Finally starting to brace my first build

[tippie53]

The tail block can be beveled as long as you keep about 1/4 inch of the block for the top and back to glue to .

[Darryl Young]

I bevel the top of the tail block (never the head block!) so only a portion equal to the width of the lining glues to the top. If the rim holds fine around the rest of the perimeter, not sure why it would need more glue surface over the tail block. My rationale is that the lower bout is the most critical area for producing sound........and I want the area producing the monopole mode as large as possible. Seems glueing extra soundboard area to the tailblock is wasting precious real estate.......and likely puts a kink in the shape of the ring for the monopole mode.

[David L]

I like your reasoning Darryl, I never thought of it that way (that's where my inexperience kicks in), I was thinking that this would be a critical area as it is directly in line with the bridge and the load produced by the string pull, so I thought that some extra glueing surface might be beneficial. I also wasn't thinking about how the bracing (on the top) would help to distribute the load (from the string pull) equally around the perimeter of the guitar. Thanks for kicking in with that, Darryl.

David L

[kencierp]

Beveling the end blocks tail and neck has been a tack used buy the import companies for many years to make assembly easier. It reduces the chance of a bulge/hump at those glue surfaces. I am fairly certain even Martin has this feature on the lower end entry level models.

[nkwak]

My friend who got me started in all this is a devout fanboy of Yamaha guitars and he claims that he's seeing it done on higher end custom guitars as well so it was never really a worry.

BTW, how does the bracing look? The dips in the X brace go down to 3/8" and the dips in the tone bars go down to 1/4". I'm also lowering the height on the finger braces and sound hole grafts but not by much - just so that I can get a .

I've been tapping the top like a made scientist and it's starting to get some sustain to it. I know it's not really scientific or anything but I'm using one of those Snark clip on tuners and it tells me that the top resonates at a hair above F#. The back is tighter and resonates at C above an octave and a half up.

[kencierp]

Here's the Don Teeter measurements from a vintage Martin, the low point in the scallop is 21/64". I really think you need to loose those enormous finger braces -- their purpose is merely to prevent cracks, some builders only use one. Yours are adding a lot of unecessary weight -- not good. 1/4" x 1/4" does the job just fine.

[kencierp]

And in my view/opinion there is no need for such heavy bracing around the sound hole, again those are just there to prevent splits. Old guitars cave in at the sound hole mainly due to humidity problems -- so even those thick braces will not prevent that in the long term -- only balanced moisture content over the life of the guitar will help prevent that problem from occurring.

[tippie53]

The sound hole dips as the neck block rotates and the torque of the bridge. Here I have to agree with Rick Davis , I do agree that the finger braces are anti split and don't need to be as large as what is pictured. Martin uses a 1/4 in brace here .

[Darryl Young]

My friend who got me started in all this is a devout fanboy of Yamaha guitars and he claims that he's seeing it done on higher end custom guitars as well so it was never really a worry.

BTW, how does the bracing look? The dips in the X brace go down to 3/8" and the dips in the tone bars go down to 1/4". I'm also lowering the height on the finger braces and sound hole grafts but not by much - just so that I can get a .

I've been tapping the top like a made scientist and it's starting to get some sustain to it. I know it's not really scientific or anything but I'm using one of those Snark clip on tuners and it tells me that the top resonates at a hair above F#. The back is tighter and resonates at C above an octave and a half up.

Is that the F# that is 2 frets up from the E on the low string? If so, you likely don't won't to go lower. With that said, thinning finger braces likely won't influence this.

As for the back being that stiff........you could loosen it some (your call).

[kencierp]

Yeah I agree my comment was an over statement -- I was not thinking in terms of catastrophic failure but rather -- playability -- I've seen and corrected sound hole dip simply by humidifying the instrument. I know Teeter talks about this condition and I do believe its covered at the Taylor website as well. I've got some pixs of a guitar that was over humidified and it looks a bit like a beach ball --- if I can find those I'll post.