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Ed Haney
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:00 pm 
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Location: Sugar Land, TX
First name: Ed
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I have several vintage guitars that I would like to record the bracing layout and bracing profile. Obviously I do not want to "pop the top" (or back) off. What are some methods that can be used to record (trace) the bracing layout and profile of existing guitars?

Ed
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truckjohn
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:21 pm 
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You may want to give John Hall of Blues Creek Guitars a call.
He does this quite a bit and has an extensive collection of tracings.

Thanks

John
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Ken McKay
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:20 pm 
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Place a bright small light inside the guitar and turn off the lights. This will allow the braces to show as dark spots. Place tracing paper on the top and carefully draw the placement.

A hacklinger guage (search) can be used to measure thickness of the plates.

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Pat Foster
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:43 pm 
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What Ken said, but use a compact florescent to keep the heat down.

Pat

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TonyFrancis
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 3:42 am 
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Last edited by TonyFrancis on Wed Dec 04, 2013 2:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Ed Haney
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:00 am 
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Location: Sugar Land, TX
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Zip/Postal Code: 77479
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Todd Stock wrote:
As Tony said, rare earth magnets and paper is more accurate than the bright light method.

To summarize the method I use:

- After tracing the top, make a duplicate on tracing paper, cut out the soundhole, bridge, and fretboard extension, and tape to the top with low tack drafting tape.

- Place one magnet inside the body and the other on the top, and allow them to come together. By moving the inside magnet around, the edges of all braces can be found by marking where the outside magnet sits.

- Make a couple stops along each side of the X, the bridge plate, tone bars, fingers, UTB, and popsicle brace.

- Once done, remove the tracing from the top of the guitar and transfer the brace locations to the original body tracing.

- Repeat the process for the back braces (although they can usually be pretty well located through the soundhole with ruler, etc.

- Some careful work with ruler (scallop locations, etc.) and a ruler stub with a stop block (brace heights) will allow profiles to be worked.


Thanks, Todd. This is the kind of method I was hopeing to learn. I wish there was an easier way to do brack profiles. I think I may have one. If it works I'll share it.

Ed
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