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Drawing out my bracing pattern I noticed the back half of the bridge wings will fall between the X brace. The front will of course be over it and some outside of it. I'm using a typical 'forward shifted' Martin pattern but a regular belly bridge instead of the long through slotted(I think they're called that).

So is this:
1) Perfectly Fine
2) Ok but not ideal
3) Recipe for disaster

Thanks for playing, Jeremy

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Jeremy Douglas

1) Perfectly fine!

Not all bridge designs will have the entire bridge wings over the X-brace. You just want some of, more is better of course but you also don't want or need a 1' wide bridge.

Thanks Hesh

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Jeremy Douglas

I will say this. The more you have the wings overlapping the x brace IE the closer to center mass of the bridge this intersection is the better job the x brace does in supporting the bridge against inward rotation. Which is the reason we want the bridge wings to overlap in the first place. there is a balance. Too close to center mass and you dampen the energy transmission. I like near half the wing length to overlap but I have a some what wide bridge design wit fairly thin wings.

I designed my bridge to carry a fairly inclusive variety of x brace spreads. I would never design the x brace spread to work to a narrow existing bridge design..

Thanks Michael.

Actually I looked at one of those light bulb in the guitar pics from a 30's D-18 and the bridge intersects the X in the exact same way as what I ended up with. So I'm good.

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Jeremy Douglas

You probably are. But you might want to check with some vintage guitar repair and restore techs to see how many of those vintage D-18 guitars have needed work due to bridge belling. I personal have seen a couple but I am not the person to ask. Frank Ford would be a great resource.

I do not doubt you are OK but if truly inquisitive to find the best situation, just saying just because a vintage D-18 has this much overlap in of its self would not be the end of my investigation.