Your opinion on this bracing desgn

[Herman]

My next guitar will be a crossover, OM, small neck, nylon strings.

We are used to this bracing design:



But I came across this:
From the dutch engineer Eendebak.
Here his site, in English:
https://designofaclassicalguitar.com/home

He does it without a bridgeplate and with short braces.
What do you think?



BTW: I listened to several classical guitar videos and clips.
To be honest they all sound in a way quite the same (to me).
Am I deaf or so?

[Dave Bagwill]

Interesting! I'm not knowledgeable enough about classical guitars to be able to weigh in on that bracing pattern but I can see a logic to it. I think that if it presented noticeable improvements over the 'standard' bracing, a number of builders would have embraced it?

I take it that the idea behind a 'crossover' is to give the SS player access to a guitar that 'goes both ways'? - SS type neck, basically, on a classical body, giving a classical guitar tone with SS playability?

[Herman]

Yes, my customer is mainly interested in an as easy playable guitar as possible.
So that is why I came up with the crossover thing.

[Dave Bagwill]

If I understand correctly, the 2" wide, flat radius neck makes it possible for more intricate fingering, eliminating much of the 'fat-fingering' players get on skinnier necks where the lack of space between strings causes problems. But the wide neck and flat surface is not comfortable to those who like the SS.

I wonder if 'simply' using a SS neck bolted to a classical body, adjusting the bridge to work with 2 1/4" string spacing, would work good enough? I'm pretty sure some sonic capability would be lost to an extent, but that is the nature of compromise.

[Herman]

that could be done, but I make it with 1 7/8" nut and a 16' radius fingerboard.
My only concern is the neckangle, going with a 1/2"stringheight at the saddle and 1/8"action.

[bftobin]

Many of the early guitars had string settings of 1-3/4" at the nut. There have been very successful nylon string guitars built like the first photo, but with only 5 braces instead of 7. Santos Hernandez used 7 parallel braces with no closing braces on some of his guitars. Lot's to choose from.

[Herman]

Yes Brent, you're right.
So many guitars with different bracing, that all can sound good.
I think I go with a proven design like the Rodrigues.
Something like this: