Acoustic Guitar Construction

The ebonized maple bridge, by the way, seems like a good idea for the gypsy guitar I've started. The aesthetic of the guitar's look requires the dark line across the grain that the bridge forms, but there is a lot of mass involved that might damp off volume.

Tj Turner wrote:John...

I always had one question, but never saw it answered in the books. When you lay down the carbon before putting down the brace, does it provide a good flat surface for the brace to glue to? It seemed to me reading the book that once you pulled out the individual fibers and put them down on the surface, that you could then have gaps around the fibers that the brace had to adhere to, therefore leaving a less than desirable glue joint. How did you overcome that, or how did it work in your experience?

Thanks!

The book calls out, and I used, structural epoxy. The epoxy will happily fill the gaps while bonding to both surfaces. I think it would be a disaster to use tight bond in this situation.

John Link wrote:The ebonized maple bridge, by the way, seems like a good idea for the gypsy guitar I've started. The aesthetic of the guitar's look requires the dark line across the grain that the bridge forms, but there is a lot of mass involved that might damp off volume.

John, I had a ebonized walnut bridge. I agree that the walnut bridge worked great to loose weight over 30%. The falcate design also need a stiff bridge which the walnut did not provide, so for my design I add a layer of CF under the bridge plate and near the top of the bridge. The book has classical bridges (down to about 12 grams) with two layers of CF in the bridge itself so no need for the CF under a bridge plate.