plaidseason
Senior Member
Does it come with the original hard shell case?
Scalloped top bracing
- Thread starter dreadnut
- Start date
Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Guy comes back to the lot with a car "Ok, let's try going around the block again with different tires" ;]
Br1ck
Senior Member
Weather scalloping braces on a 70s Martin is an improvement or not depends on the guitar and the owner. I like Bryan Kimsey's approach. For someone who scallops a lot of braces, he's pretty conservative about it. He'd rather do things in stages, remove and replace a bridge plate, then wait a while before doing something else. He really does not want to modify very clean original guitars.
LOL - Exactly. I used to know that guy.
Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
I always wanted to shave me some braces "to free up the top" but always knew better and a bunch of guitars can thank me now.
It's weird working inside a guitar, possibility for boo boos very strong.
I suppose some braces inside guitars were just extra beefy, so shaving braces became a thing.
With wood supplies dwindling, much stingier use of wood would dictate no more brace than needed. A computer figures it out, like just how small a driveline bearing can be without grenading, whereas in the old days things were just beefy, overbuilt.
CNC has also come a long way since then.
It's weird working inside a guitar, possibility for boo boos very strong.
I suppose some braces inside guitars were just extra beefy, so shaving braces became a thing.
With wood supplies dwindling, much stingier use of wood would dictate no more brace than needed. A computer figures it out, like just how small a driveline bearing can be without grenading, whereas in the old days things were just beefy, overbuilt.
CNC has also come a long way since then.
But that is how we learn.
Yup.
Or your ear might take precedence, whichever mattered more, or cost less.
Once upon a time, acoustic guitars were not overbuilt; they were built impressively well. But this finicky, fussy, full-of-finesse approach to guitar-making stood no chance against the tide of the newly spawned, litigious-minded, guitar purchasing hordes. The rash of warranty/guarantee marketing promises that had to be kept resulted in the "beefy, overbuilt" construction model that washed through factory guitar production like glopped-on finish.
While "Made to be played" was advertised to the masses, "Made to NOT be returned" was demanded of the the builders.
Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Too true.
Wouldn't be neat to travel the innards of very fine guitars, pre war Martins, D'angelicos, etc, via a very good borescope system that has distortion free imaging as well as high resolution, faithful color rendition, etc. That's probably an evening of television we're never going to see.
Here's a start. I [barely] shoved my Lumix through the soundhole of a very very student very very vintage Japan classical I picked up by pure chance. I wanted to verify that the MOP dots on the bridge hide screwheads and bingo ;]
After making a saddle for it and giving it a couple days to settle in with some Martin Classical strings, it is a rather impressive little box, big bass, loud trebles.
It's not going to win any contests for build construction.
Wouldn't be neat to travel the innards of very fine guitars, pre war Martins, D'angelicos, etc, via a very good borescope system that has distortion free imaging as well as high resolution, faithful color rendition, etc. That's probably an evening of television we're never going to see.
Here's a start. I [barely] shoved my Lumix through the soundhole of a very very student very very vintage Japan classical I picked up by pure chance. I wanted to verify that the MOP dots on the bridge hide screwheads and bingo ;]
After making a saddle for it and giving it a couple days to settle in with some Martin Classical strings, it is a rather impressive little box, big bass, loud trebles.
It's not going to win any contests for build construction.
Charlie Bernstein
Senior Member
I asked my local guit whisperer whether it would be worth it for me to have him scallop my D-35's bracing. He said all it would do is add bottom. The lows sound great right where they are, so I decided against it.
Tom O
Member
Leo's word from another site:
Kottke: "I was at a guitar store in Clearwater, Florida, that had an adjacent theater where they booked people to play. Ken Spooner, who owned the place, brought a Taylor 12-string over to the hotel one day, and I liked it a lot, and bought it. I did what I frequently do with a 12-string: I took out my pocket knife and started carving on the braces. I didn’t do much of that, because I had learned by then that most of that impulse is pathology o my part.
Anyway, I used it for a little while, and somebody mentioned it to Bob, and I later learned that Bob wanted to talk to me about the guitar. He thought that my comments made some sense, and he was interested din building a variation on the guitar I’d bought. The bulk of the experimentation had to do with the bracing. I essentially wanted less wood than is common on a 12-string, and I also wanted it built to be tuned down, instead of to pitch. I don’t think a 12-string makes sense tuned to pitch. If you want that, I think you should play a mandolin. I think the real virtue of a 12-string is that it can just explode out of the bottom. So, that’s what we aimed for.."
Kottke: "I was at a guitar store in Clearwater, Florida, that had an adjacent theater where they booked people to play. Ken Spooner, who owned the place, brought a Taylor 12-string over to the hotel one day, and I liked it a lot, and bought it. I did what I frequently do with a 12-string: I took out my pocket knife and started carving on the braces. I didn’t do much of that, because I had learned by then that most of that impulse is pathology o my part.
Anyway, I used it for a little while, and somebody mentioned it to Bob, and I later learned that Bob wanted to talk to me about the guitar. He thought that my comments made some sense, and he was interested din building a variation on the guitar I’d bought. The bulk of the experimentation had to do with the bracing. I essentially wanted less wood than is common on a 12-string, and I also wanted it built to be tuned down, instead of to pitch. I don’t think a 12-string makes sense tuned to pitch. If you want that, I think you should play a mandolin. I think the real virtue of a 12-string is that it can just explode out of the bottom. So, that’s what we aimed for.."
