Official Luthiers Forum!

Western R Cedar top with rosette already set and final sanded thickness is now .078.....after attempting to sand out a crater gouged into one side of the top from my thickness sander. The sanding belt evidently slipped slightly and somehow overlapped itself on the drum. ARGHHHH!
Anyway....It is for a OM build and still has some lengthwise stiffness...but side to side is pretty floppy. I've never done a top this thin. Will taller X bracing work on this thin a top?....or will it just end up sagging between bracing down the road?
Is it possible to veneer the backside of a top to build it up..

Do I just toss it?

Kent

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

First: WRC for an OM?

Second: I think .78 COULD be okay for a classical, with an appropriate bracing pattern, but, for an acoustic, with all the tension on pulling the bridge, i'm not sure this will be enough to prevent the top to distort.

Third: Veneer the top? If you check the price of a WRC top, versus the price for the veneer, all the process to do this, and all the acoustic properties you'll loose, I'd choose to grab an other top. But you can keep your top and make for experiences of it, or simple do 2-3-4 ukus or 2 dulcimers!

Good luck!

BTW: I really hate drum sanders

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

This is the second time in a week this question came up.

Best advice - buy another top.

Sorry - I know that's not what you wanted to hear,

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

And exactly whats wrong with WRC on am OM ??? .... Jim Olson has made a career out of a slightly larger body size with WRC on top ....

I have made some killer fingerstyle OMs with WRC ...

back to the topic .. thats touch thin .. wouldnt go under .100, but even then that has to be a stiff top to get that thin for me ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I sorta expected this......... BUMMER!
I think I might use this top for a classical experiment. It was an experimental top anyway. 2-- (2 1/2") upper bout sound holes on each side of the fingerboard and 1-- (1 1/2") in the normal soundhole location. I have more cedar tops....that's not the stinky part....I did 3 rosettes using a highly figured and cherished piece of Cucumber Magnolia.

Better to know this now rather than slowly watch a new guitar morph into some contortion once the tension is applied.

Thanks everyone

Kent

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

What about cutting the rosettes out and inlaying them whole, into a new top?

I wasn't a blemish... I just never saw (or never noticed) a WRC top on SS guitar. I'm really sorry if it sounded bad!

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

I'm afraid my rosettes are too thin now to transplant. One more sanding with a new top and these rosettes will be toast.
AND....I built a cutaway Curly, spalted, Mango OM with cedar top...and love how it looks and sounds. Very stiff top.
Kent

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

Just so happens I have 8 more cedar tops staring at me this morning....One sitka ..2 englemans..2 sinkers...and a beautiful tight grained, stiff, hemlock top I've had glued up for 2 months now that is tempting me. This hemlock is very unusual 20 count and extremely stable and has a nice (between sitka and cedar) color. I have 150 BF of this exceptional hemlock just sitting there...and nows's googa time as any to try it out. Since this is a experiment guitar....why not!

KB

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Wood Creations by Kent A. Bailey
EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

http://www.kabart.com

wrc work great on OM/000 guitars. Have several out there as with SJ's. They make a very nice sounding fingerstyle guitar or for that matter flatpicking. In my opinion would replace it.

If that's the most work you ever have to throw away, you will be ahead of the game.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I just bought 4 WRC tops for this reason, they are cheap and as a total novice I'm sure to make mistakes, so I will rather use WRC than something more expensive.

Save that top if you ever want to experiment with double tops.