As some of you know I'm making a comparison build of two Ditson guitars. These were first built by Martin in 1916 for the Ditson company and my build is based on drawings supplied by Dean, of the grand concert model. This is a small body guitar, and the shape was the forerunner of the dreadnaught. These were often referred to as baby dreadnaughts.
So mine have sister tops, red bear, and macasser mahogany back and sides from Eddy Yohannes. They will be alike except that one will be x-braced and the other will be ladder-braced. I have and play both types, but there are so many other differences between them, I'm not sure just how the bracing choice affects the sound. Hopefully this will clear up some confusion for me.
I just finished bracing the two tops and here's how they look.
As you can see, they are very different patterns and ought to provide very different sounds.
The x-braced pattern is shifted forward closer to the soundhole, which I've read was how Martin built them in the "golden era". My pattern is also strongly influenced by a thread I read by Hesh, which also included photos of his tops. What I got from it was mainly, thin, parabola shaped braces, with the upper x-brace ends anchored into the kerfing, but the lower x-bracing carved down to zero before they get to the kerfing. Allowing the lower sound board to vibrate more freely. His arguments made sense to me and his tops looked nice and clean, so here we are. Thanks, Hesh.
Now my ladder-braced pattern is strongly influenced by a thread of John Howe showing his bracing pattern that he got from an old Stella. I pretty much followed his lead except I have added the bracing around soundhole. I have ran into several cases of the top buckling around the soundhole in ladder-braced guitars of that era that I have picked up on ebay. To repair them I have had to reinforce the tops in this area, so it makes sense to me to avoid the problem.
The other interesting point I find here is that the cross braces all end before the kerfing. I'm guessing that would contribute to a freely vibrating top with greater sound potential, we'll see.
As should be obvious here, I'm picking up clues and hints where I find them and hoping it doesn't all blow up in my face!
These are my 5th and 6th builds. I have been tapping tops and listening, but, one I don't really have enough experience yet to know how what I'm hearing will translate to the finished guitar, and two I have a real hard time translating sound into words and vice versa.
So here we go, happy building all,
Joe
