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I am looking for a source for carbon fiber for a falcate braced guitar I want to experiment with.
The book by Trevor Gore and Gerard Gilet suggests using strands of carbon fiber from a 198gm/m squared woven cloth. They also mention the yarn used in the cloth is 189gm/1000m, 3k tow.

Anyone out there have a recommendation on where to buy this?
Looked at Amazon and it's confusing as there are different cloths with different weaves etc.

Also... if anyone has done this before I would be interested in any feedback on this bracing method.
It seems to make some sense ( vs X bracing ) but I have a few questions/doubts about some of it.

For example...

1) Do you really need to put carbon fiber under the braces as well as on top. Seem to me the guitar top, when glued to the braces, acts like an I beam structure so not sure this carbon fiber adds a lot of value. I plan on doing some experiments with scrap top and bracing material and carbon fiber to see how much stiffness this fiber really adds.

2) Trevor Gore and Gerard Gilet drill the holes in the bridge plate before gluing the braces on so the braces that go over the plate are properly aligned on the top. This method of assembly forces you to be extremely accurate assembling the rest of the guitar ( alignment of top to body and neck etc. ). Seems like a big potential problem. Is it really necessary to do this? Looked at some falcate bracing examples on the web ( from Wilborn Guitars etc.) and they avoid doing this it appears by not having the main braces go over the center part of the bridge place.

3) Is the carbon fiber really worth the headache at all? From the Trevor Gore and Gerard Gilet book, it only reduces the weight of the braces by 10 percent for equivalent stiffness. This assumes carbon fiber on both top and bottom of brace. Again.. I noticed some falcate braces without any carbon fiber on some guitars.

Wilborn Guitar example of falcate bracing...
Anyway... any input would be appreciated with someone with more experience.

Regards

John Parachem on the Acoustic Guitar Construction forum builds with this process. He used to be on this forum back when I started in 2008. We both started building at the same time.

He can help you. Go there
Acousticguitarconstructionforum.com

Kevin Sjostrand wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 12:45 am John Parachem on the Acoustic Guitar Construction forum builds with this process. He used to be on this forum back when I started in 2008. We both started building at the same time.

He can help you. Go there
Acousticguitarconstructionforum.com

Thanks!!

Try this place. I've ordered from them, and their stuff looks good -- at least to me.
Their prices are pretty good too.
https://dragonplate.com/

I've done falcate bracing -- or my version of it -- on a couple of guitars. I made it up as I went along. I seem to have randomly hit the magic combination on guitar #6, which is remarkably well balanced. I didn't use carbon fiber, just red spruce bracing, shaved down by guess. It's described in "Blog your project," titled "The 00 Project."

MaineGeezer wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 1:41 pm Try this place. I've ordered from them, and their stuff looks good -- at least to me.
Their prices are pretty good too.
https://dragonplate.com/

Thanks. I looked at their site and I'm still a bit confused about what to order. It seems like you need a carbon fiber cloth so you can extract individual fibers. Their site talks about veneer sheets and plates and it seems like the fibers are already bonded together and it would be impossible to extract individual fibers. Am I missing something? Could you tell me exactly what you ordered from them? This might help. Thanks.

I've mostly ordered strips for neck reinforcement.I did order a couple of 12" z 12" self-adhesive fabric patches to reinforce the case I had to build (see "The OO Project" in Blog Your Project) but I didn't try pulling out fibers and at this point I don't remember if it would have been possible to do so.

Something like this might be what you're looking for, and the price is low enough so it wouldn't be a catastrophe if it wasn't usable. https://dragonplate.com/plain-weave-veneer-matte-6-x-6

MaineGeezer wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 2:12 pm I've mostly ordered strips for neck reinforcement.I did order a couple of 12" z 12" self-adhesive fabric patches to reinforce the case I had to build (see "The OO Project" in Blog Your Project) but I didn't try pulling out fibers and at this point I don't remember if it would have been possible to do so.

Something like this might be what you're looking for, and the price is low enough so it wouldn't be a catastrophe if it wasn't usable. https://dragonplate.com/plain-weave-veneer-matte-6-x-6

Thanks. Looked at your falcate guitar OO Project. Very nice guitar and interesting falcate bracing design. Sounds like you liked the results acoustically which is what I want to achieve.

After reading the Gore/Gilet books it seems that falcate bracing makes sense in general but I haven't yet convinced myself that the carbon fiber is worth the significant complexity and build risk.... especially the carbon fiber between the braces and the top. I wanted to buy some carbon fiber and do some experiments using a displacement measurement jig to see how much stiffness is added to the top by adding the fiber. Should be interesting. Will let you know if your interested.

I could be wrong but I seem to recall people using carbon fiber 'tow'. I believe it comes like knitting wool. You epoxy strands to the bottom and top of the braces.

Brent

bftobin wrote: ↑Sat Nov 23, 2024 9:28 pm I could be wrong but I seem to recall people using carbon fiber 'tow'. I believe it comes like knitting wool. You epoxy strands to the bottom and top of the braces.

Brent

You are correct but in most cases the fiber is sold as a carbon fiber cloth what is woven using 3K tow. The recommendation in the Gore/Gilet books is to buy the cloth and strip out a 3k strand from the cloth. Problem is, there are many vendors out there it appears selling carbon fiber material. They have different weaves and it appears some of the material is not just cloth but cloth that has already been coated with epoxy or some other binder.