Creating a voice

This next part of the building process is one of the most subjective. There are books and videos and training courses and thousands of posts on guitar building forums devoted to getting the best sound out of the guitar top. The process starts when the top is thinned and continues until the finish is applied.

A big part of the process is how the builder glues on the braces and shapes them. Many guitars have scalloped braces like a Martin guitar. I have to admit that the process of scalloping the braces seems a little random. Without a real feeling for the way the scallops affect the sound, I decided to go with what has been called "parabolic" bracing on some forums.

This is actually one of the more interesting operations. I shave the braces using a finger plane, a chisel and sandpaper. I suspend the top with one finger, next to my ear and tap it with my other hand. As I remove material from the braces, the pitch of the top goes down. I continues shaving and smoothing until I like the way it looks and sounds. Like I said, completely subjective.

There are some features of the top that are less subjective. The bridge plate is a piece of Honduran Rosewood, thinned to 0.090 inch and trimmed to fit tight against the braces. I left the x-brace just a little shorter than 20mm at the x-joint. The upper ends of the braces are thinned to ~1mm tall, and they are left long enough so they will overlap the guitar sides. I will notch the sides to accept the ends of the braces. The lower ends of the braces are thinned to nearly nothing where they cross the sides.