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Hi everybody!!! I'm building my third guitar. It's gonna be OLF Medium Jumbo. Here is some photos of the top I've made. So... what do you think, is it overbraced or not? The top is about 0.119 thick. It sounded belly and had a long sustain before bracing. Now it sounds good but it has less sustain .




and here is my second guitar which I made for my sister

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I'm somewhat loath to answer this because I don't have much guitar building experience but, I've probably seen thousands of pictures of braced tops from all levels of builders and have built one myself as well so I kind of want to take a stab at it just to have my initial thoughts on record before the experts weigh in.

First though, the usual disclaimers - you really need to see the thing in person to flex, measure, test etc - only so much can be divined from looking at a photo.

I think your X-braces look fine, perhaps a little bit deep on the scallops but my experience level is too low to truly comment on that, just telling you my impressions.

Your finger braces look very beefy - too tall and could be tapered more. Your peaks are also much closer to the X than what I've normally seen. If the peaks of the finger braces end up on the node line of the ring+ (do they?), Id probably move them outward by about 15mm or so. The good news is that I think there's enough wood there that you could do that without replacing the braces.

Tone bars also look a tiny bit on the beefy side but not as bad as the finger braces

Please keep in mind thought that I've only built one "real" guitar - I'm just writing this to see if the experts agree. My normal instrument is bandura (бандура) and although I use many guitar techniques, it's a different beast. Please do not change anything until someone with real experience chimes in.

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The only thing I see is that the X looks a little tight. It is less than 90 degrees? Might want to superimpose your bridge on the top and make sure you are not going to hit a brace with your pin holes. Nice job on the rosette.

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Yes, Terence. It is less than 90 degrees. I was surprised when I saw the plan. I check everything several times before I start building any part of the guitar . So I think everything gonna be alright . Thanks for reply.
Andy, would probably agree with you about finger braces . Interesting thing is that according to the plan all braces should be about 20 mm tall. When I glued all my braces the tap tone was ugly. So I start shaving the braces and now the top sounds good but I feel like it could be better. I'm a little bit afraid to continue to shave the braces .

looks very clean to me.

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