Rough brace shaping

Today I spent a couple of hours in the shop working on the top braces. I decided that I wanted to go with scalloped braces instead of parabolic. The reason for this is that I want to loosen the top up as much as possible with this being such a small top. One thing I did on the scalloped braced Twin was to measure out the peaks so none of them are in the same circle radiating from the center of the bridge plate. That guitar sounds incredible with a lot of low end 'boom'. I decided to do the same on this guitar. I spent some time laying out the centerlines of the braces, marking where I wanted the peaks to be located and then shaping. I started by cutting the edges to a 45 degree angle to create a triangle shape to the center of the brace stock. Once that was finished I roughed out the scallops. This made a huge difference in the tap tone giving it a very long ring. I haven't finished the braces as of yet because I didn't have the bridge plate glued on. Tap tuning without the bridge plate is useless as the plate will make a difference. I glued the plate on and will finish brace shaping next session.

Here you can see the location marks for the scallop peaks.

The top after rough cutting the braces. They still have a lot of work yet to be done but this already makes a big difference in the tap tone. Right after this I glued the bridge plate on.

Bracing and profiling....

Although I didn't post this week, I did get some time a couple of evenings this week to work on the guitar. I spent the time making a back reinforcement strip and gluing it down, chiseling out the brace spots in that back strip, sanding the side profiles, and gluing down the remaining braces. Lastly I made the bridge plate out of maple.

Here is the center reinforcement strip glued down and clamped in my go bar deck. I used some scrap quartersawn redwood for the strip.

The top with all of the braces glued down.

In between glue up sessions I spent time sanding to rims and kerfed linings to the back and top radiuses.

I also made a hard maple bridge plate. I wanted EIR but I didn't have a piece to use so I am settling with maple.

Before gluing the back braces down I chiseled out the spots in the center strip.

Finally I glued down the back braces.