sliding T bevel to make your angle or if you don't have one make an angle on paper and trace is as close as you can.
You know the width of the braces so make the notch a tad thin and open it with a file or sandpaper glued to a stick. Only cut 1/2 way and like I said keep things short and open them up as you need doing width first then depth
keep us posted

I think it was John Parchem who posted pix how he cuts the angles on his X-braces. I use it as a guide to cut mine & it's worked fine for me as well. If my cut was done w/ a lot of play in it, I'd be more inclined to make a new X-brace.

RnB, that pic was very helpful. Thanks to all (I cut-in a perfect grain oriented patch where I buggered up the underlocking 45 for one of the t-braces and re- cut the 45 with a shop made angle gauge).
Now have my xbraces clamped and drying.
Entire bottom of brace had LMI glue brushed on. There was very little squeeze out, I'm a little concerned I didn't use enough glue, although the entire bottom of brace was covered. Worry wart? Maybe that's a good thing? This spruce seems to suck up the glue.

I've had enough trouble getting the X tight and the angle matched to what I want that I now glue down one of the races before cutting the joint. A little slower technique, but works better for me.

I see. If the braces weren't pre- scalloped, it would have been simpler. Since they were both curved, a straight line was almost impossible to strike from top to bottom. As was posted earlier, a different technique is in order. So I'll apply a linen patch as suggested. Next time maybe I'll purchase spruce separate just for X Braces. Thank you for the replies. How is it going for the original poster?