I do mine very similiar to Brian Howard brick and all, in fact got the idea from him and that website. The only thing I decided to do differently was to do the deflection when the plate is still a rectangle rather than cut to shape. I have my own metrics involved in it and really that's what it's all about. After I brace it I also do deflection by placing the ends of the X-Brace up on small blocks. I think that's a very valuable measurement to take. It's one thing to get all your plates to the same stiffness but then when you brace it that all changes. So if you are going for identical as possible guitar tones then it seems to me that you would want to know that every thing is the same or close enough after bracing.
