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Trevor's book has been out for a while now, just curious if anyone has tried the Falcate Bracing. Pleased with the results?

Apparently Trevor likes them!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I built a tenor ukulele using falcate bracing (based on pictures on Trevor's website) and the sound is the best that I have ever built. That may be the quality of the wood or the bracing or the shape but it sounds good.

This year I hope to do a series of three 3/4 guitars using the same shape and the same wood but using different bracing systems (Kasha, falcate and tone-bar). This might give me an idea whether falcate is actualy better or not.

I may have an opinion by Christmas.

Bob

That's great, Bob. I hope to have a go with one this summer. Did you find the process more time consuming than, say, x-bracing?

I've got two Falcates underway. should be closing the boxes next week.
It is definitely more work than X bracing, but hopefully worth it.

well I did two and in the process is SS (waiting back to put on)
I'm satisfied

I have one finished and playing and two more just lacquered and will set them up in the near future. My first one that is playing is noticeably louder and is a wonderful sounding instrument. I am convinced that the benefits are there (for me anyway). I had two aborted attempts to get the soundboard braced and I really had trouble with the new material until I got the hang of the wetting of the CF tow. What I do now is wet all the CF out by dipping my gloved fingers in the resin and pulling the tow through the wet fingertips and squeezing the resin out and setting all the lengths aside on a piece of paper while I change gloves to continue. I then work with a paint brush and tweezers to lay the (now controllable) tow down....its a breeze when you get control of the CF...it was a nightmare until I understood it:)

What I like about it is that it does not lock the plate up to the same extent as X bracing does, its lighter and it distributes loads around the top in a very even way and it virtually eliminates cold creep because CF does not stretch therefore the guitar should stay in its original geometry better after years of being under full string load.

Yes I am a convert.

Very cool Mr Buckham!
Glad your prototype turned out well for you.
Thanks for sharing the pix and trix - those 4 tops look great!
I going to give one of these a go this summer, for sure!

John I/m impressed with the falcate top, still have not got that far yet? Is there a way for us to hear the sound of one of these falcate ss or classical gtrs ?? . unkabob in winterpeg, how do you compare the kasha design to falcate. ??Back in the late 90/s tried to get a kasha design from boaz elkayam, after sending him a full set strad plan , then never heard from him . I too would like try the falcate design on a uke. I have built abt 11 so far .Thanks for sharing .Would love to see those other falcate gtrs.

Having no experience with carbon fiber, what do you guys use as the source for your fiber?

Thanks

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

ACP sales in ca. 29$ plus 15 for shipping ,it was in a previous thread sorry don/t have exact web adr.

Thankyou Mr McDougal!....Yes give it a go you will be impressed. I had a talk to Trevor recently about the stiffness of the tops at the closed box stage. In the book he ends up at 205hz and then edge thins to drop the frequency to 195 and then used weight and the bridge to bring it down to his target of 180. My first one was not as stiff as that so I did not edge thin but still ended up at 180 so all is good there. I love the methodology to be able to trim resonances after the instrument is made.

Johnparchem...I source my CF Tow from a nice chap in London called Jon Evans. I bought 20m from him originally of eBay but used that 20m on my first 5 tops so just recently bought another 100 m. 100m landed here in Australia was AU$33.00 so his prices are very reasonable ( for us Aussies with a high AUD at the moment anyway). He is very knowledgeable about CF and sells Hexcel IM9 and IM7 which is high quality tow. It worked well for me. He can be contacted direct on madjonevans@hotmail.com.
His ebay ID is madjonevans so you may like to buy it from him through eBay.

A bit further to my Falcates. I made 14 fretters so they were a bit different to what TG has in the book. He skirts his secondary falcate braces around the edge of the bridge plate. I ran my bridge plate through to support the whole bridge and that meant that I had to also halve the secondary falcate braces over the bridge plate as well. It is no more difficult really but the 14 fret configuration made this necessary.



Have fun and dont be scared of it....you will build a better guitar using the methods in the book I am sure....Just remember the tow wetting tips that I gave in my last post....it will make life easier when you put your actual toe in the Falcate water ....just my own opinion based on my experience...YMMV...I think they say in Cyberspeak

Cheers

John

Dumb question. When you put the toe on the bottom of the brace, do you have to recess it in to get a good glue fit? I don't have the books and won't be able to afford them for a while, but they're on my Christmas list.

I have a ton of questions, but don't feel it's fair to ask without purchasing the books.
Stevev

Steve, You paint the brace track with epoxy and then lay the wetted tow on the track with your tweezers and paintbrush and then paint the bottom of the brace with epoxy and then carefully place the brace down on top and go bar it down....no recessing needed. I used 12k tow and had no problems getting it to squash flat under the brace. Epoxy has gap filling qualities that handle slight discrepancies....

John

I have used 3K tow no prewetting, just coat the brace location on the soundboard, lay on the tow and stipple it down with a fairly dry brush , coat the brace and carefully put it in position and go- bar. Not too much resin or the tow will float out.

I've been interested in the topic of falcate bracing, but am pretty ignorant. Please tell me how the curve is achieved. May I assume it's a wood bending process very similar to bending a set of sides? It sure appears that way. I assure you this is a legitimate question from someone who just wants to know. Thanks to all.

Patrick

There's some sound samples on my website here (steel string)
http://www.goreguitars.com.au/main/page_guitars_steel_string_sound.html

There's recordings of two intentionally different classical guitars here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZTHMEK8WIg

and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8VIiX1mXA


Recorded, the Shed "Pyjama" guitar http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10132&t=35192 won't sound much different from the SS recordings. The tonality is much the same but it's not quite as loud, which won't come over as much different in a recording. I'll get that recording done eventually...

All the above are falcate braced but there are some quite different treatments in other areas.

Edit: Sorry; originally both videos were the same. Should be fixed now.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Heat bent and laminated.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Trev thank you very much for posting all the links to your gtrs. cheers ernie

In spite of my laptop speakers, that guitar sounds wonderful to me. Maybe it's the playing...but I like it.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Can I assume there is a radius to the top? If so the braces could be preradiused it would seem but on the bend I would think a slight gap would be produced as the laminations make the turn. Is there some way you are finesseing the contact between brace and top other than relying on epoxy to fill any gap? Am I over thinking or wrongly thinking this through?

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No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does.
Christopher Morley

Orion,
There is no need to radius the braces, just flat works fine, they are only 8mm high when glued on, they conform well to the radius of the top in the dish.
Even with the tow under them you don't really get "Gaps" for the epoxy to fill, just not as fine a glue line as you would have with gluing wood to wood directly with titebond or HHG. The tow does flatten out a bit and spread as you put go bars on the brace.

Very interesting!

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Brad
Avon, OH

Ernie:
My bracing patern for a tenor uke was simple.
Two long braces running from five o"clock on the lower bout over the bridge-patch and around the sound-hole reaching the UTB at ninety degrees.
Two "C" braces over the bridge patch, pointed at thirty degrees abov the horizon.

Both sets of braces were two laminations of soundboard cuttings about half inch high and seventy thou thick Honduran mahogany.

The long brace was bent using the same bender as the sides using a full lower-bout, a bit of waist and touch of upper-bout and then fitted.

The "C"braces were bent around a two-inch-diameter hot pipe in a "U" shape.

I found this much simpler than Kasha bracing.

Bob

I really like the sound, specially the trebles.
Bruno