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   You can look inside a Ryan and see no side braces either. It's just a matter of the builder's preference. If the sides incorporate continuous bent surfaces throughout their length with littleor no actual flat area, it's much easier to justify.

Jim and Kevin both have dsigns with little or no flat length in any of their sides, with the exception of Jim'sDread model, so the rigidity supplied by the bends is a good source of crack resistence.

My opinion only,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

I don't think rigidity is the reason for side braces but rather insurance in case of a crack. A side brace won't prevent cracks but it will reduce how far the crack will travel.

Mario a friend met you at the Kaufman(sorry spelling) this summer, John Slobod. He had some guitars up there and said you had some really fine instruments there with good reviews.

   The side braces aren't used to provide rigidity in the sides at all and I hope I didn;t sound as though that was what I was implyng. They are simply a good crack stopper when the lack of rigidity allows for a crack to occur in a side.

   I as at a concert once when a very famous guitarist did one of his signature thumb cracks on the bass side of his Martin Dreadnaught during a sing and had to literally pull his thumb from the hole in its side where ithad gotten pinched.

Probably wouldn;t have cracked had the side been one with a more radical and strength inducing bend, but that flat area is a danger spot for such damage.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Kevin- was it Michael Hedges?

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I don't use side-braces anymore; I've had two guitars get damaged severely, and the crack went right through the side-braces. Didn't stop it, not one bit. And, it actually made it harder to repair. Wasn't as easy to get things lined up without removing the brace.

I will use them, every once in a while, to flatten an area, or reinforce something I don't like in the side. The other answer is, most of my guitars are pretty much babied, they're not on the road, so I don't see those kinds of injuries in my products (yay!). Which is why I'm assuming that you don't seem them in Olsen's either, anymore. :P

Lance

I had a very interesting discussion with Michael Bashkin at his shop today regarding the side stiffness. His thinking is that they are structural, and therefore should be very stiff. He epoxies 2 nice pieces together in a special mold. For example, if he was using Braz Rosewood, he would laminate it with EIR on the inside. He said when it dries, it really doesn't even need a mold to finish the guitar! He only uses the mold for lining and clamping the head and tail blocks. After that, it comes out of the mold in perfect shape, and no worry about splitting. If his sides get damaged, then the whole guitar will be totaled. The tone on his guitar was absolutely beautiful. A very light touch produced a lot of sound, and this was on a small bodied guitar!
Tracy

Lance (Mc),
I had an Olson here in my shop a few years back that had the kind of crack Mario mentioned: from block to block, the entire side split in two. I'm not sure if side braces would have helped this one or not, since it happened at the hands of airline employees. But we'll never know, as there were no braces in there. And Mario is quite correct, it is a very difficult repair.

Those little braces are cheap insurance, in my book.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I repaired a guitar that was droped on the end and had a split running from the end pin right to the first beace and then stopped there. In that case I am convinced the side brace saved the guitar.

I've repaired some Martins from the 40's and 50's that used Hide and the self adhesive tape and 95% of the time the cloth tape did stop the cracks from traveling past them. I have no doubt the size of the crack is also relative to the impact.

Here are some pics from a 58' D-18

Notice how many strips they used.


Dark areas are the cracks that stopped at the tape.


New fangled way to attach a bridge.


Notice the effect on the X brace when using the new fangled bridge attachment method.


It makes for reeeeeel fast decay when the X is broken

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

My strong feeling is that old side tapes often fail because the glue has been weakend owing to exposure to the air. Like Tim, I shellac my tapes to seal them. Only time will tell if that works.

The self-adhesive stuff is probably only marginally helpful when new, and certainly useless once the adhesive dries out and lets go in 5-10 years. I used to regularly repair side cracks in one touring performer's Martin every time he got back off the road. After about the third or fourth round I pulled off all the self-adhesive tapes (which were only being held on at that point by the liners) and replaced them with bias tapes. His visits after that were far less frequent, limited to top cracks once a year or so. No more side cracks.

Nothing is foolproof: they're always coming up with bigger fools.

Steve, Like I said the braces didn't stop the split, but if I were to brace the side now I would use the tape that Blancherd uses!
Lance

Hey Lance,
I liked your comment about your guitars being "babied".
Do you write that up as a clause in the buyer's contract?
"You shall baby this guitar, or warranty is voided"?   

I'm going to consider that!

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I've seen a few of mine with side cracks, and on none did the crack go past the brace. I'm sure it can and will happen, but it didn't in these, and that is worth the few minutes it takes to make and install them in all the rest.

Even if side braces stopped 50% of the cracks from going further, that is still 50% better than having none <g>

Listen, I love the look of clean sides, without braces. I always look at my lined, but unbraced sides, and think that there has to be a way, but short of doubling the sides with laminations, there is none.

We all accept some risk in our building styles. Some accept more risk via thin tops, some via light bracing, some via super thin and delicate finish, and some, via unbraced sides. It's all in what risks we are ready to accept.

I dont always put in side braces but have done so on occasions. I build classical guitars and use mostly brazilian rosewood which can sometimes be stable and other times will crack if you give it a harsh look.

On the guitars I put side braces in it was because as I was handling the rosewood I had a gut feel that a particular set may be more problematic and didnt want to get it returned for repair so as a precaution I put in side tapes which I then shellaced in as Alan and others have mentioned. I use hide glue (192) to apply them.

On other instruments the side bracing I used was for stylistic/historic reasons. I was copying an early Torres that had side (and back) repairs that had been by Torres in which he used as reinforcment strips of a linen based paper that was part of a musical score. I took a piece of vellum and with a hand ground ink (used a 19th century recipe) I made a piece of music manuscript and used a few bars from a Sor composition to create an homage to Torres and lend a historic look to the reproduction. For those that follow Torres designs it was a copy of FE20.

Since then I have put in linen paper or vellum strips in a few of my instruments with my own compositions on it for some repairman in the future to find. I dont have a performance background, I studied music composition at Julliard and only started building guitars as I could not afford the level of instrument I wanted to play.

[QUOTE=Shawn] I dont have a performance background, I studied music composition at Julliard and only started building guitars as I could not afford the level of instrument I wanted to play.
[/QUOTE]

Shawn...Now, that's interesting! Have you submitted a bio to Lance? Give us the poop!!

Composers: The only group with less potential income than luthiers.