Official Luthiers Forum!

At a guitar shop in Chicago, they had a cross section of a Breelove accoustic. It has a unique bracing that goes from under the bridge to the end block. I have not seen this before...I am sure many of you have. So please enlighten me on what this is and how it works..



Joe

_________________
Joe

Thanks. There is some sort of a adjustment screw on the rod too. The one in the picture was loose and rattled. Not sure how that is on a working model.

J

_________________
Joe

I have a breedlove with it too. If this is removed will the bridge area eventually collapse? I have been wanting to take it off and I was thinking If i keep the guitar tuned a whole step down maybe It would be ok.

The thing is that those guitars were designed and voiced with the Bridge Doctor in them...

What that means is that without a bridge doctor, the bracing may be quite heavily scalloped and the bridge may rotate quite a bit under string tension.

Now... if the top was a sufficiently stiff top and the bracing was sufficiently stiff bracing.... it may only rotate a little and all will be well... If the top on the other hand was a light, soft top... it won't be happy.

You could take it out and play it for a year or 3 and if nothing happens after 2-3 years.. leave it out.. If the bridge starts to rotate a little too much after a year... put it back in and no harm done.

Good luck

John

next question..... how do you get it out lol

They are screwed to the bridge. They aren't connected to the tail block -- the leg just pushes on it.

You could probably get the screws out if you can remove the little pearl inlay dots that cover them... kinda like Bridge bolt screws.

Also remember that this thing has mass.. so be prepared for the guitar to sound a little different when you take it off... I would expect the effect of removing it to be kinda like the effect of removing 1/3 of your current bridge's weight...

Good luck

John

Yes Breedlove made these standard in their acoustic years ago. Removing might void any warranty. You need to check on that.

I would suggest that you do not remove the JLD Bridge Doctor (truss). Breedloves build their guitars with the brace in mind. We can debate about whether we like the way that they sound, but the guitar was built to have it there. Larry Breedlove and Steve Henderson weren't trying to make a traditional guitar. They wanted one with a different presentation. I'd argue that they succeeded. It's the most classical guitar sounding steel string I've played. Is it for everyone and for every situation, no. On the very earliest Breedloves, the arms of the X were scalloped all the way down to the bridge plate. Without the truss they will fail. Period. If you don't like it, sell it.

Now, as someone who has successfully and deliberately used the JLD Bridge truss on my baritones for some 14 years, and used it differently than Breedlove, I am here to defend it for reasons other than what its intended use was -- to change the response characteristics of the guitar, to round over the attack transient so it wasn't so spikey and pingy on baritones which I feel are long scale instruments and decidedly not long scale guitars.

I bet the reason we see these things is that some players freak out if an acoustic guitar shows any more top flex than a Gibson Les Paul.... These folks demand satisfaction and want their guitars warranteed if they see more than 0.06mm of top flex....

So they stick a Bridge Doctor up in there to ensure the top stays flat.... Never mind that an Acoustic guitar won't work if it can't flex some.... but these folks will never be dissuaded... Proud that their new guitar sounds *Just like* a nice 1982 Double-X braced Gibson with a bolt-on adjustable bridge...

Thanks

John

Sorry,I think that's just terrible.

Thanks. I thought I'd catch flak about that right away. Things like that "attachment" are going to kill tone to some degree,no getting around it.

I've used the system on a few ply-top beaters whose bridge areas were rolling forward. A lot of those guitars have thin tops, are under-braced and sound tubby with little sustain. I've seen an improvement in tone with those guitars.

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Talking down Breedlove's with bridge doctors is like talking down Estaban guitars. It gives you a feeling of superiority without the hassles of dealing with the money.

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

Has nothing to do with superiority. It's just not a good way to build,in my opinion.

Care to define what better is? Who gets to decide what better is anyway


My impression of the Breedloves with the JLD that I played were that they were much darker sounding that other guitars that shape (OM, OOO) with cutaway. In fact they had a remarkable amount of resonance in the low end. Might be good or might be bad depending on what the player wants. But it was remarkable to my ear.

