Official Luthiers Forum!

No. 13 is going to be Sycamore back and sides from a neighbor's tree. Just wondering which wood some of you might prefer for bracing on the back. It will have a spruce top and I use spruce for top braces. I have plenty of maple and walnut, maybe one of those?

Or just more sycamore for the braces?

I like Spruce! Others can work. Spruce has the stiffest strength to weight ratio..... typically.

If you want a stiff and heavier reflective back (which is not a bad way to go on that size guitar) maple might not be a bad choice. I think it would look better than walnut. If your sycamore is spalted I would avoid it for braces.

I'll avoid using any "spalted" wood for braces since the spalting is usually caused by fungi or decay, even though it looks cool. I just broke one of the spalted sycamore sides I had prepared, after bending it. I was flexing it before putting it into the mold and the upper bout broke clean across. That wasn't cool...but I didn't get mad, since I have more and I found out at an early stage that it was faulty.

That’s going to be a nice back. I’d use spruce braces


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Check out the density of your spruce . They are not created equal. Sitka has the stiffest weight to density ratio IMHO