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Strung up my first falcate braced guitar the other day. I've been using Trevor's methods on my fan braced classical guitars with good results so I thought I really owed it myself to try a falcate braced steel string, glad I did. It sounds wonderful! If you've been wanting to try one I would certainly recommend it.
the frequencies Are;
Air (T1,1): 90
Main top (T1,2): 170
Coupled back (T1,3): 213

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Great numbers!

Nice work, Jim!

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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

I really like that. What are the woods and finish?

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Wow! Nice work. The top bracing looks pretty clean. I generally make more of as mess,

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Thanks guys.
The woods are Lutz spruce for the top paired with Indian Rosewood back and sides and binding. Spalted Maple for the rosette and Indian Rosewood for the pinless bridge.
The finish is just Mohawk instrument lacquer. I sealed the wood with shellac and used Solarez uv cured filler then another coat of shellac to isolate it from the lacquer. I've experimented with it in the past, but this is the first instrument.
John, it's certainly a challenge keeping the top tidy.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Nice. Did you use Trevor's radial back bracing?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I did use Trevor’s radial back bracing. I tried to follow the book pretty closely with the exception of the body shape and painless bridge.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Great looking guitar. Nice work Jim.
I notice you went with a pinless bridge, which bypasses that slightly tricky aspect of the falcate design where you need to place the primary braces carefully between the bridge pins. I would be interested to know what you and Trevor think about pinned versus pinless bridges with falcate braced soundboards?

Well, I’m not sure it matters. I’ve built steel strings using both pinned and pinless (I noticed I said painless above! Maybe so!) and haven’t noticed a difference that I can definitely attribute to the bridge. But it’s probably a hill to die on for some.
I have another falcate behind this one that uses a pinned bridge, the box is together now and the pinless bridge certainly takes some stress out of it.
It would be interesting to hear Trevor’s thoughts on it as I sure he must of considered it at some time.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Do we get a demo?

From the guitar function point of view, I don't think it matters, either. You still have to design to avoid the common failure modes, in particular the top peeling off the back edge of the bridge; so a bridge plate is still required to soften the stress concentration. For the builder, I think the pinned bridge is easier to use, because it is handy to be able to "pull the plugs" and lose the strings when setting up the saddle, etc.. It's also handy to be able to change the bridge pin materials for ones with different density to tune the T(1,1)2 mode. For the player, it's probably neither here nor there.

And seeing as Ed asked...



Not Jim's instrument (though I hope Jim is able to oblige), but those wishing for an appreciation of the falcate sound might like to listen to this, courtesy of Miroslav Tadic and Pacific Rim Tonewoods.

More falcate sounds and videos here.

And once again, thanks to Jim for showing us his beautiful guitar.

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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

Fortunately for you I'm not really set up to do that and the guitar is being picked up tomorrow.
That is something I'd like to able to do though. Maybe on a future guitar.

Thanks for the comments on the bridges Trevor and the links to your fine sounding guitars!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com