Carving King Billy

[rocket]

Hi there,, pearls of wisdom from the experienced is what i'm after!! In the very near future i'll be starting a new build, a 16" archtop with a King Billy Pine soundboard, in previous posts relating to KBP soundboards on flat tops the consensus is to beef up the bracing a tad and also the top thickness, obviously an archtop is a different kettle of fish when it comes to bracing and thicknessing, i'm just wondering if there is a general rule of thumb when it comes to KBH or is a matter of "carve and see"?
Cheers,,,

Rod.

[graham mcdonald]

My experience is for fiddles, and more recently, a mandolin. On advice from Graham Caldersmith I added 2mm to the arching height (17 rather than 15mm) and about 20% to the thicknesses for the fiddle soundboards. Did the same to an A model mandolin recently (with Huon back and sides) and it worked rather well. I can offer no concrete suggestions for an archtop guitar other than to add a bit to the arching height and the thicknesses. Wisdom from the violin world would suggest adding arching adds stiffness to otherwise floppier across the grain soundboards, which KBP usually is.

Cheers

G