Ladder Braced Concert Guitar

[Dave White]

I posted this on the OLF but thought it might be of interest here,

I've just finished this Lutz/Cuban Mahogany concert sized guitar for my daughter Jessica. Now all four of my daughters have De Faoite guitars

This was very much an exercise in using up bits of wood. The top is from a Harp guitar set from Shane and is the bit not needed for the harp-guitar. It's a three piece - large central piece with two lower bout "wings". I had two side sets of Cuban mahogany left so one set became a four piece back. The fingerboard, headtock overlay/backstrap, bridge and end-graft are cocobolo. The bindings are maple and the neck Spanish cedar. The tuners are Gotoh SEP700's and the finish is hand-rubbed pre-catalysed lacquer (over Z-poxy on the back and sides) and Tru-oil over Z-poxy on the neck. Scale length is 24.6":



The lutz was very stiff so the bracing is lower than on the first ladder braced Concert guitar I made last year - it will be interesting to see how they compare when this one opens up:





Rather than blues/ragtime (which sounds great on the guitar) I thought I'd show the versatility of ladder bracing and did a recording of a DADGAD set I'm currently working on for harp-guitar. Its still eveolving but is based around Black Waterside/ She Moves Through the Fair and there's a special bit of Deep Purple for Hesh right at the end You can listen to it here

Thanks for looking and listening.

[Craig]

G'day Dave ,

That is one beautiful looking little guitar mate. Now I'm going to give it a good listen , but I just know it's going to sound great.

Regards to Nancy , my all time favorite.

Beautiful work once again Dave.

Cheers, Craig

[ozziebluesman]

G'day Dave,

Thats an absolutely brillant little guitar. Love the sound and the mp3 finish brought a smile to my face.

Do you have a rough plan of this guitar that perhaps you could share with a beginner builder like myself? Just the overall dimensions and the brace layout would be enough info for me to have a go at building such a guitar. Maybe the neck join design as well. I have looked around on the net for a ladder braced guitar plan but haven't seen anything.

Thanks for sharing your skills.

Cheers

Alan

[Allen]

Thanks for posting that here Dave. A brilliant little guitar and as always I love hearing your compositions.

Do you put sound ports in all your guitars? Do you find a marked difference in using them over not in a similarly built guitar? And do you find that people (potential customers) accepting of them?

[Bob Connor]

Absolutely gorgeous Dave.

Do you ever get paranoid when you get a really stiff board that you're really pushing the envelope a bit far when thicknessing it and bracing?

By the look of your soundboard you leave it fairly thick when doing the ladder bracing.

Cheers

Bob

[Kim]

IE7 would not play the sound file, it would download (to somewhere on my pewta but I could not find the file in the ie temp folder?) but it just would not play. I fooled around with file associations and even checked the registry and still no joy. So I took the time to download and re-install Firefox, bingo, it was worth the futzing about Dave, the stress I had built up buggerizing around trying to fix up microjoys software was washed away by the beautiful sounds of that sweet little guitar and skill of your playing.

Cheers

Kim

[Dave White]

Craig,

Thanks. Nancy is due a little tlc treatment over the coming months and it's one of the few of my instruments that I haven't recorded so I'll hope to put that right soon.

Alan,

Thanks. I have had another similar request so I'll post enough details here in the next couple of days that should let someone build a very similar instrument - as you probably know detailed plans aren't my bag. I can then answer any other queries you might have as we go along. Bear with me as I'm at a guitar/cittern Workshop on Saturday and Sunday so it might not be until Monday that I get to post. In the meantime you could have a look at the photo-documentary on my website here of the same size guitar but done with X bracing and look up some of the other details here. The build principles are the same and I'll fill in the details about the ladder bracing on Monday.


