Andy Culpepper -> RE: Questions about braces (Jul. 19 2017 23:54:39)
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Thanks John. Also your comment earlier about the pointed brace shape giving maximum stiffness to weight is well taken, although it's interesting how some builders have opted for rounded tops. quote:
So where do you start to begin to understand these things without any experience building and not going through a lot of trial and error? Honestly, you can pick up a lot of information by reading and asking questions, but I don't know if you can ever fully understand the relevance of that information without putting things into practice for yourself. When you're making guitars, each one is different and its own animal in some way. Different woods, different player preferences, etc. and you have to have a tremendous bag of tricks that you can pull out at different times in order to push that guitar into its "sweet spot". I believe that with every set of wood and acoustic parameters, there is an optimal way to build that into the guitar that you want. It's like focusing a camera. There is ONE exact spot where the object you're shooting is perfectly in focus. The difference is that with guitar making you don't have immediate feedback on the focus and you can't compare it to what it could have been. So it's easy to let it get a little bit fuzzy and never even know that it could have been better if you had done something slightly differently. You left the back a little too thick, the bridge a little too light for the top, etc. so the sound you wanted is slightly out of focus, although somebody else might like the guitar just fine but it's all about what you are shooting for. And it's really, really hard because there are a million variables. But I think that knowing how to treat each guitar as a unique entity, and how to adjust your approach to each piece of wood that goes into that guitar to bring them together as a whole, is what separates out the best builders.
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