Advice needed on archtop guitar bracing

[Kerry Krishna]

   Many of you know I now have one of the largest collection of 1920s/30s Kay Kraft instruments after many years of wheeling/dealing on them. I have many duplicate instruments,  and have finally taken delivery of a written off 14 fret two point from Seattle that I have been trying to get for three years. The guitar has been stripped and refinished, and that serves me just fine, as I needed one to do some experiments on. 

    So here is some history: There are a few vera distinctive things that  set  Kay Kraft  guitars apart from anything built before or after them.  One of them is the factory installed Martin style X bracing  including a bridge plate that was in all their 12 fret archtop guitars. ( I know that the one I was talking about was a 14 fret, I'll get to that in a min...) 

The 12 fret guitars were for some absolutely awesome reason, braced almost  like a Martin dread from the 30s, and is totally bizarre because of it. (So Archtop/Martin X bracing and a trapeze tailpiece is a mindblowing combination is anyone's books!)  

   The 12 frets sound so much more like a dreadnaught than an archtop,  that if you heard a 800 buck Yamaha steel string and this guitar side by side, you likely would not be able to tell which was which.

  So on to talking about my written off 14 fret. The 14 fret Kay Krafts sound pretty darn bad. Perfectly 'gluggy' to use the technical term that we all know and understand. The reason is that the bracing looks like it was designed by an architect than a acoustician. (See the photos)  

The differences in the 14 and 12 fret bracing is incredibly weird and inconsistent and I have no clue why they did this at the factory, but is par for the course for the ' devoid of all logic' Kay factory supervisors. ( there were dozens of incredibly bad 'just get them out the door and sold' things that they did, but I digress...)  

   What I am planning on doing, is rebracing this 14 fret guitar with Martin style X bracing, and possibly changing the neck geometry and turning the guitar into a regular pin bridge. (the guitar was cheap, I have plenty of time, and a patiently waiting  instrument repair shop so it should be an excellent experiment! ) 

 The pin bridge idea may wait for another guitar though, so I will just talk about the bracing in this thread.

I will build a body form, and take the back off, strip the bracing/bridge plate out, and rebrace it. 

   So here is my question. I am going to try to get the bracing measurements pretty close to Martin's patterns. 

  What do you folks think of me possibly bending the bracing  instead of carving it? Can any of you folks here think of any benefits to doing this as opposed to going the regular carving route?

   All I can think of this min is minimizing the runout on the  spruce bracing. 

   What do you think all my Colleagues? 

[Kerry Krishna]

Here are the 12 fret and 14 fret bracing... 

[Eric Steven Johansen]

Well now I know why those 14 fret models sound so bad. Never had the occasion or desire to look inside. I'd go with the carved brace as the runout happens on the side you're glueing to the top. Sandwich strength as they say. I recently had a great experience with renecking a 40's Kay that had sat around my shop for many years, only to discover a fine sounding instrument hidden inside. Here's a few pics.

[Ned Knepp]

Not a pro but I'd vote with Eric on this to carve them. Besides the runout being glued down, I'm not sure that bending a brace that much won't builds in tension that could kill vibration.  

I have a '50s Kay Archtop that turned out much better playing and sounding than I though. I was going to sell it but haven't finished everything on it because I strung it up and just keep playing it. I's been 2 years now and I still don't have a pickguard, a heel cap or a bridge.  I'm using an old Gibson bridge which I thought was a test bridge but I haven't replaced yet. 

[Ned Knepp]

Eric, that's a great tail piece. Did it come with the guitar?

[Kerry Krishna]

The tailpiece IS killer... 

[Eric Steven Johansen]

My friend John Lamden makes amazing replicas of 30's and 40's tailpieces so I asked him to come up with something appropriate. This is an amalgam of a 30's Epi and design elements in the inlays, which came from DePaul Supply. I think it came out great too.

[Kerry Krishna]

 Is there a link for his stuff Eric? Is he doing actual sand casting? The one here looks incredibly heavy too. Are there more delicate designs that don't involve so much metal? 

   This one is pretty 'art deco' too! 

So I am leaning towards carving the braces like you both have said, as I was before this thread. I had to X brace a modified IV 'F'4 mando this last week too. It took quite a bit to get the final X, and there seemed to be some almost finished pieces on the floor when I finished for some reason...It was a good learning experience actually. 

[Eric Steven Johansen]

We were shooting for the art deco look from the get go. The piece is amazingly light as John uses 1/8" brass sheet for the body and hinge, and milled bar stock for the string retainer. He hand cuts the designs and each piece is signed on the back side. He sells on ebay some times but does not have a site set up.

[LARRY KLOSE]

I'm late to the dance, but did anyone remember Frank's article about fitting archtop braces?  I ran across this while looking for something else on www.frets.com

http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier/Technique/Structural/ToneBa...

[Eric Steven Johansen]

I use this method for both carved archtops and for my radiused flattops as well. I had to make use of Franks carbon paper idea to check for full contact but now that I've gotten a refresher course I'm going to try the tuning fork. Thanks for the post Larry.

[Kerry Krishna]

Larry, I had not seen that before. Thank you for posting it!