Official Luthiers Forum!

How would a double top compare with a latticed braced guitar such as courtnall's plan not the plywood superstructure of smallman? I believe Dave Schramm now favors latticed braced guitars over double tops.

I've been off a business trip most of the week and wanted to catch up on this thread as a builder of double tops as well as standard tops.
I can't figure out where the notion of a lack of sustain comes from. My experience is very similar to Alan's. These guitars have tons of sustain. But I could easily see if you try to build too light how you'd sacrifice the sustain, but quicken the response time. The last one I did also had a sound port and it worked out incredibly well.
These instruments still sound like guitars with subtle differences as Alan pointed out. You can really build a nice contemporary fingerstyle guitar with this type of construction, as you can a standard top as well.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com