They say if you find something you love to do, and can get someone to pay you to do it, you'll never work a day in your life. Looks like you found yours.
I really liked watching this and learned several techniques that I will use as I build #4; prepping the braces for scalloping with the saw and stabilizing the braces for glue-up with the small blocks. Thank you for your videos
That was really interesting. Meticulous and very accurate work, a pleasure to watch. Regarding the scalloping, as you mentioned, the height of the bracing effects its stiffness. Therefore, by scalloping, the plate ends up with points of stiffness at the point of each scallop, which In turn will effect the sound. So is the location of each scallop point important?
Yes I learned something I never knew. Are different guitars voiced differently, like Martin or dreadnought style. Thank you i have to digest your genius.
Very cool! I have a question....on my Martin 0 plans, the transverse brace is flat on the glue face, all others are 30' radious. Do I glue that brace against a flat surface in my gobar deck?
Interesting video with lots of tips, thanks, but what are listening for when tap tuning at the end? And how then do you alter the shapes of the braces from the sounds you hear?
Do you add like a drop pf ca glue to the little brace blocks or double sided sticky tape? What do you put on so it doesn't rip up when you remove those little blocks?
The bracing is too light for cedar top of say 2.8 mm, the floating soundhole brace was absolutely unnecessary as the X brace in tandem with the soundhole patch is more than enough to do the job. Tap tuning is a science when it comes to violins because it has been studied and attempted to be quantified for them, for guitars with multiple braces, it's a pseudoscience at best and most of the time it's just random. Deflection test is more accurate for guitars. Bracing strength depends on its material, width, height and profile, for example a rectangular brace of 42 cm length and 0.8 cm width and 1 cm height has the same amount of strength as a triangular brace of the same length and width with 1.6 cm height. That also means if your bracing height is less than 5 mm then the strenth it offers is no better than not having a brace in that location. It will work akin to the soundboard patch used below the neck. Barely good enough to prevent wood splitting but won't offer any structural strength at all, and in worse cases it creates dead spots in the top with those pyramids, which might be helpful to cut down certain frequencies but at the cost of significantly increasing damping. I would definitely recommend reading up on structural engineering and acoustics before dangerously reducing braces to paper. My most important question here would be, within how many months did the top begin to belly?
Lovely work. Did the modifications to the bracing work out? I've learned a lot from watching this. Thank you for sharing. I'm a 77 Year old retired muso / entertainer who makes a few Ukuleles & I've made two guitars so far. I'm loving it. Cheers from Australia.
Hello Eric, Do you radius all your braces or just the x-brace, the long sound bar braces and the trasversal brace? Thank you for your informative videos. Best wishes
Hey Eric great video as usual. What was the final opinion of the x-brace to torsion bar brace you added around the sound hole? Also like the method you used for carving all the braces.
Very interesting eric,thanks. I can’t believe how much material you’ve taken off the braces with your end escalopes starting way earlier than mine and going down low very early. Then you still take out the massive middle escalope on the x braces. Just voiced my 2nd guitar (first solo build) with a Sitka top and my braces stay at full height until the escalopes at the end but are all slimed down to a point in profile. Starting to think I should take more off now! My tops about 2.6mm at moment before final sanding etc.
Man that bracing seems light. Especially for a Cedar top. Beautiful work btw. My Martin with golden era bracing has that pyramid shape on all of the bracing peaks. Nice to see they took the time in a production guitar to do that. I knwo not all have it. In fact some can look downright rough. Mine are smooth as can be
Could not agree more. I’d like to see the top belly that one has after a year or two. Those are the deepest “scallops” I’ve ever seen. Been building since 2001.
His scallops are too deep because he isn't keeping his chisel arm secure to his breast and pushing with his feet, look how far away his elbow is when he scallops. Also when he holds the soundboard up for checking tone he's grabbing only the top and not pinching the the top and brace so thusly he isn't getting accurate feedback.
Drum sander, Dremel, band saw, shop vac, heat blankets, calipers, body molds, neck jig, as many cam clamps as you can afford(you'll need more) chisel set, Japanese backsaw, varying grit sandpaper, hardened steel fret snips, bowl sander, machined plane rulers small and large, titebond, chalk, and a planer tool. Did I miss anything guys? All of this is incredibly expensive and you won't make cent one until probably your tenth guitar. It's addictive.
Rolling pin sander, 2 routers of different sizes, rig for routing in binding, 2 bandsaws, one with wide ripping blade $200. All kinds of tiny hand planes, ear protection things, .023 fretsaw, gobar deck, about 800 routerbits. Moisture meter, brooms, dust system, heated woodbox, sanding dishes of different radiuses, oscillating drum sander, chisel sharpening stuff. old t shirt with no lint.
Just an observation. If strength is so important for the braces, why do you, and many other builders, then scallop most of the wood away in the very spot where the most strength is needed? Martin started this and you could certainly find a worse model to somewhat copy. However, I believe Martin would never measure brace strength or flex or tap their tops or backs. Rather, everything was cut to, more or less, specs and put together and then quickly, that magic word...next! In a marketing sense it's beneficial to give that air of almost mystical intuition and advanced knowledge ant technique. However, is the final product superior? Mmmmm... Enjoy your videos and wish you much success!
Is it possible to have the bracing arched away from the top and only glued at the vibrational nodes? Do you voice tops differently for open and drop tunings?
Those are the Go bar rods that Stewmac sells. They have a lot more clamp force than the typical go bars you get from the kite-making industry that you see most people using for go bar rods. I still use the weak 'kite' rods to dry fit certain things or in situations where I don't need a lot of pressure, but for actually gluing in the braces I love the newer yellow fiberglass rods. I'm not sure where stewmac gets em from but they're great.
Jeffrey Douglas - The circle cutting jig? I made one out of scrap, it screws on to my stew Mac base. You can also get a dremel brand circle cutting jig for $20. Check amazon or your local big box hardware stores. it is worth a try for that price
Beautifully done. Thank you. Liked. However, there are some surface defects on the soundboard on the inside that will not be visible to the owner unless he uses a mirror. You won't have this types of defect on the outside. For me, the best luthiers would make the interior perfect even though no one else would ever know. I have a friend who does that even for the parts under glue never to be ever seen again. I think that this mentality makes a difference over a lifetime of building. Just a person's opinion.
Thanks for the kind words. That is a very charitable term! There are still spots in the 2020 building workshops. I hope you can make it out someday buddy!
@@EricSchaeferGuitars I live in Argentina, here is almost impossible to even think about souch a travel. Here the things are too expensive and because of that I call this a dream. Sad but true.
