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I wanted to design a guitar with a tailpiece and lighter bracing and after hours of research I decided ladder bracing sounds like a good option.


and many other threads leading towards this idea as well.
ladder bracing
http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... 587&page=2

if the bridgeplate on a pinned bridge then transfers energy to the X brace, is it reasonable to believe that if the bridge could sit directly on top of the x brace it would be more efficient?
If so, when using ladder bracing, I would be inclined to think that one placed directly under the floating bridge would be ideal, instead the examples I see show a reinforcement there instead, not touching any braces. These instruments have been described as loud, with reduced sustain, which seems to sum things up for a guitar with a floating bridge.

Thank you! Heres some pics to start off with

Selmer/Maccaferri guitars had this style of bracing. Here's a pic of what it looks like. You can see the small braces connecting the two braces that are on either side of the bridge. The bridge sits on top of those small braces... not glued down..

The last brace near the tailpiece was not there on the 12 fret model (braces a little different and shifted rearwards a little) and was not there on some of the 14 fret models as well. Brace heights varied quite a bit yielding sharper or warmer tones.. The top was also arched pretty strongly. Braces were tall and narrow.

The sound is very clear and loud but not as rich and orchestral as an X-braced guitar. Definitely not a folksy strumming guitar - at least not the ones I make. Good for blues and jazz - the older the music the better. Has a very unique dry cutting tone. When executed well can be pretty dang loud.

Not the most versatile guitar, but certainly fun to have..

Regards, Peter Z

Thank you so much for that image. No matter how hard I looked for Maccaferri bracing, I never could find a whole lot. Probably because I just realized i misspelled it . That's pretty on par with what I've heard about the tone though. I probably wont be doming the soundboard as much as the maccaferri though, no bend atleast, which I heard was done on some or all of them.
I probably wont brace symmetrically either.

Why do you suppose the back is almost always ladder braced? I've seen some done differently, but so few that I can't even find any pics when searching for a back braced differently

Wow, I post a comment at another forum a long time ago and it pops up as a quote here. What I was mainly refering to was my ladder braced 12 string "stella clone". I more or less followed the little bit of information out there on the bracing of these guitars (some plans at MIMF, some information about a guitar owned by Stefan Grossman, other bits and pieces). I have no experience with Sel-Mac's (other than loving their sound), but here is a picture of the big fat braces in my 12 string



and the bridge/saddle/tailpiece



Roger Siminoff talks about the different forces on a pinned vs floating bridge (mostly about mandolins but it seems to apply here).

Edit to add that I have seen several sets of plans for Sel-Macs and a couple of building threads

agf and luthiersforum seem to go hand in hand, I halfway figured you might see this thread, Freeman. Yours is one of the few with good photos of the bracing you've done. Those braces intrigue me! Is that how all the stellas were made too? What I'd like to see is the Harmony ladder braces that supposedly sounded so cheap, to see what they did wrong. Although iirc, they used the same braces on either bridge design so it was probably a tank for those with a tailpiece.

Thanks again guys! Bracing is going in today, no turning back now.