Allen,

Thanks. Yes I put sound ports in all of my instruments - except Weisses where they point to the wrong part of my anatomy To me they make a huge difference to me as a player in the sound I hear and how it means I can refine my technique even more to play better. As a builder I feel the instruments "breathing" more freely and have a better response overall with the soundport. I've played them with the soundports covered and uncovered to a number of players whose opinions I respect and they hear a better sound as listeners with the ports open. People are generally polarised - some people are very traditional and won't even contemplate such a thing but for most "players" once I have done the trick of stuffing a cleaning cloth in the port and after a few minutes as they play taking it out, they get it at once. Once you have played them with a soundport it's hard to go back to instruments that don't have them.

Bob,

Thanks. I used to get paranoid but not so much now. Believe it or not that is a very thin soundboard for me. I didn't measure exactly but it's around 2.8mm in the centre coming down to around 2.2-2.5mm at the edges. I believe that a lot of the power/balance of the mids/trebles sounds I get comes from this and that I will lose a lot if I go to thin tops. I love the sound of my guitars from the off but my "test" an "aim" for the sound is where they are after 1-2 years. I think if you go too thin at the start they sound great at the off but can wimp out over time. I find other ways to end up with a very responsive instrument without going too thin on the tops. If I'm going to push the envelope then it is on the bracing that I will do it and I suspect that I can still go further on this. From what I've read Mark Blanchard has similar views. Every builder is different though and it's all part of the "system" that you use.

[Dave White]

Kim,

Thanks - you can definitely spend a lot of time buggering around with computer software and still not understand what's going on - a bit like making guitars I'm glad it was worth the effort. That recording was made the day after the strings went on. They've been on for nearly a week now and the guitar is opening up all the time. I'm really, really pleased with this one. Ladder bracing has a lot of potential and the sound is very versatile - it will roar and honk if you want it too but it can do so much else. Watch this space as I'm currently making a ladder braced double necked acoustic lap-slide (Weiss)

[joel]

Looks and sounds great Dave. I can only hope to able to build and play that well one day. I've always planned to build a smaller body guitar like a parlour size. I might have to make it with ladder bracing.

[Lillian]

Dave, it looks just a beautiful here as it did there. Your daughters are very lucky. I hope the show you that they know this.

We would still love to have copies of your songs.

[James Mc]

Dave, that’s a lovely guitar and I won’t embarrass you with superlatives about your musical abilities, doing so just seems redundant. It is also great to see something so lovely made from leftovers; you have taken recycling to a whole new level. I hate to waste good timber and have an ever growing collection of odds and ends I hope will become something with purpose someday.

The ladder bracing on the stiffer top is interesting, I’ve been playing with ideas for bracing a very wide grained sitka set for use on a ‘built for fun’ classical (top is surplus from a wind harp I made my mum a few years back). I was leaning towards thinning it way down and having a go at lattice bracing but I hadn’t considered ladder bracing (because I didn’t know it existed). I’d be interested in your thoughts on this.

[Hesh1956]

Very nice Dave buddy!

I am working with Cuban right now and I am impressed by how stiff it is as you mentioned. It is also heavier then say Honduran.

I wanted to ask you how you would compare the sound of Cuban to Honduran?

[Dave White]

James,

Thanks - I'll have a think about this and add it to my Monday reply.

Lillian,

The "girls" say that mp3 files load straight into Ipod. Have you tried right clicking to download the file? Kim could probably help here

Joel,

Thanks - go for it.

Hesh,

I've only used Cuban, but the stuff I use is stiffer than other mahogany I have tested and has a lot more Rosewoody sound combined with all the good things you get with mahogany. My favourite line about Cuban is that it is a mahogany with aspirations to be a Rosewood. It makes great instruments an I think you'll love the results.

[Tom Morici]

Dave,

Another great looking little guitar. That four piece back sure looks like a
two piece back. Well done!

The large spruce piece below the bridge plate, caught my interest.
Is the main purpose to stiffen the top in the bridge area? Or to enhance
the "treblely" tone of the guitar.

Tom

[Dave White]

Tom,

Thanks I'm glad you like it. The ladder braces on the top are in the position they are on the early 1900's American all mahogany guitar I have, around which mine is based. I liked it as it seemed similar to the brace behind the bridge plate I do with my X braced tops.

