Official Luthiers Forum!

I had thought about doing braces as trusses before and came to the conclusion that it makes sense up in the upper bout of the guitar as sound is not an issue, structure is.
In the tone bars though, do the sudden voids in the brace not interfere with the vibrational wave that the brace is transfering throughout the top? Just a thought, I don't know, you tell me.

davidO

I've built prototypes with this type or truss technology, the holes in various diameters and
the I beam style relief over the years and have liked the results with all three, but have never
decided to use any of the three as my default bracing.

I'm sure that Kevin has arrived at the dimensions for the bracing stock and for the shapes,
locations and sizes for the voids after nothing short of exhaustive R&D efforts and lots of detailed
measurement and documentation of many prototype efforts.

It's just the way Kevin does things since he will never offer anything that will detrimentally
affect a guitar's tone, playability, integrity or longevity before it's proven itself to him.

Kevin is not only one of the most innovative.....and not to mention brave....designers and builders
that has graced the acoustic guitar industry in the last century, but he's also happens to be one of
the most gracious, generous and conscientious individuals you're bound to find in any industry.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Be nice..... Kevin Ryan is one of the Master Luthiers of our time and deserves respect.

Thank you Hesh! Well said!

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Jamie's gonna be pissed when he see's this , trust me!
Lance

Lance,
What reason would Jamie have to be upset? Just curious.

I'm sure that I drilled holes in braces in progressively varying diameters to reduce mass and weight at least as long ago as
Jamie did....almost 350 guitars ago. I also tried the "I" beam style of mass and weight removal long before Kevin Ko did, but never adopted them as a standard offering on my guitars just because I didn't see the tonal benefits as outweighing the time and effort needed to achieve it.

I even cut that recurve style groove around the perimeter of some tops like Taylor is now doing back in the early 90s and
felt the same way about it when it came to time an work investment compared to tonal benefits. I cut them into some tops for protoypes while I worked at Martin, too, but they never made it to the line. It's funny how there's nothing really new under the
sun.

We all try things in our shops at different times just because we're all thinking in many of the same terms as far as building
lighter goes.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars