Travel Lapsteel Project - Advice and ideas for bracing improvement please

[Felix Trebol]

I joined this forum when I experienced it was hard to get advice and ideas on building weissenborns in Europe.
My name's Felix, I am from Bavaria in the south of Germany. I am studying painting, but mostly just make use of the well-equipped workshops here in the academy. Luckily there's two master carpenters there who are interested in what I do and help me when necessary.
I am currently building a travel-sized weissenborn (although that name probably doesn´t apply to it anymore as the shape's totally different). It's got a Trapezoid shape with similar dimensions than a Martin Backpacker. The lower side is 21cm, the body-length 78cm and depth 8cm so that it'll fit into my alpine backpack. The top is German alpine spruce, the sides cherry and the back maple. All local woods and luckily fairly inexpensive. The headstock, tailblock. bridge, rosette and binding is walnut. It's a crazy mix of woods, but I went for the more inexpensive quality parts I could get here in Bavaria. The colours actually harmonize quite well.
So to my actual problem: I think I might be "over-building" that thing. I checked the bracing system of my Martin Backpacker and it has no kerfing and only two braces that are not crossing for the part below the soundhole.
To my rough plan (the one on paper is more acurate of course):
-The blue lines are my braces and the green lines are the outlines of my patches (bridge patch and the patches round the soundhole)
-I was thinking to use the X-braces, but leave out the fingerbraces to the sides to enhance the resonance ability of the top.
-My build has no fingerboard, thus the whole neck can vibrate (like Nick from http://www.wildwoodinstruments.com.au/s ... ments.html does it). The fretmarks will be lasered. I don't know yet, if and how I should brace the neck. It's pretty narrow up the neck and the headblock reaching in 7cm will support it anyway. Do you have any ideas?

I know there are a million ways to build a weissenborn, guitar or whatever. It's not going to be a master instrument anyway, as it is my first guitar-like build. I've done kora harps and stuff like that, but nothing required that much attention to detail like this one yet. I am just a bit scared that the sound might come out too thin (if anyone understands what I mean, describing sound i mostly useless from the start), as the bodys small already. I don't want to "over-brace" it.

I would be really grateful for any ideas, advice and encouragement. (Lutherie can be intimidating)

Cheers
Felix

[Mark Swanson]

Hi Felix, Welcome to the MIMForum.
Good luck with your guitar! I think the bracing is a good place to start but I'd leave out everything below the bridge plate but the X-brace. In other words, the cross brace, and the two smallest finger braces.

[Felix Trebol]

Thanks for the quick reply and the warm welcome Mark.
I wasn´t sure if the space between the X-legs would be stable enough, but I guess the tailblock takes quite a bit of the tension. I hope I can gather enough opinions untill next week, so that I can start making the braces.

[Michael Lewis]

Felix, are you planning to anchor the strings in a pin type bridge or in the tail block? The pin bridge will usually produce better sound but exerts more forces on the soundboard. Since there is no rotational force to the bridge if the strings are anchored at the tail block the bracing has less work to do and can be lighter, which makes the top more acoustically responsive. I am just playing with ideas here.

[Felix Trebol]

Hey Michael,

Thank you for the input. That´s an interesting idea. I think I´ll consider that advice for heavier stringed instruments. I hope with that one, a well braced top, pin type bridge, ultra-light gauge and bit of luck will do the job ; )
Nick from Wildwood instruments actually gave me some info on how he braces his travel weissenborns.That was really nice.
I´ll make sure to post some pictures of the progress soon.

Cheers man

Felix

[Dan Phillips]

Michael:

Please play with your ideas a bit more. How would anchoring the strings to the tailblock on a full sized Weissenborn affect the construction? Seems like a good idea if you get enough vibration transferred to the bridge.

[Michael Lewis]

For a full size instrument the pin bridge would be better for sound production, unless you incorporate a resonator cone. Since the original inquiry was directed at possible solutions for a 'travel' instrument, which are often smaller than full sized instruments, I took that into consideration for my answer. A floating bridge on a flat top is not as likely to get sufficient down force from the strings. It gets better if you use a pliage or a carved top to get the additional down force.