Official Luthiers Forum!

John I didn't compliment you and then avoid giving you any advice on purpose. I did so because what you produced looks great to me for the intended purpose.

I read your excellent description which was a pleasure since most posters leave more questions than the answers that they provide in their initial post.

For what you intend to do, body style and shape which is small for a bass, your frequency response as measured, top thickness I think you have an excellent approach and the resulting instrument likely will sound great.

My only question is your pick-up choice which I don't have experience with bass transducers and what to recommend.

If you are familiar with the Tacoma ABGs I've repaired plenty of them and they did not hold up well. We even had to tell one client that we won't work on his bass anymore it's a losing proposition and he needs to get something else. We see commonly on the Tacomas cracks, loose braces, lifting bridges. They have huge bodies, too light bracing and in our neck of the woods, Michigan they don't seem to hold up.

When I consider all the issues I personally have seen (and repaired) with Tacoma basses your bracing addresses those issues nicely. I think Tacoma could learn from you!

So a few more comments:

I'm in the repair business and retired from building and selling guitars. Our repair business has three luthiers now, has repaired over 20,000 guitars, does not sell a thing and has the coveted Martin certified warranty center credential. We've trained other luthiers and from time to time have offered classes but not anymore we are too busy.

Anyway bridge plate. Nope do it your way with a painless bridge just do be sensitive to keeping the relative humidity for the instrument in the 40 - 50% range as per a calibrated hygrometer. Digital hygrometers are often way off and they deteriorate in just several years. Hopefully you built with humidity control, strict humidity control and your materials were well seasoned.

Carving the upper X legs your's look great and there is tone north of the X intersection and you are going to benefit from what you did.

Capping vs. cloth patch for the X intersection? I like cloth patches and I started like everyone else, maybe... capping the intersection and then it occurred to me that we are not building ottomans.... The top needs to move.... to pump air and the cloth patch as per what some pretty respected makers of higher end acoustic guitars have done for 100 years or more permits some movement intentionally. Some of the most valuable acoustic guitars ever built have cloth patches.

I would however use watered down HHG (never the bottled crap only the real deal stuff) or 50/50 watered down Titebond original for the patch. Soak it in the mixture and apply and wipe off the excess. I would not use epoxy anywhere near the bracing or top.

Pick-up wise I like K&K a lot and have installed hundreds of them including in my own L-OO and CEO7. Your choice may work as well or better I just don't have any experience with it here in the states it is not popular here and I've never even seen one. Our clients source their own pick-ups and bring them to us. We've never had one of these brought to us.

Pursue your vision my friend my bet is it will be a great sounding, playing guitar. Good luck to you and let us know how she sounds.

John,
I do still have the Stanley plan. Do you want it? The reason I didn't build it was the size of body was so long and wide that I did not have a top or back that would work. Also I already had molds for the other body shapes. I used JJB 200 sound board pickups in them, dual 20mm piezos USA made and lots cheaper than K&K (I'm a cheapskate, sorry Hesh).
I'm building a L-00 now with no bridgeplate and a pinless bridge with a JJB 330 pu.

It is not hard to carve braces through the hole. Lots of tools will work as long as they are sharp. Wear a thin long-sleeved cotton shirt to keep from tearing up your forearms on the edge of the hole.

You will be surprised at how much the sound changes with only a tiny amount of wood removal. If you don't remove enough wood you loosen the strings and do it some more. If you remove too much you have to glue in new small braces. So only do a small amount at a time.

The goal is to get the proper large amount of the top area where it makes a satisfying bass sound when you thump it with your thumb or fist. The thump should lose its bass in an even border where the top is almost at the sides, and usually as you get up beside the soundhole. Do this thumping on a good bassy guitar to learn what is possible.

If you carve a brace too much the guitar will start to sound weirdly treble and annoyingly loud. Just glue in some more wood.

Hesh thanks so much for your post and your (very) encouraging words. Apologies for my delay in replying - I spent most of the early 90s living in Czechoslovakia, and went back to Prague for the first with family for a week. My it's changed!

That's interesting what you say about the Tacomas and their bracing pattern. If you ever have one in the shop and have the opportunity to take a photo of the bracing pattern, I'd be really interested to see it. They're not so common this side of the pond.

Yes, humidity controlled shop. I'm on the sea so humidity control is running all the time. And thanks for the advice about the cloth patch, all makes sense I'll be sure to update with finished pics.

Thanks again!

(As above, apologies for the delay....)
Hi Carl, I would be really interested to see it. I'm in Italy, so if you were able to take a photo of it that would be really useful. I've been reading up about the Stanley basses an they seem to be highly respected, so it would be great to take a look. Thanks!

The JJBs look interesting. They claim the coating decreases feedback. Have you found this to be the case?

Many thanks for that, that's helpful. Once it's strung up I'll do it veeery slowly. The idea of gluing on more braces is not appealing