Acoustic Guitar Construction

I'll put this one out there -- something most near a Martin dealer can easily check out. --- There is a notion that D35's have more bass response than a D28's and that being it has a three piece back, of course that is incorrect. The truth is, if there is a difference in sound, its likely that it is becasue the D35 has straight braces 1/4" wide, were as the D28 has scalloped braces 5/16" wide. --- go listen for your self.

As for you question I have no data supporting limits one way or another. Like a "drum kit" it is my belief that the personality of a guitar is determined by the size and to an extent the shape of the instrument and material used in construction.

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kencierp wrote:To this whole idea I refer back to problems that Gibson had introducing Michael Kasha designed guitars (a huge failure) not only was there production problems, but to my understanding the under pinning notion of there being a bass and treble (sound-producing) side of the bridge and sound board was challenged by other scientists who concluded (right or wrong) that the top assembly will always function as a unit -- again going back to the weight issue.

Well Ken, That is a 10 points sentence!. Thank you for your honesty. I feel kinda same way. I also make my guitars in a way that has been proven to work. I was on a buildersexhibition over here with a contest. There were about 40 guitars that were built with different materials, different shapes and different concepts. None of them was appealing to me.
I guess, I'm doomed to make traditional guitars.

kencierp wrote:I'll put this one out there -- something most near a Martin dealer can easily check out. --- There is a notion that D35's have more bass response than a D28's and that being it has a three piece back, of course that is incorrect. The truth is, if there is a difference in sound, its likely that it is becasue the D35 has straight braces 1/4" wide, were as the D28 has scalloped braces 5/16" wide. --- go listen for your self.

I would say you have to specify which "28" one is making the comparison to. The D-28 has non-scalloped braces and the HD-28 has scalloped braces, both 5/16". So what does the scalloping to the 5/16" braces do in comparison to the non-scalloped 1/4" braces. I've compared the 2 28's but not the 35. Would be an interesting comparison I would like to hear.

Edit: I should add that the back braces are different among the 3 guitars and the HD-28 uses "forward" shifted X bracing the other 2 "rear" shifted. So there is a lot of little things going on to take into consideration in regard to sound.

All of my SS guitars have been built with scalloped braces. Each time I start by matching the profile in the plans. I do a simple tap tuning with each braced top. I tap, feel and listen, I remove a bit off of the peaks on the scallops and tap again. If it sounds better to me or if the sound does not change I take a bit more off. I shave off the peaks until either I chicken out or the improvement stops or reverses. If the top still feels and sounds stiff to me, I take a bit off the other areas of the brace.

I can hear and feel the difference of the top just by shaving off the tops of the scallop peaks. It could be just that the weight is changing but I can hear and feel a difference that seems to me disproportionate to the amount of wood I shaved off. So for better or worse I think the stiffness added by the scallop peaks is relevant.

If one likes the sound of a particular guitar it seems to me matching the brace design is a good starting point when trying to achieve the same sound.