Build progress on #2 -- the top is done

[Paul Eisenbrey]

Thanks especially to Lillian, who came up with a really nice spruce board when I needed one (thanks again!).

As you can see, I added the sound hole patch you all suggested. Added the magic 'tone enhander' brace in behind the bridge patch, and trimmed off the finger braces to avoid the stress riser phenomena. Believe it or not, I'd never actually ran across that phrase before -- it's not a big concern when writing software.

Guitar_2_FinishedSoundboardb.jpg (48.42 KiB) Viewed 4128 times

Next up: thin the sides down some. Currently, I think they are thick enough to support a good sized roof, so I have some work to do.

--Paul

[Mark McLean]

Looking very neat and sweet Paul. Centre join cleat and soundhole binding are nice touches. How thick is the soundboard?

I am interested in other peoples experience with the "PMTE". I have included something similar in a curent build. I believe that Mario Proulx usually makes them from hardwood rather than the same material as the other braces - and he often adds it to a guitar after it is finished rather than in the original build. Any informed opinions out there?
cheers
Mark

[Kim]

Yeah it does look pretty good Paul. It would give us a better idea of where you are at with this if you can provide a few shots from the side so we can see how 'high' the braces are....Google "Guitar bracing cube rule" and read a bit and then you will probably understand why brace 'height' is so important.

Cheers

Kim

[Paul Eisenbrey]

Hi Mark, Kim --
I see now I should have posted this as a continuation of the first post. Live and learn .

The sides are sitka, with a very nice bearclaw, but they are a bit uneven: between 2.3 and 1.9mm, depending on how hard I was leaning on the plane at the time. It is too thin for my taste, so I elicited some advice from the guys here on the forum. The consensus was that it needed a soundhole patch, and possibly the center join cleat. The patch was easy enough, after Lillian chipped in with a really nice board she had to spare.

The advice was to make a center join cleat and to attach it after the build, if the top needed it. I prepped one from some left-over bracing material, making it 1/4 inch square before carving.

Then I got the heebie geebies thinking about clamping *anything* to the soundboard after spending four weeks doing finish work, regardless of how I protected it. So I wimped out and just installed the thing. I'll be sure to let everyone know how it turns out...

The bracing height is straight out of the C & N manual. It's only my second guitar, and I am not getting too adventurous yet. The cap on the x-brace is not from C & N, of course. I saw that on several threads here in the forum, and it looked far cleaner than the cheesecloth patch.

Here are the side pics:

TopSideView2.jpg (67.82 KiB) Viewed 3999 times

TopSideView1.jpg (65.75 KiB) Viewed 3999 times

--Paul