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I found an old photograph of the back of a Larrivee soundboard and I noticed that the 'finger braces' were wide and shallow, my guess is somewhere about 1/8" thick, 3/4" wide. Can anybody suggest what design purpose is served by this arrangement? I'd happily plagarize, but I'd like to know what I'm stealing.

Thanks!

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Peter Havriluk

The purpose was to make them stronger than a brace 1/8” tall by 3/16” wide but not as strong as a brace 3/4” tall by 1/8” wide. Or maybe just to use up scrap soundboard offcuts.

In all seriousness though:

- You cannot evaluate the dimensions of a single brace on its own, it must be considered in the context of the whole bracing scheme, soundboard thickness or graduation or material etc
- The purpose of any bracing scheme is to provide adequate support to bear the tension of the strings without becoming so heavy and stiff that the instrument sounds dull, quiet or otherwise cruddy
- Great sounding guitars have been built with tall skinny finger braces, short wide finger braces, and even with no finger braces.
- Horrible sounding guitars have been built with tall skinny finger braces, short wide finger braces, and even with no finger braces.

These ones are just over 3/4 wide by .093 tall. Some models have one, some two. I wouldn’t care to wager what their purpose is for being like that, but, I also don’t really grock what it really is that finger braces do…

When I saw the topic I thought… I know just the guy:)


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Thanks. Interesting picture. No, not the 'disassembly' but the rough-and-ready brace work. Not exactly a work of art.

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Peter Havriluk

Bear in mind this was harvested from a smash in the back lot session, not a sold guitar…

I think I answered my own question. Applying Occam's Razor to my question, prodded along by Ed's comments, I think the answer was lying in plain view, seeing as the finger braces may have some liturgical meaning for a luthier, but little practical use, I think the Larrivee finger-braces were configured as they were in order to use up soundboard scraps. No greater or more considered use. Use up what's on hand.

With gratitude to Simon Winchester for prodding my brain into semi-consciousness to consider the question I raised.

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Peter Havriluk

I’ll just reiterate that that pic is from an old guitar that got smashed against a wall and has been put in a picture frame and used as art in my living room for probably 15 years or more. It’s not actually glued to the frame, so it regularly falls off and gets kicked, stepped on etc, so should not be used as an example of what condition the bracing is like on a Larrivee. Cleanliness inside the box was very much an important parameter.

Also, FWIW, I would suggest that in a factory there is basically an infinite amount of ‘scrap’ wood, and that finding extra bits of 1/4x1/4 would be no more difficult than finding extra bits of 3/4x .093. So maybe just using scraps isn’t the answer. Or maybe it is.

Lols, so that guitar was liberated Jan 15 2001.

In any high volume environment, there’s bound to be certain items that collect enough small mistakes as to be unleavethebuildingable.

These were collected and meted out for smashing both as reward, but occasionally also as an albatross, circumstances depending.

In this case, a lad turned up rather late for work. When queried as to his reason for tardiness, he muttered something about a doctor’s appointment, his words floating on a cloud of stale whiskey. After assuring his wellbeing and ability to perform his duties, I casually asked what the doctor’s name was.

With a much reddened face and something of a stutter, he managed to posit that he had seen a certain Dr. Flang.

So I had him smash that unsaleable guitar against the back wall whilst the crew watched, and sign the top Dr. Flang to hang on the wall of shame…

I agree with Josh and wanted to add:

When you see flat, low pieces in a guitar you can call them braces but I think they are more in the line of stiffeners. The sound hole is an excellent example of where stiffeners are a good idea and low and flat are even a better idea when someone wants to add an aftermarket pick-up system.

The upper transverse graft is also an indicator of intended function. No one is seeking to exploit the tone of the shoulders.... but what this graft or.... stiffener is and was intended to do is to prevent cracks along side the fingerboard because this area has a lot of stress from the neck wanting to fold into the body.

There are people who will remove this graft claiming superior tonal improvements.

With all this said I don't think that these are intended to be braces in the traditional sense when it comes to milking tone. Instead I believe they are to prevent or hope to prevent cracks and the word stiffener applies better.

That bracing looks cleaner and better constructed than most factory guitars. Compare the X-brace joint to any Martin or Gibson.

Possibly this? - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L2T-yeFBtII

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.