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Can anyone point me to a site that that describes the qualities and properties of different woods. E.G. I know that spruce is used for bracing on an acoustic, I may have a source for some ash which I may be able to use for the bracing instead.

What I want to do is compare the descriptions of both find out what the main differences are and then make a decision based on that.

It would also be a good reference site for further projects

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Can anyone point me to a site that that describes the qualities and properties of different woods. E.G. I know that spruce is used for bracing on an acoustic, I may have a source for some ash which I may be able to use for the bracing instead.

What I want to do is compare the descriptions of both find out what the main differences are and then make a decision based on that.

It would also be a good reference site for further projects

Great reference-click

Biggest difference is going to be the weight to stiffness ratio. Which is a huge factor in bracing.Sitka has one of the best ratios you will find (thus it's wide spread use). Sitka bracing stock is pretty inexpensive.

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Biggest difference is going to be the weight to stiffness ratio. Which is a huge factor in bracing.Sitka has one of the best ratios you will find (thus it's wide spread use). Sitka bracing stock is pretty inexpensive.

If weight to stiffness is such a factor, has anyone tried CF for bracing?

Brian.

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Biggest difference is going to be the weight to stiffness ratio. Which is a huge factor in bracing.Sitka has one of the best ratios you will find (thus it's wide spread use). Sitka bracing stock is pretty inexpensive.

If weight to stiffness is such a factor, has anyone tried CF for bracing?

Brian.

Absolutely! One of our forum brothers is using on his project right now. Keep in mind though we are talking about very light bracing. The carbon must be in very small quantity or you increase your weight. Some builders are actually working with full on carbon fiber tops. Sandwiching honeycomb core material is another hybrid. All these things are done to keep that fine balance of weight to stiffness.

Good thought!

Peace,Rich

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Biggest difference is going to be the weight to stiffness ratio. Which is a huge factor in bracing.Sitka has one of the best ratios you will find (thus it's wide spread use). Sitka bracing stock is pretty inexpensive.

If weight to stiffness is such a factor, has anyone tried CF for bracing?

Brian.

Absolutely! One of our forum brothers is using on his project right now. Keep in mind though we are talking about very light bracing. The carbon must be in very small quantity or you increase your weight. Some builders are actually working with full on carbon fiber tops. Sandwiching honeycomb core material is another hybrid. All these things are done to keep that fine balance of weight to stiffness.

Good thought!

Peace,Rich

Indeed. The difficulty with CF is that to get an equally stiff brace that weighed the same as a spruce one, you'd likely have to go very, very, very narrow; CF is damned heavy compared to spruce. And braces are hardly wide to begin with, so you have to worry about how to glue it on and make sure it can withstand the forces applied. A tubular design might solve some issues, but on the other hand, it'd be impossible to tune/adjust. CF is also hell on tools.

What I do plan to do on my next builds is laminate a .020" (or so) thin CF sheet into my main braces; not particularly for strength, but rather for the memory it doesn't have; wood is 'plastic', and over time deforms and doesn't spring back exactly where it came from when tensioned. CF doesn't. A few experiments by others (Mario Proulx in particular) have pretty much convinced me that the CF does the trick. The idea would be to further delay any future neck resets.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I made some CF sheets once while I was at University of Texas... I origionally laminated them onto a sheet of balsa just to see how to get it, and then I put it in a bag and add some release cloth and breather cloth and pumped air out of the bag with a vacuum pump. a day later I opened it up and cut out the excess at the machine shop in the basement with a diamond band saw... doesnt seem to hurt them much. Of course the carbon fiber ended up delaminating from the balsa wood, I dont know if its because the vacuum pressure was too high so most of the epoxy got sucked out. I did manage to make a very lightweight and flexable plastic board however!

how about making bracing out of balsa then laminating them with carbon fiber?

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