Official Luthiers Forum!

Does anyone have pics they can share of an X braced soundboard built based on this earlier L-0 shape?
Pre-1929 Gibson L-0 "parlor" ~13 5/8" lower bout.
It's such a gorgeous shape surely someone's got to have built one!
I have already found images of the X braced conversions of later, wider "flat bottomed" L models.

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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.

Hi Colin
I have a copy of a plan that LMI sell which is drawn from this model. I think it was originally one of the GAL collection of plans (GAL #6) and on the LMI website it is labelled PL44:
https://www.lmii.com/79-plans/s-70/builder-gibson

The plan shows a H-shaped or parallel bracing system with one diagonal brace below the bridge. It would not be hard to replace it with an X-brace pattern. I agree, it is a very appealing shape.

This model is sometimes also called L-1. I can recall a few of them being shown here with X-bracing. like this thread by SnowMan a while back (and I am sure there have been others you might find in a site search):
viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=51548&p=678492&hilit=+Gibson+L+0+#p678492

Good info, tried a search already, not much luck.

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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.

I have built 3 of these with x-bracing. I was an internet friend of Paul Hostetter who was an expert in all-things Nick Lucas - Nick of course being the first artist to have a signature guitar about 1926 and that guitar was a deep body version of this wonderful shape. This shape was around when Gibson was going to 14 fret models, so they exist in 12, 13, and 14 fret versions, so I suspect that there is a variation in their X-bracing. And Paul mentioned that bracing was all 1/4" wide - and of course Gibson did not do any scalloping at the time.

Sorry that the shots all turned out different sizes - I made them all the same size before loading them.

The first shot is one I sent Paul - I used it when I had John Hall make my first kit in 2012 - I used the wonderful rope rosette. When I started my #3 two years later I had met Paul and sent him this shot and he drew the two bracing patterns you see on it. But he said that they didn't sound very good and that they needed the X-bracing of later models. He also thought they sounded best as 14 fretters, if I recall.

The second shot is an x-ray of an original with yet a different bracing - the "A" brace- it has two tone bars that are separated quite abit, and Paul said he thought that one tone bar with an x-brace was better.

I sent him the third shot - a commercial template. He did not like the two tone bars so close together and again said he liked a single tone bar but thought the x-brace was good

The fourth shot is what I ended up with on my Nick copy and Paul approved

The fifth shot is my first one with 2 tone bars and 14 frets, Maple on Sitka. This one is very bright and the notes are balanced and well separated with plenty of volume.

The sixth one is the 12 fret Nick copy, Sitka on Mahogany with a small sound hole like an original - this one needs a little more volume but sounds very clean and nice. A bigger sound hole might have helped the volume.

The seventh one has 13 frets and is all Alaskan Yellow Cedar - top, back, sides, neck, bracing - the whole shebang. It sounds very crisp and has very good volume.

Thank you Ed, great info. Don't know how my search didn't throw these up.
Quite a collection, all beautiful in their own way.

_________________
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.