Official Luthiers Forum!

Remember that guitar with the spruce bridge plate a while back?

There was a crack in one of the X braces, but upon further inspection not only that brace is cracked, but the entire lower section of that brace is completely loose and dangling.

How can I go about regluing loose braces? what kind of glue should I use for this?

I was actually kind of wondering if I should just go ahead and remove the back so I can take care of all the problem at once...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I vote for removing the back. And probably remove the brace or braces and put in ones with proper grain alignment.

That's one of the possible effects of invisible runout, the braces can split along the grain and pop off the soundboard.
Here's a photo of a commercial brace I bought from a reputable supplier taken of the side of the brace. As you can see from where I split the wood, the invisible grain runs out from the top to the bottom of the brace at a pretty severe angle. Any one of those grain lines is a potential weak point along which the brace can split. You can't really tell which direction the grain is running once they're sanded smooth.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

On the older guitars I favor hot hide glue, but I will use Titebond to reglue braces on modern guitars, especially if I need extra working time. I would never remove the back to do this operation. I work glue under the braces with a small spatula. I use brace jacks every two inches or so, and clamp a board across the outside if needed.

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John

i had to do it a couple months ago, and i ended up: keeping the guitar assembled, using watered down titebond, squirted in with a syringe and long rubber tube. to clamp, i (beforehand) made a few lengths of wood exactly the right lengths(if the ends are rounded off a bit, they can be a few mm too long, by tilting you can get them to fit)by cutting/sanding till they wedged in firmly enough to jam everything together.
my braces were actually cracked, exactly as in the other poster's photo, but the concept is the same