Topic: Latest Grand Concert

[sustaireblues]

Just thought I'd show some pics of a guitar I built for a buddy.
Stained lutz spruce top, claro walnut b&s, 14 1/2" lower bout, 12 fret slot-head, with ladder and tone-bar bracing, soft V neck, soundport, and flying buttress bracing for the neck block.









After I got it strung up and played it for a couple of weeks it just wasn't open sounding as I felt it should be, so looking at the bracing pic I went back in with a small plane. 



And now it's sounding great, open, full, loud and responsive.

Joe

[Johnm]

Congratulations, Joe, you do beautiful work, and I really like the photos  of the guitars in progress.
All best,
Johnm

[uncle bud]

Nice looking guitar, Joe! But someone punched a hole in it.

Can you explain the tone bar bracing for the uninitiated among us? Just curious about what that is and does.

[sustaireblues]

Thanks John! And that's my first experience with a soundport, never played one before. I do like how it does help feed the sound to the player, but not sure if it fits visually with the old time guitar styles I love.

The tone bar bracing is something I'm experimenting with uncle bud, those longitudinal braces are used in archtop guitars and mandolins. Haans Brentrup, former mandolin builder, and recent builder of some great Larson inspired guitars was playing around with similar bracing on some of his builds. I was mainly looking to counter the tendency of ladder braced guitars to develop that potato chip curl in the top, but I think it also adds a little more tonal complexity while retaining what we love in ladder bracing.

At least that's my thoughts on it tonight. You know how it is, trying to use words to describe sound. 

Joe

[frankie]

I wanna live under one of those braces!!!  Love it!

[Parlor Picker]

Looks gorgeous!

[Stuart]

Hi Joe:

Congratulations on a job well done. It's a real beauty. What kind of wood did you use for the bridge plate? Padauk?

I know what you mean about the braces--the builders I've talked to over the years always talk about the Goldilocks factor--how to them "just right." And when you're working with wood, it's always easier to take it off than it is to put it back on, so I can understand you wanting to err on the side of safety.

[Prof Scratchy]

I've never seen the 'flying buttress' approach before. Would this do a similar thing to the through-body neck stick on Nationals and some Larson guitars? Does look like a good approach.

[sustaireblues]

Thanks guys!

Yes that is padauk for the bridgeplate, had some handy and it's plenty hard enough to handle the string ends.

I believe Howard Klepper may have pioneered the flying buttress, at least that's where I saw it first. But yes it does the same job as the national stick or the "tone tube" in the old Larsons. They transfer the string tension to the tail-block whereas this channels it into the curved strength of the sides. Should help extend the time before a neck reset is needed. These are usually done with carbon fiber rods or tubes, being just a poor boy I'm making do with good quartersawn spruce. 

Joe

[Richard]

Very nice 

[sustaireblues]

Here's a little video to try and give you a sense of how it sounds.
I'm off-grid and found the first vid I shot was going to take hours to upload which I can't do so shot this one using the compact email video setting, uploaded in 20 minutes. Visual quality is bad but the sound doesn't seem much different than the standard setting.




Joe