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That just seems odd to me as if that was the case then why wouldn't one lay the CF in necks horizontal? I'm sure if you were to bend the CF before glued to the brace it would bend on the horizontal and not the vertical.
But then again I'm really not referring to John's if it's only .022"-.030" I can see how that would stiffen up the brace with the compression factor. But the others look like 1/8" thick.
Mario also once stated he laminated some thin CF to the bottom of a bridge or in a bridge and it was really stiff.

I'm not sure the way others do it so I can't comment on that. Mine is .020 and applied to the entire top surface. I didn't want to put it only on the middle section, leaving it off scoops, I wanted it across the entire surface, and curving it seemed it would not only allow that, but also make it stronger. It did both.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Absolutely the configuration as shown is the stiffest and strongest. In my banduras, there's a spot where I want a cross grain brace but there's some other stuff that gets in the way so I too laminate a short spruce brace with CF to get it as stiff as I can with so little room:



CF glued to the bottom of a truss rod channel would indeed be the stiffest, much stiffer than the vertical arrangement that's done now.

Something to consider though is that you don't always want or need the stiffest configuration. Mario sandwiches his CF in the braces which is the least effective use of CF for strength but, he likes that CF doesn't creep over time like wood does.

Same thing with the CF lining the truss rod channel - to fit it, you'd have to rout out the channel deeper which might not be possible and, what if the CF makes the neck so stiff that the rod has to fight to much for adjustment and it breaks?

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