_________________
Ken

Reminds me of the Virzi Tone Producer ("reducer") in Loars...

"Things like that "attachment" are going to kill tone to some degree"

What part of the tone is the JLD going to kill? Punch? Drive? Bass? Treble? That special ring and vibration that some folks love so much?

On the guitars that you have played with the JLD in them, were they factory guitars that came with them in them? Factory guitars that had them added in later? Hand built guitars where someone just put one in because they looked cool? Hand built guitars that someone did a little bit of experimenting with the JLD system to try and shape the voice of their guitars differently?


"no getting around it."


What was the difficulty factor in getting around it? Can't change the bracing pattern? Can't fatten up or thin out the bracing, here or there? Can't make the tail block lighter weight?

I was just wondering.

Glen

O.K.,so you screw a big honking piece of wood under the bridge,and for good measure,brace it against the tail block so it vibrates even less.And that's not going to affect the tone? Why not just build the guitar properly in the first place,which is apparently what they have decided to do on their later models.

I don't seem to be the only person who thinks the "doctor" isn't a great idea.

Hi Filippo!

Nice to see you too!





Thanks George,

But I don't think that that answers any of my questions. Does it? How big is that big honking piece of wood? How much does it weigh? Do the homemade ones weigh more or less then the store bought ones?

Is it going to kill the tone? Or is it going to affect the tone? Affect the tone in what way?



"Why not just build the guitar properly in the first place"

Who do we check in with on that one? Is it ok to use the flying buttress system? The JLD is out? Can't use it? What about double tops? Are those in, or out?

I was just wondering. I don't have a lot of experience with the JLD system. But I sure would like to learn more about it.

Glen

I've heard of some experiments done on violins - or was it cellos - where a small weight was mounted some distance off the top, inside the body, to act as a pendulum. They were free-standing, not in contact with anything else, though. Seems it would take some energy to get it moving, and perhaps provide sustain, but I can't figure how sustain would help a bowed instrument. Maybe the sustain adds to the overtone mix? The results were mixed, but not all bad, if I recall.

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I'm siding with Todd on this one.
I made one of these and installed it in one of my earlier builds with a ceder top. I had sanded the top too thin and was getting bowing behind the bridge.
It has kept the top from deforming and saved me from replacing the top all together.
Although the tone was different, it sounded pretty good to my ear. It still had good bass and the high end seemed a bit crisper.
If you decide to make it yourself, I would suggest making it as light as you can.
The less mass you add to the "system" the freer the top will be to move as it should.

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

The Atlas guitar series is build heavier(Korean),The higher end trademark (non traditional)Breedlove"s,are much more delicate in their tops,personally i would leave them in,in both.You may feel experimental with the Atlas,and see what happens,but i would stay way away from doing this to the delicate ones.

If Breedlove guitars stopped using the Doctor on their later builds,that should tell you something. The device was developed as a stop gap measure to cure bowed tops.

The key words to your post about the Fords="To cut down on vibration!"

George, you simply don't know what you are talking about. I know the history straight from Larry and Steve's mouths. Here goes:

They wanted to build a different guitar. The problem was that in their prototyping the guitars deformed under load. So what to do? They randomly received a call from Don Kendall of JLD. At his own insistence, drove all night from Roswell, NM, straight to Tumalo, OR where Breedlove was and brought the Bridge Doctor with him. They weren't interested in the Brass version since their bridge was a string through, so they attached the other literally with a drywall screw, which at the time wasn't a means of attachment for them. It restored the integrity of the guitar and brought back the sound they were after. The earliest Breedloves had an in-house manufactured Bridge truss consisting of a trapezoidal wooden block screwed to the bridge plate with a brass sleeve and a wooden dowel. There were a few versions of the permanent install version of the truss that increased the dowel size from the original 1/4" to 3/8" as well as a two-piece version that JLD manufactured thereafter, but that's about it.

Larry and Steve were trying to stretch the boundaries of structural integrity and sonics and used the JLD system to fulfill their vision.

The only guitars that they make without the JLD are their traditional guitar line and it doesn't use the truss.