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Would bias tape work well? I've got 1" wide strips of that. Any reason to use a different type of cloth?

Any tips on making sure it lays flat and doesn't wrinkle or anything of that nature?

Should the glue be thinned or not? I'll be using fish glue.

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Jeremy Douglas

The key to keeping wrinkles out is in the shape of the cut fabric, weight of the fabric and burnishing process. It is much like laying fiberglass.

Frankly though I had prefer to cap them with spruce than use cloth and glue.

Wood (spruce), would be much better.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Wood (spruce), would be much better. It can be thin like 1/16" or so vertical grain and overlap each side of the joint by 3/4" or so. weighing hardly anything but providing much greater strength than cloth.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Jeremy my friend I have to agree with the guys here and would go with a wood cap too. If you can't for some reason such as using pre-shapped braces like Stew-Mac offers and you have to use a patch bias tape would not be my choice.

First because it is approx. 1/2 polyester and knowing how many polyesters they had to kill to make that tape AND the fact that plastic won't absorb glue well I would not use it at this critical juncture/joint. Like Michael indicated it is much like fiberglassing something but fiberglass has a looser weave that permits moisture/resin/glue to penetrate better. Instead go find a nice 100% linen shirt that belongs to someone that you don't like and cut a nice 2" X 2" patch out of it that you can later cut into a circle and use. I have not used fish glue for this, not that you couldn't, but I have used Titebond slightly thinned with water.

Whoa, Hesh, hold up there a second! What about bias tape for sides, then? I got a wild hair (hare?) to pick up some for a future build, but didn't do it because all I could find were 50% polyester which didn't sound right to me, either. Well, I came to look at your tutorial and, sho' 'nuff, the stuff you showed in one of your pics was, too. So is it good or ain't it?

Slightly off topic, and I agree with the wood X patch, but this caught my eye.

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

I can see how it would be stiffer but is it really stronger? Some makers use nothing over the X joint, what negative results have you seen in those guitars??? Or why does it need to be stronger?


I think I have some gun cleaning patches already

Hesh, I also want to know about the bias tape used as side reinforcements. Why are they good on the sides but not the X?

Thanks, Jeremy

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Jeremy Douglas

Wes and Jeremy my friends I think that the poly blend bias tape is good enough..... for now. What I mean is that like you Wes the poly content bothered me too and you can easily test a patch of it against a patch of linen yourself and see the differences in the respective abilities of these materials to saturate with glue.

When I peer into vintage Gibsons and Martins I know that there was no poly content in what they used. I also know that my pal David Collins does not use bias tape and instead has a material that looks and acts much more like the stuff I see in the vintage guitars and has a much looser weave permitting more glue to penetrate the material.

Something else that I noticed is that the bias tape has to be ironed. For those who know how to iron..... correctly.... you also know that cotton and linen require the hottest settings on the iron. At the same time polyester requires a lower temperature to iron. The settings required to get the creases out of the cotton content of the bias tape seems to over heat the polyester content and this is evidenced in the slight sheen that appears. I think what is actually happening here is the polyester is melting and additionally coating the bias tape fibers in plastic reducing their ability to absorb glue even more.

So I am looking, when I get the opportunity, to find something else other then the bias tape. My preference would be a linen strip with bound edges so that it won't unravel like linen does if you cut it with scissors. Does it matter? Probably not and Alan Caruth has tested bias tape with both HHG and Titebond and he was satisfied with the results with either glue and that carries a lot of weight with me. Perhaps I am being to picky.

Regarding my toot it also shows the use of Titebond where Todd Stock did a toot with HHG. I now believe that HHG is a better solution for those who are set-up to use HHG.

What's really important is that the best info available gets out to all of us and if one of my toots is lacking in some way and I know about it I am happy to pass on what I have learned from someone else as a better alternative. To me the real value of any forum is the collective wisdom of ALL of our members - right?

I like just using wood caps...,

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Cotton-poly bias tape should work fine. I have not tested it against linen, but I know that when glued with HHG and shellaced over the tape would break before the glue line let go. Titebond was almost as good that way.

About a year ago one of my students brough in his Taylor with an action problem. It turned out that the X brace had split at the box joint and the top was dished in a bit. This is pretty common when they are not reinforced. The split starts at the bottom of the cut on the upper brace, usually on the side away from the bridge, and runs along the grain until either the bending of the top takes the strass up enough or the runnout takes the split out of the brace.

I used a post to jack up the split until it was tight, and when I knew I had everything right and could get the post in quickly, did the same thing with some Titebond in the break. The next day I took the post out, cut a patch of linen about 1-1/2" round, saturated it with HHG, and worked it on over the joint. Taylor tapered the brace tops right through the joint to almost a knife edge, and there was not enough wood to put a splice on, aside from the gap that was left. The linen patch seemed to hold up well enough, though, when we strung it up the next day.

This seems to be one of those cases where _what_ you do is less important than that you do _something_. Any reinforcement might be enough to keep the crack from starting, and that's all you need to do.

Hesh, I understand what you mean now. Those gun cleaning patches I had were 2" square and some type of synthetic material. I think I'll track down some round cloth patches or linen since the bias tape I have is black and I'd rather use a light color on this joint. I may post some pics once I get done with all the braces.

Thanks everyone

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Jeremy Douglas

I tried to glue the patch down tonight, I tried bias tape once and cotton(old t-shirt) twice. I couldn't get to conform and lay flat against the brace. I don't know why. I'm not suppose to clamp it am I? I thinned the fish glue a little maybe it would help to thin it more

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Jeremy Douglas

Jeremy,

I to use the the gun cleaning patch that Todd Stock mentioned earlier as that is how John Hall at Blues Creek Guitars showed me.

I simply cut out a small circle about 3/4" wide, paint a wee bit of glue directly on the X intersection where the material will contact, saturate the patch with glue (I use LMI white) and place on the area. I use the tip of a pencil or pointy object to contour and stick the material to the braces. It looks a bit messy when it's wet but after it cures you can give it a little scuff with 320 grit to clean up any raised fibres and it looks very clean.

If you look at the patches Martin uses they are NOT a huge patch, just a little bit of material that is very hard and durable.

I am unsure of exactly what exact material they use in their plant but if you shoot John an e-mail he'd more than likely know.

Ray

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Guitar Building = Continuous Improvement Process

Cheesecloth and Titebond.

Of course, I prefer the wood kinda like Mayes....quick, easy, etc.

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Brad Tucker

Thanks everyone, the gun cloth did the trick. This time I didn't thin the glue at all and it went down pretty well.

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Jeremy Douglas