Picture below are two soundboards, the first being a Guild 12 string top as the factory installed it. Notice the straight bracing. The second photo is a re-imagined soundboard that replaced the original on that same 12 string guitar. Notice the taller, thinner, scalloped bracing. Why scalloped? Unnecessary weight can be removed where it does not compromise structural integrity, resulting in a more "responsive" soundboard (less energy is required to excite the top and produce sound). Slightly increasing the spread of the legs of the "X" yields an increased bass response.
^ Hey, Chris, what are we seeing here? Did you make the new top out of lamination? Looks like the inner layer is redwood(???). Sorry, my eyes just kind of bugged out when I looked at the soundhole of your reimagined soundboard. Is this for one of your guitars? Do tell. I love the bracing, by the way!!!!
Charlie, this was for an Overhaul of a 1991 JF65-12. It is a 4A Sitka soundboard, Red Spruce bracing, and includes my approach to minimizing (if not completely eliminating) the need for a neck reset, due to neck block shift. It looks sharp, I agree.
The wood you see on the upper bout is two layers of Mahogany positioned with opposing grain lines. The possibility of incurring a "soundhole shear" is eliminated (where the neck has plunged inward toward the soundhole due to a variety of reasons and the soundboard splits along the fingerboard extension). This "plate" entirely replaces the transverse brace and tiny finger braces. Once the soundboard is attached to the body it becomes a more cohesive, unified component of the kerfing, sides, neck block, back and neck. The increase in rigidity translates to a better transfer of energy (bounce a ball on table vs bounce a ball on a mattress).
This is how I build my own guitars, and I have done this now several times over the last 10 years to Guild 12 strings. So far, so good. Others have pointed out that we need wait another 25 years to actually prove it is a better approach. Well, they can wait. I'll keep building this way.
I go into a bit more detail in my article (lots of photos, as I wanted to document the journey for the customer), if you care to read it (guitar is in the finishing booth as I write this, so I am almost done):
1999 Guild JF65-12 Overhaul
Awesome, Chris!!!!! I recall your thread, but I missed all these details I guess. Really cool!
BTW, I don't recall ever seeing Guild scalloping the X brace. Am I wrong about that? It certainly gives the bracing a neater look. Anyway, great stuff!!!
BTW, I don't recall ever seeing Guild scalloping the X brace. Am I wrong about that? It certainly gives the bracing a neater look. Anyway, great stuff!!!
Br1ck
Senior Member
There are gong to be differences between scalloped vs straight braces. If you'll prefer the tone is an altogether different matter. More resonance in a top is not always going to be a good thing.
It was decades before I knew or cared to know what the inside of my guitars looked like. Played them, liked them, bought them. It took me a long time to find a rosewood dread that was dry enough. Straight braced, but thinner.
It was decades before I knew or cared to know what the inside of my guitars looked like. Played them, liked them, bought them. It took me a long time to find a rosewood dread that was dry enough. Straight braced, but thinner.
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GardMan
Enlightened Member
This was my '92 D-55... the X-braces (what you can see of them on far R and L) are clearly (tho' not terribly cleanly!) scalloped, as are those on my D-70 and DV-7Xs.
davismanLV
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^^^ this right here. Early experimentation landed me with an old Epiphone Sheraton (the big jumbo acoustic one) that some guy had eliminated some of the top bracing and shaved/scalloped what remained. That thing was SUPER resonant!! Sounded awful. Like a huge echoey box that wouldn't STOP making noise!! Not only was it not structurally sound, the noise just wouldn't stop and it sounded a MESS. But the top came off and braces went back on and it was a good lesson in structure and sound. Some resonance is good, too much is not good.
Nuuska
Enlightened Member
Thank you for that link - took quite a while to wade through it - definitively time well spent
One thing is that you're doing fantastic job there with all fine details.
Second thing - documentation is first class.
Thank you ever so much
Thanks, Nuuska. My intention for these types of efforts is that they be as informative as they are entertaining (both educational and fun to look at).
Neal
Senior Member
Personally, I think the mass (height, width and beveling) of a brace has a lot more to do with the ultimate tone produced by the top than does scalloping vs. non-scalloping.
I own two early '30's Gibsons (a '31 L-0 and a '34 L-00). As opposed to Martin's elegant scalloping of the braces on their pre-war guitars, both of theses Gibsons have straight braces. Yet they are unspeakably light and responsive. If you look under the hood, you immediately notice how thin and tall the braces are. The years have produced a fairly healthy belly on the '31. The '34 top looks like it was built last week.
I own two early '30's Gibsons (a '31 L-0 and a '34 L-00). As opposed to Martin's elegant scalloping of the braces on their pre-war guitars, both of theses Gibsons have straight braces. Yet they are unspeakably light and responsive. If you look under the hood, you immediately notice how thin and tall the braces are. The years have produced a fairly healthy belly on the '31. The '34 top looks like it was built last week.