Official Luthiers Forum!

Malcom Gladwell has a chapter in his latest book, Outliers, that describes the relationship between practice and success. After reading it, I've gotten over wanting to be great immediately and feel better about seeing improvement in my latest effort along with areas to improve.

I'm building it to be an all-purpose guitar for pop and contemporary music. Some strumming and some picking with a medium hand, and I don't want it to be awash with overtones. Hopefully I'll struck a balance similar to a Santa Cruz OM.

- .110" redwood top from Hank Mauel
- 1/4" lutz spruce bracing
- .090" mad rose bridge plate
- X brace is .6" tall at the peak, .345" scallop on the bass side, .383" on the treble
- lower face braces are both .25"

Sound Clip: http://languagepool.net/guitars/redwood ... racing.mp3

Sounds pingy through my Macbook speakers, but the low end and decay come out through my monitoring headphones.

I'd love positive and/or critical feedback!

My only comment, James, did someone leave a message for you, but couldnt find any paper and used your top

Glenn

What Glenn said about the dedication! But it must be very special.

This is very clean work James. I like the triangular brace shaping. I have a few initial thoughts:

1) .600" is about .100" more than I've ever used at the X and so far...no implosions.
2) Don't forget the cap on the X
3) The finger braces could be tapered a bit lower toward the perimeter
4) .110" for Redwood is reasonable depending on its stiffness.

Good luck and keep us posted!

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

looking good James.

If anything at all I'd say to taper/scoop the finger braces toward the perimeter at bit more.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Thanks guys. I had a little tear out when I was triangulating, but I've been finding a handful of ways to improve that process.

The long dedication is a paragraph from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I'm going for one-liners from now on!

I know a lot of the guys here use .5" tall X braces. The taller X brace is what John uses in his Advanced Voicing DVD, and Santa Cruz use .650 as a starting point on their OM's. (I think. I'll check my notes at home). I really like the sound they get, and I don't want this one to be an overly lush fingerstyle guitar. The redwood will certainly bring out the blanket of overtones. We'll have to see how this thinking pans out in reality.

Seems like I need to feather the fingers in a bit further.