Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi Folks,
This weekend I finally got out of the apt. and went to a guitar store. Usually I never seem to get out enough.
I played some cheap guitars and some expensive one's too!!
One brand that impressed me quite a bit was the Larrivee Brand.

I played a L-05 Model that was really well made. Mahogany body with a 1 3/4" neck. Similar to an OM. What was amazing was the top on this guitar...I assume it was a sitka spruce. The grain lines on this guitar were so thin and delicate. There must have been close to 40 lines per inch. So small and fine I could not count them very well.
The guitar had an amazing response and balance.
The string set-up was perfect. It was so easy to play.
The Manager told me that the Larrivee people are very supportive, not only to the retailers but also the buyers. I wanted to take that guitar home. But didn't.
I don't believe I will ever see a better top on a guitar again. One in a million.
The manager told me that they do not use scalloped bracing, but rather Parabolic style.
My question is: What does this type of top bracing look like. It seems I have read about it somewhere, but have since forgotten.
Does anyone have any pictures of this design bracing pattern?
Thanks,
WalterK   

Walter,

Go to the archive, first page, about 10 posts from the bottom. I believe there is a link to more info. somewhere in that thread as well. Happy hunting!

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DES - Shepherd, MI

Walter,

I think the bit that Darin is pointing you to is the thread I started some time ago (and the link which you should read with a large pinch of salt) where I detailed my views on different bracing styles and how they affect the way a guitar plays. I now do most of my bracing as parabolic, it seems to make much more sense to me than scalloping. It allows the top to react in a more graduated way, much more like a speaker cone and more quickly, this is especially good for finger style players. Basically the X bars, and usually the tone bars as well, are parabolic in both longitudinal and cross section. I like it for back bars as well, again nowadays usually using an X brace on the lower bout.

Many of the luthiers in the UK use them now, perhaps we are not so inoculated with the Martin tradition, and the punchiness they seem to provide goes with the style of English and Celtic playing.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Colin, I've seemed to have picked up the idea somewhere during the course of my prolific guitar building career (ok, so I've almost finished my first ), that scalloping wasn't a I do it, or, I never do it thing. That you'd do it in response to the stiffness of the top. I'm thinking in terms of mass production where there is going to be a lot of variation especially in, (but not only) cross grain stiffnes of the top plate. In a mass production setting, you'd make all the braces the same dimension, and the top plates the same thickness, and then try to gain some uniformity in stiffness of the braced top plate by scalloping the braces on the stiffest tops to a greater or lesser degree.

How you'd measure this, what magical number, with what units, escapes me. But that's the impression I've got from somewhere. Feel free to elucidate (that's the first time I've used the word elucidate in a sentence, and, I've probably spelt it wrong)