Official Luthiers Forum!

I been following the Gore\Gillet Comptempory Acoustic Design (Build book) to put together the Medium sized steel string guitar that they have plans for in the book. The guitar has a lutz spruce top frorm Shane's last batch and a Australian Blackwood back. Unfortunatly it has Koa sides as I went to cycle a side for the second heat cycle after bending it and left my controller on the full power option, lost the side and the heat blanket. I was right in the shop two feet away reading on the internet (whats that smell? ...). I did find with medium amber shellac I get a good color match.









The carbon fiber on the top kept the top in the prefect shape. Absolutely no spring back. There was even a bit of vacuum when I put the top on the radius board that the top was glued up in. A straight edge on the fret board extension area of the top gave me the perfect 2.5 mm at the saddle that I am looking for.



On to the bolt on bolt off neck ...

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I have become a convert to the falcate bracing, I just retopped a 12 string I built a few years ago with a falcate top making the braces 9mm tall...can't wait to see how it sounds...

the back and sides wood combination is cool!!!!!!

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

Too bad about those sides, but I bet the combo you have now will look just great.

Don't know much about the bracing scheme but would like to hear it when it is done.

Should be a pretty guitar when you are done.

Cheers,
Bob

How much extra work was the falcate bracing, and how much more than usual did you spend on materials such as the CF? Was it as hard? Twice as hard? Etc...

I have a small strip of carbon fiber that I pulled a half dozen strips of yarn from, so cost wise no big deal. There are a lot of extra steps to falcate bracing. I had to cut, thickness, bend and then laminate the falcate bracing. I made them 2.5 times too tall and cut them in half to give me the two braces. Epoxy them down with a carbon strip, shape the brace and them finish with another strip of fiber.

Gluing them on is a little harder, Calendar time it takes at least a couple of days (it took me 4 days) to glue the braces on, mainly because of the epoxy cure time. First the brace and a strip of fiber needs to be epoxied down and then the following day a strip of fiber needs to be glued on to the top of each brace.

I would say all and all it takes at least twice the hands on time for bracing the top. A lot more time to get them made and glued down and a lot less time carving them afterward. (There is no carving of the braces once the fiber is glued on top. ) Also I did not radius the falcate braces. Just pressed them down. With the CF there was no spring back.

I have pretty detailed pictures with some commentary on my web site.
http://harvestmoonguitars.com/GoreSS1.htm

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Very curious as to how you feel about the results...

Looking good John! I'm going to follow this thread with great interest. Thanks for sharing your progress.

luv to hear it when ready please post sound clips if u can ?

John, very nice. Looks like you're following the build book very closely. Do you anticipate adding weight to the side? Looks as though you're prepared to do so. Like the others, I will be interested in how you think it sounds in comparsion to the more typical bracing schemes. Good job!!

Thanks all for the comments, It will still take a little time for me to finish but I will post an audio file when finished. I have followed the plan and the book to the best of my abilities. When finished, I am not sure it will be representative of what a guitar of this type can sound like. It will at least represent an attempt at somebody with my skill levels to follow the plan and the book. For the most part I even follow the procedures in the book. There are times based on my tools and jigs that I deviate from the procedures, but I do try to stay on plan.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I am close to finishing the construction of this guitar.







I have been spending time cleaning things up. Filled a couple of gaps. One repair I had to make was to the spruce between the rosette and the sound hole. Somewhere along the line I knocked a bit of it out. Luckily I have a spruce ring underneath so I had a ledge to build up. I shaped a small piece of spruce from the cutoff to fill the cleaned up chip and glued it in with hot hide glue. It is hard to see the repair.









While I was waiting for the glue to cure I sliced up a block of walnut to use when I make my bridge. As in the Gore\Gilet book I will make a carbon fiber reinforced bridge and will ebonize the walnut. I will start rusting some steel wool tomorrow to make the solution. I never tried it before so it should be interesting.







Tomorrow, drill for the tuner holes, inlay fret markers and make and inlay my hawk and moon logo in the head stock.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Very nicely done John!

At the risk of being flamed here looking at the falcate braces I have a concern. It's a concern that any repair person will have as well.

Bridge plates need to be serviceable including a need to also be replaceable one day as well. It's also common in the repair world to have to "cap" a plate especially if the maker used slotted bridge pins.

Although I'm a fan of bracing coupled to the plate ala Somogyi I'm not a fan of any bracing design that does not permit the plate to be capped (with a single piece cap) or even replaced.

Pin holes get chewed up over time and with the advent of cheap plastics and the opportunity that this provided to manufacturers no longer require the semi-skilled labor required when using unslotted pins where a worker slots the top, plate, and bridge bridge plates have been taking it on the chin ever since.

