Official Luthiers Forum!

In another thread, Bruce Dickey was very nice and commented that he liked the double-X top pictured in my avatar! Thanks Bruce!

Since you have impecable tastes in your shop machinery, I thought you would enjoy a closer look!

This is a Baritone I'm building. 29.0 scale. This top is some gorgeous bearclaw Adi I got from our very own Zootman. This is my first Baritone and my first attempt at this kind of bracing. Needless to say, any changes in tone will be lost on me, but I figured this configuration would probably offer more stiffness that the standard parallel lower face braces and wind up weighing less. However, I don't own a scale and I've never weighed any components before so this is purely speculative on my part...

Now before I get called on it, I used to sand the insides of my guitars to 400 grit but then someone mentioned that probably wasn't such a hot idea. Now, I deliberately scuff the insides to 100 grit.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

That's cool looking Al!
Nice work!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Looks like you have not sanded enough....... You lazy bastage you!!!

Looking great Al my friend!!!

Hey Alain,

I am in the process of my first double X bracing. I went with the lower X notched into the main X brace and there by the outboard extensions of the tone bar X acts as my lower end finger brace.

I noticed that you end the tone bar X at the maim X and your finger braces are off set.
I was curious if You as to your reasoning .

Thanks for the props guys! Hesh, I'm sorry... I knew you would be disapointed with me! If it helps, I sanded to 400, but then scuffed it up!

Michael, I don't really have a solid reason per say. I wanted one set of the finger braces at the middle of the bridge plate, so the other wound up a bit past the smaller X...

As for the shape of the fingers themselves, I wanted the bass side fingers to be thicker where they meet the X than on the treble side. Will this make a difference? I have absolutely no idea, but I wanted to try it none the less! Ha! Also, the smaller X is abbuted to the big X and is not tappered to nothing.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

that "looks" great !!! does anyone know the tonal difference between this kinda bracing compared to a more standard one ? ( on a steel string ) ?? Love the look !

sound ??

Lars

I am still tuning my first attempt at a double X. What I have notice so far is that the center of the diaphragm ( bridge to 3” behind the bridge) is much stiffer but outside of the box formed by the two braces seem more active I would expect this would lead to a mid voiced plate depending on how the braces are tuned. I will report in a month or so on my impressions once strung up.

Looking good....I've built a few with double-X braced tops, they sounded very nice, I bet yours will too.

Cheers,

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Gwaltney Guitars

Alain, looking good.

Gotta love that 'Rondack Red Spruce.

Zootman found some where the bears are ay?

I bet it'll sound like a million bucks.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Yessir, Zootman has a nose for those rare species all right!

Hopefully, it will sound stellar. If the tap tones are any indication, it should be very nice...

Stay tunned!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Al buddy, sorry I missed your post (big baby!)

Looks very good to me but what do I know. I'd love to hear a sound clip once it's all finished. Is this one for you?

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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Lookin' good Bro. Incredibly clean. Where did you get this plan?

My first impression is that it looks tight...what tone are you after?

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

See I didn't miss your post and weighed-in here in my typical jerk manner early on.......

You know if you added one more X you would have a triple X guitar.......

would thaT BE X RATED? jODY

Alain I've done one guitar with a double X just to try it out and it sounded wonderful. The pattern seems to make sense structurally speaking. Anyway I am curious to why it's not a "hot" idea to sand the top to 400? I've always stopped around 220 but it seems to me that the less scratches in the top then the less dust it will collect. Is this a running OFL inside joke or is there an actual idea behind this?

Ah, guilt! What a wonderful thing!

Rod, indeed this is my first Baritone and it is for me.

JJ, the design is inspired by the 'Kool-Aid' man. Remember, there were some highly sensitive and secret pictures leaked a while back on this forum? At any rate, I liked the idea of having something other than two parrallel tone bars under the bridge plate. She's a big bodied guitar (16.125 lower bout) and she's a full 5 inches deep. A big girl. I figured that the big strings and the long scale would take care of the bass side of things, but I wanted to make sure there was no 'mudiness' so I opted for this bracing pattern which should give me plenty of mid and trebles. Those braces, although high, are very thin. The top is around .105.

Hesh, if I added another X, I might have found myself in court for copying someone elses plans outright! Ha!

jf, there was a discussion here a while back about how, in the olden days, that the luthiers at Martin didn't spend much of their time cleaning up the insides of guitars. They'd leave scratch marks, glue squeeze out and you'd also see plenty of saw marks... It was Mario Proulx who had said something to the effect that having a rough inside provides you with more 'surface' and that this probably helped with the depth and warmth of the tone... And when you start thinking about it, it makes sense. Sure, if the guitar is ultra slick inside, the sound will reflect very easily, giving you a bright tone, but if it's a bit rougher, I like to think you'll get a smoother, warmer tone...

Then there's always the fact that these golden age guitars are over 60-70 years old and have time and use on their side...

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

A few years ago I built a 'matched pair' of jazz oriented small Jumbos for a friend, and used them to do an experiment on this. The Sitka tops were flitch matched, and ended weighing the same at the same thickness. I used Chladni patterns to tune the 'standard' braced one to be as good as I thought I could get it, and then shaped the 'double-X' bracing to the same profiles and heights. The two tops ended up within a half gram. The maple sides were also cut in flitch, but the backs were not, and I did have to juggle a little to get them to come out reasonably close in weight and mode patterns.

When I got them done I took them to an ASIA meeting, and had as many people as I could play them. I only told them afterward what the experiment was. There was a slight, but consistent, preference for the double-X guitar: about twice as many people liked it a little bit more than the other. Generally the 'standard' braced guitar was felt to be a little more 'traditional' sounding, while the 'double-X' was felt to be more 'modern'. The standard guitar was a bit better for flatpicking and stumming, while the double-X was felt to be a little better for fingerstyle and jazz lead. Some poeple thought the double-X had more treble, and others, more bass.

When I measured the response I found that it had more of both. The double-X is stronger in the low 'bass reflex' reange, and particularly in the 'main air' patrt of that. It also has more output, and more spectral peaks, in the range between 500-1000 Hz. I don't usually look closely above that, since it's hard to control stuff in that range directly.

This is obviously not the last word on the subject, but I feel like it's a pretty solid data point. I wrote the whole thing up for 'Guitarmaker' magazine a few years ago, if you want to see pictures, charts, and so on.