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Todd,

I can only reply with the experience of making one Weiss!

I treated it pretty much like any other guitar in terms of bracing and voicing the top. Mine was about 80mm deep (say 3 3/16") and I am happy with the bass response, balance and loudness. I paid more attention to the upper bout/neck area for structural stability reasons. I don't really know but suspect that the bass response is missing in some Weisses as the top is left too thick and they are probably overbraced - both number and size of braces - as people fear about them "imploding".

I suspect 3 3/4" deep would be fine.

As for the fret wire saddle there are a number of discussions on this forum if you do a search. The fret-wire is supposed to be more "authentic" whatever that means, but again I was treating mine as a guitar and thought that bone would give better volume and sustain.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

i'm no weissenborn guy, but i'm fascinated by the discussion and appreciate being able to listen in. any advice about which plans have about the right amount of bracing? i know that the first plans i bought for an OM had bracing that was waaaay too heavy. any chance of avoiding misleading advice would be helpful with a weissenborn.
phil

I keep reading that topic as "Deep-Boiled Weissenborn" for some reason.
I've heard of cooking your tops, but boiling just seems silly!

[QUOTE=ToddStock] Thanks, Dave. After drawing things out full sized, it does look like an awful lot of brace wood and lots of 1/4" stock stuck to the top center line.

Did you build yours with radiused back or top? Originals were flat, but stability-wise radiused might be better. I'm not certain that it matters on playability given that there is no real issue with height of action.[/QUOTE]

Todd,

Yes - I used my normal top and back arching. You are right about the action - in fact it's the opposite of a guitar, you can be struggling to get the action high enough which gives totally different considerations for the bridge/saddle design. For the nut I ended up gluing two normal ones one on top of the other. Neck re-sets don't figure in the equation

I think think they are a bit like John How's recent ladder braced creation - they need to be lightly built but strong enough not to explode.

Looking forward to some pics. I've just started on my second one so we can compare notes.Dave White39087.1196412037

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Todd,
I was also wondering about a deeper body on the Weissenborn. I was going to keep my sides 3" all the way through. My reason mainly was because I have no radius dish to use. I haven't been able to figure out how the sides go from 3" to the 1" at the neck. I'm still struggling with how to profile the sides. According to the Stew/Mac plans, the side looks like its almost rounded a little? How is that done without radiusing a little?
I have see a Knutsen Hawaiian that was real thick. It was 3" deep at the nut and 4" at end pin! Wow!! This instrument was cool though! Maybe Dave White has a little insite on this?

Dave

[QUOTE=wyodave] Todd,
I was also wondering about a deeper body on the Weissenborn. I was going to keep my sides 3" all the way through. My reason mainly was because I have no radius dish to use. I haven't been able to figure out how the sides go from 3" to the 1" at the neck. I'm still struggling with how to profile the sides. According to the Stew/Mac plans, the side looks like its almost rounded a little? How is that done without radiusing a little?
I have see a Knutsen Hawaiian that was real thick. It was 3" deep at the nut and 4" at end pin! Wow!! This instrument was cool though! Maybe Dave White has a little insite on this?

Dave[/QUOTE]

Dave,

Going from the body to the nut on the hollow neck you really just need to decide the line you want the sides to take and shape the bottom of the sides (bottom of neck) accordingly. Then put in the linings and glue on the back - the back neck portion is flexible and will bend up to the shape and then you clamp. This works with a flat top and back and with a radiused back and top - although the neck will probably be flat in both cases. You first have to decide the height you want the neck to be at the nut as the peg head part that glues to the sides needs to be of the appropriate depth. Mine went from just over 3" at the body to around 1.5" at the nut with a reasonable gentle line/curve. You can see how I did it here. If you want to keep the neck the same depth as the body at the nut that will work but you will need a thick peg head. I suspect that the narrowing neck will give a better balance to the instrument on your leg when playing.

Christophe Grellier shows a neat method of doing the side profile on his website build here

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I never do things quite right so am thinking about a step top arch-bottom dulcimerish wiess.

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