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I've had more luck just sanding braces than using tools, very cramped and uncomfortable. Ultimately what I have ended up doing is routing the back off and working on the top, then replacing the back. Any way you go it is probably best just to start fresh and chalk it up to learning.

Todd,

See GAL Big Red Book Four (pp 334-338) for an article about working on
braces on an assembled guitar. The article covers alot of the questions
youre asking.

Cheerskiwigeo38894.3019212963

Good luck in fixing this Todd, please let us know how you do it, it will sure be a tremendous experience to share with the less experienced like me!

Serge

Tis a pity that Scott van Linge is no longer a member here Todd. Closed box tuning, or hot rodding as it is known, is his speciality. I am certain that if he were still a member he would not hesitate for a second to help you out here.

That is of course providing he did not have to furnish you with a series of double blind test results to validate each step of his advise, before you were able to bring yourself to simply eat the meat and spit out the bones from the feast of information he would freely provide.

If you need to contact Scott, let me know via PM and I will pass on his details. I am sure he would be pleased to pass on his valuable knowledge...is'nt that right Hesh

Cheers all..I swear

Kim

Is this guitar a lefty? It seems to be braced that way.

[QUOTE=ToddStock] Braced left/strung right. This was one of the
mistakes I made. Another was not correcting it when I realized the
problem. I now use 1/2 patterns that force the correct layout, but it does
complicate things a bit. The good news is that the other five actually
came out correctly![/QUOTE]

Todd Im no expert on the matter but I think reversed bracing would
influence the sound of the instrument significantly.....particularly in the
lower bout area between the lowest lower face brace and the cross brace.

kiwigeo38894.8718981482

That's a very pretty guitar.
I've done some brace shaving, though all on classicals,
using a shortened Kunz 100 plane and shortened 1/4" chisel.
I think a lot can be learned this way, working either the
top or back. The feedback is almost instant, and the variables nicely limited.

Seems to me that working the outer end of the X-brace
in the lower bout would be a no-lose place to start;
working slowly, with luck you could free up the edges
of the top plate without losing strength in crucial areas.

The seat-of-the-pants knowledge gained by judiciously
trying this is very valuable imo.

Hope someone w/ more steel-string experience chimes in.

PS you can determine the rough influence of the bracing
asymmetry by stringing the guitar left-handed,
reversing the saddle and and making a new nut as needed.

I guess that's obvious, but..

[QUOTE=Carey] PS you can determine the rough influence of the bracing
asymmetry by stringing the guitar left-handed,
reversing the saddle and and making a new nut as needed.

I guess that's obvious, but.. [/QUOTE]

Was just going to suggest this myself. Would be an interesting
experiment.

I still think the position of lower face braces will have at least some effect
on sound.

Todd,

You're not the first person (or the last, I'm sure!) to do his bracing backward; and from what I've read, it really doesn't make any difference, by itself. Someone pointed out that, at the saddle, your strings are just a couple of inches, and a fraction, apart from each other at their widest point, so plucking your low E string is going to have as much effect on the "treble" side as on the "bass" side. You can try stringing it "lefty," but I'd bet that you won't hear any difference.

I think that this guitar (which looks great, BTW--really clean work) will never equal a standard OM in volume, for two reasons: the shallow box, and the mahogany top. Mahogany will never respond like spruce.

That being said, you can still have great tone with this guitar! Those X's and tone bars look huge, especially with a mahogany top. If someone handed me this guitar, I'd (after much courage-building) taper the ends of both bottom legs of the X, and carefully shave some wood off the sides of the X (the bottom legs) and tone bars along their full length.

I don't know if it is just the Antes OM, because I have build 6 guitars based
on the plans. Very loud and great base response

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Woops
I just realized that even though I use the Antes plan, I make my box deeper.
I make them 4 at the neck block and 4.5" and the tailblock.azimmer138895.7737384259

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

[QUOTE=ToddStock] I think that's the plan.

After handling other tops, I'm beginning to have some feel for stiffness, and #1 was way, way stiffer than any spruce top. Probably would go for .95 and maybe 1/4" bracing if I had to do it again, plus some thinning at the edges to free things up. I will def build other all-hog guitars, so this was a good learning experience.?[/QUOTE]

Todd - you mentioned changing to .95 in an earlier post, also, but I'm still not sure which dimension you're talking about.

By 1/4" bracing, you mean the thickness (or width) of the bracing, right? Does the .95 mean the bracing height at its maximum ( the crossing point of the X-braces) ? That seems taller than any bracing I've seen so far.

Phil

Phil...The .095 refers to the top thickness. Yes, the 1/4" brace refers to its width. It's kind of an informal standard for lightly-built, responsive guitars.

[QUOTE=ToddStock] #1 is all about process anyway, right? Worst case is that I end up routing off the top and redoing it. [/QUOTE]
Yep, ya gotta learn somehow. In fact, I'd urge you to not re-top this nicely built instrument! Your craftsmanship on #1 was just too good to go to that extreme. Just continue the learning process by reworking the braces, and hearing what happens. If you use the same care you did when you built this guitar, there's no way you're going to make it sound worse!

Another vote for the "it's the mahogany top" opinion. I believe additional scalloping would help the bass response but I doubt you'll get a ton of volume out of a mahogany-topped guitar regardless of what you do.

I'm far from an expert on guitar construction but I've played a number of mahogany-topped guitars, both recent and vintage, and I've yet to find a loud one.

Andrew