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Just finished bracing a new WRC falcate classical top.

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Peter

Looks Great! I just wonder how do you bend thick spruce braces like that with out snaping them?

Laminated, I expect.

I haven't built falcate, nor have I read the books yet (though I am intrigued), but laminating is the only way I can see to do it.

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The falcate bracing looks great! No bridge plate and no carbon fiber? Is it going to be a pinless bridge?

Nick, he says it's a classical...so no pins.

Looks great!

Haha, Thanks Wendy. 0/10 for reading skills

Doug, they are in fact laminated to attain the curvature necessary. The long braces were three layers just wetted out and placed in a jig to dry and then glued. The outer parabolas were three layers also but each layer was wetted and bent on an iron then placed in a jig to hold the shape and then glued. The lower catenary brace was my take on the single diagonal that Trevor shows in his design across the centerline of the top to stiffen the joint. I guess it was my way of putting a brace there while attempting to mimic a typical Spanish fan brace spread.

Where the braces intersect the bridge/saddle line Trevor obviously arranged his spread to accommodate the string spacing and bridge pin locations of a SS. I took some liberties in adapting Trevor's design to classical bridge proportions and spaced the falcate braces across the width of the classical saddle (80mm) so the outer braces are located on the outboard edges of the saddle location and all four are equally spaced across the saddle. The outer lateral braces begin at the outer boundaries of where the bridge will be located.

I also included an open upper transverse brace which is typical to most of my classical builds. The initial FFT spectra and Chladni tests look promising thus far. The top I used is an exceptionally stiff and light piece of WRC that has been aging on the shelf for at least the last eight years. I thicknessed the top from 2.8 - 3.0mm which is a bit more than I would for spruce.

I now plan on building another top (an exceptional set of Italian spruce this time) with the same bracing and then test and compare the two before building with them.

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Peter

Very clean looking top - love it!

We should get together again some time soon!

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