More brace shaping.....

First I need to clarify something. The day on the previous entry was actually for Saturday July 7. I posted after midnight. Today after church, I decided to go ahead and try to mix in some scalloping with the parabolic shape of the braces for the top. I went fairly easy on it, but I cut in a low spot on both of the X braces on each end of the intersection. I also re-shaped the tops of all of the braces to a more pronounced peak instead of a round curve. I shaved the finger braces down a bit too as I thought they were too tall and stiff. I was able to achieve a much longer sustain in the tap ring. Before is was less than 1 second long. Now I am getting close to 3 seconds of ring when I tap, and the tone is a lot more equal all around the top no matter where I tap it. Hopefully this will make for a good sounding guitar. I guess I will find out soon enough!

I still needed to make and install the sound hole braces so I made them and glued them up. I also rough shaped the back braces. I am a little concerned with the upper bout and waist brace for the back as they are very small. I went with the dimensions on the plans, but they seem to be quite thin and easily deformed with changes in humidity. The X brace seems to be fairly strong and I believe it will hold the radius of the lower bout just fine. Again, I guess I will find out soon enough on this too!

Here is the final bracing pattern for the top. You will see that I thinned the X braces in the spots that typically are scalloped.

Here is the back out of the go-bar deck and the braces are rough sanded to a parabolic shape.

The top with the sound hole braces being glued down.