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Hello All, I am starting to build a left handed guitar for a friend - my first left handed guitar. I know the bridge/nut needs reversing, but do you also reverse the top bracing?

Any other reversals on a left handed that I might be missing?

Thx, Tony

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Tony Flippo

The side marker dots on the fingerboard

And yes, reverse the bracing. And of course the cutaway, if there is one.

And don't forget the strap button!

Depending on the bracing system, you may have to reverse the bracing. Kasha bracing in particular is treble and bass specific. Scalloping may be different if it is treble and bass specific.

Bob

I will be the contrarian here and state that there is no treble or bass side concerning bracing. For the bridge it is different as mass and inertia can affect bass or treble strings differently.
The top does not know the difference between the treble or the bass side. What matter when doing asymmetrical bracing is to create an imbalance in the discrete areas the top is divided into (like when scalloping one leg of the x, and not the other). Traditional tone bars (as done by Martin, Gibson, Larson etc.) do that as well, and work the same for right or left handed guitars.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

+2

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks guys - a lota of help.

Dennis, Good catch on the side fret dots.

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Tony Flippo

Hmm. So you're saying that if you took a right handed D-28 or whatever and swapped out the bridge and not for lefty it would have no impact on the sound of the guitar? I would have thought it would make sense to reverse the tone bars as well to keep the open end beside the bass strings.

I've read an article by 2 repected luthiers some time ago (partners at the time, I think one of them may have been Grit Larskin, but don't hold me to that) saying they made similar guitars, S/S and classical, asymetrically braced, left and right handed to inverstigate the results.
It seemed to them that no discenable difference was found in the sound/response for S/S (as others on OLF have observed), but that Classicals benefitted from having any assymetry in bracing reversed to match the "handedness" of the player.
Figure that out?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

In all cases asymmetry is used in a classical, it consist in making the treble part stiffer one way or the other. Since the trebles are hooked up closer to that part, it is perhaps reasonable to image their energy excites that area first and only then travels towards the bass part and the overall periphery, all mixed in the vibrational soup? If yes, then switching the strings will delay and reduce some of the effect created by the stiffer area?

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Build log

You must Flipp'o the bracing. mainly the tone bars. On my guitars most everything else is symmetrical.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

This is going to be a left hand Steel String (00 size), and I've decided to reverse the tone bars.

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Tony Flippo

Can't hurt....

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I think the fact classicals are often much, much lighter, having to convert far less string tension into sound, means they're more sensitive to subtle (or less subtle) changes.

I side with Laurent on this one. I think it was Richard Bruné who some time ago started a lecture for the GAL annual convention by saying: "Let's make one thing clear: there is no such thing as a bass side and a treble side of a guitar..." (approx. quote)

I just had one of my early guitars in the shop a few weeks ago. Although the bracing was assymetrical, the new owner was a lefty and wanted the guitar setup changed. Once performed, this operation had no effect whatsoever on the sound of the guitar.

Pat