Do you mean that ladder brace or do you mean the spruce piece between the two ladder braces that is the bridge-plate - with a piece of Rio Rosewood inlet where the bridge pins are?

I was inspired to do these guitars by John How doing his take on a modern ladder braced Oscar Scmidt. His had just three ladder braces (like his old guitar) - one one either side of the soundhole and one in front of the bridge.

[Lillian]

Dave, I poked and poked and refused to pay for Qtime Pro and learned how to acquire the files. Thank you. I wouldn't have looked if you didn't say it was possible.

[Tom Morici]

Dave,

Yes, I was asking about the large spruce bridge plate, I can't recall
seeing one like that before. Since you refer to it as a Bridge plate,
I would reason, the intent is to stiffen the top in what could be a weak area in a ladder braced top.

Tom

[Dave White]

Dave,

Yes, I was asking about the large spruce bridge plate, I can't recall
seeing one like that before. Since you refer to it as a Bridge plate,
I would reason, the intent is to stiffen the top in what could be a weak area in a ladder braced top.

Tom

Tom.

Yes - I think so. My old hog guitar has one as did the Old Oscar Schmidt of John How and they seem pretty standard on these old ladder braced guitars. As it's spruce, although larger than a smaller hardwood plate it's not a great deal of weight. I thinned it as it approaches each end of the lower bout and at the front and back edges. It was around 2.2mm at it's thickest.

[Dave White]

Ok, I’m back from a great weekend of guitar and cittern playing and caught up with the guitar-cittern, Bealtine, that I made 18 months ago for Gavin Davenport - that's not me that's Gavin:



Now as promised here’s a Concert (I think Parlour is around 12â€

[Sam Price]

............

[Allen]

There is no way I would have passed by that old parlor guitar either Dave. I like everything about it.

You said that you use a pretty tight radius on you tops and backs, and I had a look at your build diary on your web site, and see that indeed they are tight. Is this because these small instruments need, or can handle that much doming, or is it your preference/style?

[Dave White]

Allen,

Stefan Sobell is one of my biggest influences and I played twenty or so of his instruments before I started building. He builds with big (in American terms) cylindrical arches and the power, clarity, balance and projection of his instruments is amazing. I use this arching on all of my instruments big and small. On the tops the arch takes the pitch up and so you have a head start with the mid and treble response and work from there into the bass - easier to do than having to find mids and trebles with a thin flat top. Plus I think of the guitar more as a drum than the speaker cone analogy. A drum under tension releases that tension into explosive sound when you disturb the system by hitting it. An unstressed drum head can't be heard at all.

[joel]

Thanks for the excellent info Dave. I'm inspired. I reckon I'll have to make one. It'll probably be no.2. Now to convince the wife that I "need" more wood to make it.

[ozziebluesman]

Thank you Dave for the effort providing the necessary info to make a ladder braced guitar.

I have three old ladder braced guitars. One is a MayBell Parlour Style 5 which is birch and spruce and a big neck thats a bitch to play, a Regal Parlour rosewood spruce that badly needs a re-fret and an all birch, square neck Oahu hawaiian lap slide guitar. The Oahu was the guitar that got me into lap slide. I love it. I am most interested in maybe building a ladder braced guitar that is more playable than the oldies I have. I just love there sound. I have them tuned two semitones down in pitch to D. It suits my voice register just right.

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers

Alan

[Paul B]

Thanks for the write up Dave.

I can't help coming back to this thread again and again to see that old mahogany topped parlor. Gonna have to make me one of those. I can see why you fell in love with it. What would be the equivalent Martin size for that guitar?

I saw a very old all mahogany Martin parlor guitar in a guitar shop once. They kept it in a glass case and wouldn't let me play it. I asked them how much they wanted and they said "if you have to ask you can't afford it", I said "you're dreaming". Wanted one ever since though .