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I think I know the answers, but I'd like to see your responses.

Well Rick, I certainly don't want to be silly :-). I've actually read some arguments in favor of moving the soundhole. As for bracing, how about this?

Rick, I wish I could hear it! I copped the pic from a website, hoping to get your feedback on it before I went off on a wild hair :-)

How would you address the problems that you point out? Avoiding cracks and wolf-tones?

I appreciate your input, as always.

I have both moved my soundhole, and changed my bracing. The sound, to my ears, is fantastic. What I have yet to learn is the longevity of my bracing pattern...but the guitars have a deep, rich sound for a small body.

You could prevent the cracks by adding more braces in an X type of formation. Perhaps adding some braces coming off of the X shaped brace at angles to help prevent the cracks that could form along the grain as the top shrinks in low humidity. The bracing additions I am thinking of would look something like this, and please keep in mind, this is only a rudimentary sketch I made rather quickly to show my bracing idea:



OK...clearly I am joking and I borrowed that pic from KMG's website.
However, as far as tapering the sides is concerned, there are people who construct the back of the guitar to be a section of a cylinder, not a section of a sphere. i.e. the guitar back only has a radius from side to side and no radius from neck to tail. Howard Klepper does this, though I do not know if he tapers the guitar depth from the tail block to the neck block. I am also too lazy to go to his site and search for that info. He does make nice looking guitars though. If you have some inexpensive wood to try out this idea, you should go for it. On another forum I frequent, there is a guy making an acoustic with a tail piece and a sound post similar to a violin. The neck and tail blocks are connected inside of the sound box with a big stick, similar to a cigar box guitar, and which will also support the sound post. He thinks it will sound good. I think it will sound muddy and have little to no note separation(read: it will sound like crap). He plans on using a grand total of ZERO braces on the soundboard other than a bridge plate. I think it will sound bad. We will wait and see.

Thanks Rick, well thought-out and well-said as usual :-)

I think that one point that is often overlooked in the dicussion about designing a "better" sounding acoustic, is that after 100 plus years of listening to X-braced steel string guitars, we have become so used to how a good one is supposed to sound, that we would tend to not like how a non-traditionally braced SS sounds. Unless of course, that oddly braced guitar sounds strikingly like an X-braced SS. I have only ever heard X-braced guitars in my lifetime. So for all of that time, my mind has become used to the sounds they make. If I were to hear a ladder braced guitar, I might not like it, and yet there are people who love that sound. So perhaps the quest is not to design a new bracing pattern, but to learn how to consistently reproduce a great sounding tradiaionally braced SS to the point that you can explain it, write down the formula, and hand the "recipe" to anyone and have them recreate an amazing sounding SS. But, that would take all of the fun out of this whole guitar building thing, wouldn't it?
Maybe not.

If all I did was follow instructions, I would go absolutely nuts. If I am not trying to innovate, I just dry up and take no pleasure from the task. Yeah after a lifetime of this I know the pitfalls, but I also know the joys, and it's MY choice, right? When I don't follow the advice of those that are much much more skilled and experienced than me - I learn something either way. BTW I try not to strike out in a new direction until I've really read and thought about it - and sometimes the payoff is great, sometimes not so much :-).

So yeah, the joy for me is not copying, mechanically, the successes of others. I'm not skilled enough to do that yet, in the first place, and also because it just isn't me.
I do treasure the great advice and direction that I have been given, by the way, let me be clear - these guys are so generous it blows me away.

Dave, I am not liking the brace pattern of pics you posted purely, as Rick points out that is sort of the traditional bracing for an arched top/jazz guitar -- which have movable bridges and tail pieces. The suspension span set-up/design.

Now with our last PM in mind --- If you want a good sounding guitar with the sound hole in that upper bout location -- I suggest you get an inspection mirror and go look inside a "McPhearson" to my ear they sound pretty darn nice.

Thanks guys. By the way, are there any GALS out there doing the kit thing?