My suggestion would be since bridge plates with falcate bracing are not serviceable to consider using unslotted pins. We have examples of Martins from the 1870's in our shop that used unslotted pins and the bridge plate remains in very good shape.

Nice work John!

Thanks Hesh,

I will keep the non slotted pins in mind. I always slot bridge, top and bridge plate. With the falcate braces I was also following the pin-less bridge discussion with interest for future guitars.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Cool - a pin less bridge would be great in this case in so much as no pins to damage the plate, less likelihood that the plate will ever need service - great idea! By the way we reglue lots of bridges nearly every day and my impression remains that pin less bridges are really no more likely to lift than pinned bridges provided that good technique and design are employed.

Great looking guitar too John!

I built a falcate dread based on the Trevor/Gilet books and I believe I used a CF lamination between the bridge plate and the top. Not sure if that takes all bridge plate worries away but I would think it should help. A bridge plate repair would certainly be difficult.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Hi Steve: Don't get me wrong you guys may never need to service the bridge plates but it does happen and we just removed and installed a new bridge plate on a new build for another OLFer a few weeks ago.

Personally the kind of guy that I always wanted to be when I grow up.... was someone who favors being positive and provides alternatives for folks instead of simply being a negative jerk. So with this said I think that if you guys who are keen to experience Falcate bracing or any bracing pattern that couples with the plate making it difficult to remove or cap also consider either pin less bridges or slotless pins bridge plate issues may never even happen.

Somogyi decibels often couple bracing with the plate as well but not to the degree that Trevor does. I'm just attempting to get folks thinking about serviceability because after all you may be the one to deal with the warranty claim some day.

Sorry for the Highjack John my friend.

Hesh, a good point to keep serviceability in mind and a pinless bridge design would certainly make sense.

Now, back to our OP

John, that looks excellent and I'll be very interested in hearing what you think about the sound when you get it completed.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks guys, no problem hijacking my posts. I am really looking to hear what it sounds like.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I have built several falcate braced guitars, you will be pleasantly surprised...

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

I've never tried this yet and would love to play one to see what it's like. On that note, I always heard how amazing double top guitars are so I built one, was not amazed But like you said the first time building an experimental guitar may not be representative of what it's supposed to sound like. I look forward to hearing an audio file especially if you can compare it to a similar X-Braced guitar.

It looks real tricky to get the pin holes just right between the bracing and then of course lining everything on center. I think I would opt for a pin-less design regardless of the controversy (they have been known to work).

Curious is CF part of the design or just an option? IOW do people make these with straight up spruce bracing?

Pin holes are put in first with the bridge plate, then the braces. CF is part of the design per the Gore/Gilet method, I'm sure you could build it without it but the braces would have to be larger/heavier.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

As Steve said, just make the braces taller to get the same stiffness and it should work as well as any other all-wood bracing pattern. I think I remember seeing an ukulele build with all spruce falcate a while back, probably on ANZLF.

I've been tempted to try an all-wood falcate steel string guitar. Probably using a hard wood for the center laminate in the braces, ala Haans http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10130&t=43568. According to wood-database.com, purpleheart would be excellent for that, having extremely high young's modulus for its weight. I'll probably use cedar for the outer laminates, for even lower weight than spruce.

The creep resistance of CF would be great, but voicing the top by hand and ear is one of my favorite parts of building. It would feel so empty to do it by cold calculation

The pin placement issue just gives me an excuse to stick with my preferred integral neck/Spanish construction style No trouble at all if the neck can be glued to the soundboard before bracing.

Dennis I just made a set of falcate bracing using englemann spruce from h . depot and the center was h/. mahog. lower c brace all englemann from h.depot. On the anzlf someone suggested ash for the tighter c bend and sitka for the longer falcate brace. Just a thought i was dreaming abt gitars last night .If the top is loose and floppy. Cardboard like , then a denser hdwd would be more appropriate for the upper falcate brace as well as the c brace. The spruce top that the braces are going onto is in the medium range of density when tested for ring and flexibility.In other words one must make a judgment call abt the falcate bracing commensurate with the properties of the top in the build.

Nice repair!! What router are you using? I have gone to a proxxon router with 1/8" multi faceted carbide bits. It is awesome for this type of work and never tears out.

_________________
Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

This was not a tear out I whacked it with my heavy steel straight edge not paying attention when going to check the neck angle. I have a few routers. I use a Porter Cable 310 for the rosette. The multifaceted carbide bits sound good. I use a 1/4 inch end mill.

_________________
http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com