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I am building my first guitar, and its a parlor guitar. I was told that the braces on my soundboard are too thick, and I won't be able to get any low notes when playing it. Is there an easy way to thin down the braces without having to take the top off? Also, I intend to install a pickup. Will this help to balance out the high and low notes? Thanks!

If u have finger plane u can bevel the sides reaching through the sound hole . However if you are adding the pickups to play as an electric its really not necessarily needed unless your planning on playing it as an acoustic allot

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Thanks. Much appreciated. I was also told there a lot of bad jobs to do when building a guitar, and this one was the worst.

Shaving braces through the sound hole making the top a bit more flexible is helpful. Also if there is no finish on the box yet you can also thin the top from the outside around the perimeter. Taylor thins their tops around the perimeter on the inside but you can do it from the outside and just blend it in.

The best pups will be true to the original sound of the instrument however this is what tone controls might be for.

Over building is pretty common on first instruments, I did it, we all do it, so welcome to the club and don't be hard on yourself. One of my early ones I shaved the braces through the sound hole and it opened up considerably but it took me a few years to have the courage to do it....

By the way congrats on your first!

If you find that after adding pups your still not happy and want to pursue it further. Remove the back and shave the braces. Much easier to replace the back than the top. Seriously though , I would chalk it up to a learning lesson and start no.2 I doubt you will be getting rid of your first anyways.

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

I seriously doubt that , if its playable its faarrr from the worst .... trust me

. I doubt seriously that you will ever build one that you are totally satisfied with the entire build. I could change something on every one . Thats what makes us better my friend

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Thanks for all of your help. I can see that this site is going to be very useful. One day, I will be able to return the favor. Who can build just one guitar and be satisfied? I can't wait to build my next one as there are so many things I know I can do better.

And another one is lured to the Dark Side !!!. Bwahahahaha

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

It is, indeed, a very slippery slope

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've heard of a 12 Step Program. But it's for less addicting things like heroin, cocaine, meth.....

Is this a 12 Fret Program??

Ed

You are very welcome and that's the spirit too already planning on giving something back when you are a experienced builder! Very cool!

Suggestion: What helped me a great deal was to never stress over what didn't go well on a build and instead recognize that it will take some number of builds before you will be completely satisfied, or close with one of yours.

With each guitar that I built back in the early days of my adventure I would identify 2 - 3 things that were priorities to do better. Some examples also required incrementally tooling-up so one of the things early on my list was nitro finishing and getting a buffer helped with that. Fretting was once on that list. Anyway after around 10 guitars for me, and this will vary for each of us I am sure, my own stuff did not stink as badly.... By 12 and up I was getting pretty proud of what I was excreting....

The important part is to have fun though and I really enjoyed the earliest days of my journey much more so than the later days of building. It was more exciting at least to me back then trying different woods, getting my own bracing style and voicing method down, etc.

Guitar building is something that improvement not only is going to be required but it does not come that hard either and you just have to keep building and building.

By the way if you are former or current military thank you for your very valued service as well!!!