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Has anyone built a guitar with ladder bracing? I know some guitars are ladder braced but was wondering are there any advantage or disadvantage to X brace vs. ladder brace?

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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

X braced guitars generally hold up better to the stresses imposed by steel strings. Ladder braced guitars usually sound a bit different, which some like and some don't. They tend to emphasize the fundamental at the expense of the overtones.

So it's a matter of sacrificing durability for tone? I was planning on building this Stella to its original design but was wondering maybe I should just X brace it like 000's.

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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 own several 1920's Ladder braced Grand Concert Guitars ... they are holding up just fine. Tai, I think the question you should ask yourself is what kind of guitar do you want to build? Do you want a guitar that sounds like the old Oscar Schmidt Stella guitars (and folks, There is a HUGE difference between Oscar Schmidt built Stella guitars and Harmony built Stella guitars. Harmony bought Oscar Schmidt in the late '30's. So all those crappy stella guitars from the 40's, 50's, 60's that everyone things of when you say Stella are NOT what we are talking about)? If so, ladder braces it is! There are plenty of folks building great ladder braced guitars. Check out Fraulini guitars: http://www.fraulini.com. John How also makes a ladder braced guitar: http://www.johnhowguitars.com/ladder.html

For great info, check out Neil Harpe's great web page at http://www.stellaguitars.com. Neil buys and sells old stellas, among other guitars, and has quite a bit of information on his site. He also wrote a book on Oscar Schmidt Stellas.

Glenn

Tai, as I mentioned in another of your threads, I have built a ladder braced 12 string following the general design of the '30's Stellas played by Leadbelly, Willie McTell and others. I used the hand drawn plans of Stefan Grossman's Stella, but modified it to a slightly smaller body (000) and slightly shorter scale (26.5).

What the others have said about the sound of ladder braced guitars is very true - in my opinion they are not nearly as complex sounding as a lightly braced X braced guitar which seems to fit the blues. From a structural standpoint there is a big difference between the two designs - ladder bracing provides cross grain strength for the top but does nothing for the rotational forces at the bridge. The X brace, on the other hand, is a marvel of engineering - the strongest point of the X (the crossing) is the weakest location of the top, the legs of the X strengthen the lower bout which is being pulled up by the bridge and combined with the tone bars, the top is braced across the grain.

It seems to make little sense to put a pinned bridge on a ladder braced guitar - many of the Stellas, as well as guitars like SelMacs (also ladder braced) are tailpiece designs. A tailpiece, whether floating bridge or glued) has little rotational torque at the bridge, all the bracing has to do is counter the downward component of the string tension which really isn't that much with the proper break angle behind the saddle.

Old Stellas have a reputation of imploding from the tension of the heavy strings some players used - I can certainly see that for a pinned bridge but it seems a tailpiece guitar should withstand that better than an X braced one. My 12 string is now five years old, is strung with heavy strings (but tuned down to C or so) and has shown no sign of any change to the top (it was built with a 25 foot radius - that still seems to be intact). It has a huge voice and is a bit of a monster to play - just what I was after





I'll add that both Todd Cambio at Fraulini Guitars and the playing of Paul Geremia were inspirations on this guitar - check out both websites for a better taste of what these critters sound like.

Sounds good. I am not sure where to get 6 string Stella tailpiece, at least for the original 30's 6 string Stella (small body, 000 sized). I have seen another Stella with the Hawaiian painting that had badly bellied soundboard, to the point that the bridge can't really stay on without a huge amount of clamping pressure. Can't say that pinned bridge is even such a good idea for ladder braced guitars, so perhaps I might want to make this one tail piece instead...

_________________
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

Six string tailpieces are readily available - resonator builders use them all the time. I was planning to make my own for the 12 string but managed to buy one from National Resophonic. I know that Todd Cambio makes his own. My bridge is big enough that if I didn't like the tailpiece version I figured I could drill for pins (and deal with the torque issues) but that turned out to not be necessary.

Todd does build both pinned and non-pinned bridges - in a discussion when I built mine he said they had a slight difference in sound but frankly I don't remember if he said what it was.

On those Stellas I restored I just used a bridge plate with the grains parallel to the soundboard's grains, so that it provides more resistance against torquing. I don't know how effective they are...

_________________
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