The Luthier Community

I love the bark too. Very cool and very original. Sorry to hear you let those tops go cheap Grant, they're really sweet. Tim

That bark looks as good as burl! I'm going to have to try that.


Pat

OK, today was "fix the screwups" day. As I mentioned, one of the b/w/b purflings was not seated all the way into the channel and I sanded through a section of it...lika dis


I said that I would remove the bad section and splice in a short piece. But after I engaged my brain last night and let it run for about 30 seconds, I realized that that was a dumb idea...Probably just make a mess. Simplest thing would be to route out the whole purfling and do it over. So...

...ready to go

New veneer lines dry fit


CA'd and resanded

Oh, what looks like a gap is the under the fretboard section. The whole fix took about 20 minutes.

So, redrew the outline and cut out the tops


Now, just gotta run the back side through the sander to thin these down a tad and ready to brace

G

Well, I have been busy resawing a bit of wood the past few days, but I got a bit more done on this pair of guitars.

I have the soundhole patches and the bridge plates glued on, the bracing pattern drawn on, and the soundholes cut.



Next step is to glue on and carve the distinctive curved braces that I use

Then I can start laminating the rest of my top braces. In case anybody is wondering, the bridge plates are osage orange.

Most of you have probably seen this process, I have my own bracing style that I have been using for the past 12 years with a few modifications along the way. I will show this again for those who may not have seen it.

Questions and comments welcome.

G

I am also a big fan of the bark rosettes--very classy, Grant. I don't tire of any of the builders explaining their thinking on any parts of the builds. I know you've explained it before (I'll search for the thread), but could you briefly explain your thinking on the top bracing pattern? I know it works because I love playing your guitars.

Love a lot of what you are doing with your builds grant!

Not afraid to wander off the road and go on your own adventure. I can't wait to see how these ones turn out. I to remember you explaining your top bracing once, Its a beautiful and unique take on the standard x.

Ps with your permission I would love to try my own take on the bark rosette sometime, give credit to you of course!

Joel.

Fred Blom wrote:I am also a big fan of the bark rosettes--very classy, Grant. I don't tire of any of the builders explaining their thinking on any parts of the builds. I know you've explained it before (I'll search for the thread), but could you briefly explain your thinking on the top bracing pattern? I know it works because I love playing your guitars.

Thanks, Fred. And, yes, you have played a lot of them.

This whole thing started back in 2002. A guy from New Jersey (his name was Al) who had been buying wood from me was telling me about the sound of a guitar he had heard at a ski resort in Vermont. How it had this awesome sound. And he had ben trying every guitar he had seen since then to find that sound, to no avail. He thought it might be something with the bracing and maybe I could figure it out. Now, I have no idea how he thought I could do something like that But anyway, I said I would try.

So, basically I thought a bunch, a lot about the physics of how energy travels through a solid material (or, actually through semi-solids which act somewhat like liquids). I was looking a lot at speed of energy travel. I was very familiar with how energy travels through stone in making stone tools...it follows ridges in the surface of the stone the fastest and propagates outward from there, which is what allows the controlled shaping of stone tools. So, I looked at the braces on a guitar top as acting like the ridges on the surface of a piece of stone. What I wanted to accomplish was to get the sound waves (energy) to propagate into the top plate as fast as possible. Plain old physics says that energy will travel along the length of a brace faster than it will across the plate (like the ridges in the stone). The traditional X brace appeared to me to be an impediment to this energy dispersion...being at the center, it seemed too rigid to function optimally. So I put an X at the treble end of the bridge and arranged the braces to radiate the energy from that point. The curved braces are a part of that concept. I built the first guitar and sent the drawing to Al. 6 months later I got an e=mail from Al and he said it worked.

So, with a few minor modifications over the years, this is what I have been doing. I love the sound, and so far so does everybody who has played one of my guitars. Plus, it gives me an excuse to do things entirely different than anybody else, and I like that, too

G

Joel M wrote:Love a lot of what you are doing with your builds grant!

Not afraid to wander off the road and go on your own adventure. I can't wait to see how these ones turn out. I to remember you explaining your top bracing once, Its a beautiful and unique take on the standard x.

Ps with your permission I would love to try my own take on the bark rosette sometime, give credit to you of course!

Joel.

Thanks, Joel, and please make all of the bark rosettes you want...no permission or credit needed (but I do really respect the fact that you asked). And if you have questions or run into problems, just ask.

My whole approach to things is that anything that I post on this Forum is given automatically to anybody who is a member here, period That is the spirit of this place.

G