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I have a few guitars under my belt and now I'm trying to improve my built quality. How can I make a perfect joint in the lining for my braces. I can never get a joint tight enough for my liking. I've tried routing it, filing and blades. Here are some pics of my problem.

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Alain
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How are you marking the positions of the notches before you cut them?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Cut the pockets first, fit the brace blanks to the pockets, and then glue them to the back (and be careful not to remove any material from the ends when carving them).

To get the braces all positioned right, put them into the rim pockets, put a few bits of tape on them, and press the back down onto them. Pull it up, mark around the brace ends, and glue between the marks. The second picture here shows what happens if the back wants to be more radiused than the braces... I had to redo the positioning step with more tape bits to hold it down.

I thought about that way too but I have 3 guitars with the plates already braced and ready to close up.

I've been lining up the plates and lightly clamping them on the rim then marking the channels. After removing the plates I route the channels close to the correct depth then try it, make adjustments with a file. I've tried being very careful and removing small amounts at a time but it's not working for me. I've considered removing material from the brace ends instead but I thought I would ask here before I proceed.

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Alain
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That's a slick way to do it, Dennis. I've been setting the rims in the mold on top of the already braced top or back and marking the positions of the braces on the lining with a fine pencil and then routing the notches. I can get a good fit doing that but it's kind of a hassle. I think I'll give your method a try next time. Do you do the notches for the top braces that way too? I'm wondering if you would have any problem getting the x-braces to end up exactly where you want them on the top.

Alain, I don't know it this would help, but I've been carving the brace ends down to slightly taller than 1/8"", marking the notch positions, routing all of the notches to a fixed depth of 1/8", and then carving the heights of the brace ends down gradually to match the depth of the notches. To get a good fit for the width of the notches, after marking the brace positions on the lining, I lay a straight edge across the sides from rim to rim to line up the marks on the lining for both ends of a given brace and then transfer the marks on the side of the lining to the top surface of the lining. I then shade in the the area between the lines and rout between them. If the notch is not wide enough after routing, I use a chisel to widen it to fit. There may be a more efficient version of this approach. The way I'm doing it, they come out like this:

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Yes that's basically how I'm marking them too. However, I'm looking at the pictures and I notice you're using Kerfed linings. I'm using solid linings which show the sloppy joints more.

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Alain
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I do mine just about the same as Jay but instead of a pencil to mark location I use a striking knife or an x-acto etc. I find it more defined and easier to reference when cutting. When checking for height I use a feeler gauge between the top/back and the rims. Use a 2 thou feeler till it just starts grabbing on either side of brace then take a small bit more of the brace and your in business. My body molds have nails on the outside spaced a few inches apart. I sit the top/back on the rims and run elastic bands over the top to hold the top/back in place. This makes it very easy to be sure they are located correctly and locked in place. This makes sure all the braces are in their exact location and touching the linings. Then one can easily make the marks with no worry about the top/back moving around.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Here's our (KMG) recommended process, it great when your pockets are accurate it sort of lock the sound board or back in place making gluing the plates to the rim a little easier. The procedure takes into account considerations for binding height etc.

http://kennethmichaelguitars.com/gluing ... rsion.html

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Not really. Most of the time, the sides of the braces ends hit the lining between the kerfs, not on them. In fact, that's what I always hope for because then I can get the brace ends tucked without gaps on the sides.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

No, and I agree that it would be too risky for the X, since you might not get the intersection precisely centered when it's just floating in the middle of the rim. Or the soundhole might end up a little too close or far from the fretboard end when pressing the plate down onto the braces. With the back, you only need to get the centerline right. The vertical positioning has a little wiggle room depending on how much oversize it is.

I use dentellones for the top, so it's easy to form the lining around the brace ends. Though for most of my guitars, the upper X legs are the only ones that need pockets. The lower ends are carved down to zero, and the upper transverse brace ends are as tall as the linings, so the side braces serve as the supports for them. It's a bit excessive really, but I like the upper bout area to be as rigid as possible.

The upper X legs do have the most tricky pocket shape to get tightly fitted in the non-dentellone lining style. Though it would be an option to leave gaps in the lining for them, and then after gluing the top to the rim, glue short lining sections over top of the brace ends pretty much like dentellones. Uglier than a perfectly fitted pocket, but at least it's not visible through the soundhole without a mirror...

Who cares, it's on the inside of the guitar

On the last one I built I brought the back braces down to paper thin and glued the linings right on top of it. It actually looks pretty cool.

I use reversed linings and they are very easy to use compared to regular linings. No blow -outs with the reversed, but they seem to happen quite a bit with the regular. Solid linings should work the same as reversed.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

When you have the brace end just a skosh thicker than the notch depth, floss it to the final fit. Use a strip of sandpaper the same width as the brace. Check the fit by putting 1/8" wide strip of paper in the notch, and on each side of the brace, pull it out with light pressure on the back or top. When the fit is right, it will grab the paper on each side of the brace and in the notch..

As for your notch being wider than the brace, make sure the top or back is index pinned in place, and the sides secure in the mold. So when you are removing and replacing the top or back, you are putting it back in the same location. Otherwise, you are shooting at a moving target.

Of course the other option is to use a template for routing the slots and for gluing on the braces. I know one high-end builder who feels this is the best way to get really consistent results. I'm pretty sure Jim Olson does something like that as well.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I just make each side of the braces on the rims, draw a line between both side to line up well, cut to the line with an razor saw then rout pocket to 3mm depth (except UTB)
Braces are scalloped to a hair over 3mm on a drum sander before gluing on, and fine tuned to fit the pockets, chisel and sandpaper.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

One of these days I'm going to get one of those small router planes to get a consistent depth in the linings. I do it with a chisel now but feel like I could get better results cleaning the bottom up with a router plane. What would be really nice is to have a little router plane with a base that is relived a few mm under the blade all the way from "toe" to "heel." Then you could use it to get consistent depths in the rim and set it up to cut the brace ends to the proper thickness. The blade would be set the proper height above the sole and the plane pushed over the brace from the outside while the brace slid into the groove in the sole. Once the ends of the braces were planed to the correct height, you could blend the taper with a chisel.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I use a dremel with a router base for the pockets, set to 3/32". Then I adhere little skids to the bottom of the router base, and set the bit depth to a scoche over 3/32" from the bottom of the skids. After marking the braces where the linings intersect, I cut the brace heights with the dremel with the skids. Then I test fit and shave the last lil' bit off the braces with my brace chisel, and blend the rest of the brace into my routed depth. Easy peasy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

You could tap and screw plates to the sole on each side of the blade.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Interesting. That would allow for a positive stop when setting the cutting height. Drop the blade down to flush on the bench, lock it in place and attach the shim plates. Now you can cut the brace ends to the same thickness as the shims. Then drop the blade to flush with the bench, lock it down and remove the shims. Now you can cut the notches to the same depth. No noisy power router needed.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I just use earmuffs... Quicker!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.