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| vintage Martin bracing and measurements http://w-ww.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=13137 |
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| Author: | letseatpaste [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:30 am ] |
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I hate to drive traffic to another forum, but it's not really direct competition with OLF, so I hope it's okay. Over at the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum, there's a thread in the Technical Info section titled "ATTENTION ALL MEMBERS! HELP NEEDED FOR BRACING LIBRARY." where members have taken pictures of their guitars with a light inside so the bracing pattern becomes visible. Also, there are a lot of other photos and tracings of tops taken during repairs. There are some very knowledgeable guys there, too, so it's an interesting read. http://www.umgf.com (You may need to sign up to view the pics) Of particular interest to me was a tracing of a 1932 14-fret 0-17 braced top. Some of you may remember I posted a printable cad/pdf file of an outline tracing made by George Armstrong, it was a 1937 0-18 14-fretter. It's hard finding info on these as they weren't very common, most of the 0's were 12-frets. Here's a link to that thread. The download links there are still active. |
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| Author: | JohnAbercrombie [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:43 am ] |
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Jon- Thanks for this. I downloaded your pdf outlines and appreciate all the work involved by the folks who contributed to that thread. Cheers John |
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| Author: | Rick Turner [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:17 am ] |
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I have a 1919 Martin 00-18, and I can tell you that the bracing is incredibly minimal in there. I need to make a new bridge for it and do a neck reset, but I expect it to sound quite wonderful someday. I'll probably use Thomastik extra light Spectrum Bronze or the Classic S rope core strings on it. I'll try to get some measurements on the bracing. |
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| Author: | letseatpaste [ Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:17 pm ] |
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I'd love any measurements or tracings or whatever you feel like throwing our way. They were still using gut string in 1919, weren't they? |
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| Author: | tippie53 [ Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:26 am ] |
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One must remember that the older "vintage" martins were built for gut strings and not steel. The delicate X braced guitars from the turn of the century were not built for the Steel strings. The brace for steel is 5/16 and 1/4 as for the D35. The 1/4 scalloped braces of the older guitars will be under more stress than designed. Brace sizes for steel are 5/16 by 9/16 1/4 by 3/4 that is for the mainX . I have seen the truss rod brace from 1/2 by 1/2 to 3/8 by 1/2. The tone bars are often 1/2 tall on the older ones. Some were as high as the main X. The company did use a variety of brace designs for the different models. |
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| Author: | K.O. [ Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:55 am ] |
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Man this is cooler than when the martin guys came to our local music shop with some tops and where restringing for free. Thanks good find. |
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| Author: | Rick Turner [ Thu Aug 09, 2007 12:09 pm ] |
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Yep, gut. I might just try some Aquila Nylgut on the guitar when I get it back in shape. Real gut is also an option, though not terribly vegan... But they'd go well with hot hide glue! |
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