Best Wood For Guitar Bracing

Cedar is a bright sounding wood option though produces a warmer tone than spruce the most common top wood see below when used as a top.

Best wood for guitar bracing.

Falcate and x bracing over the course of the years different bracing designs and modifications have been used. However some experienced luthiers and musicians might find it of interest as well. Hardwoods cherry oak walnut etc can produce some very pretty cabinets but you do want to have proper bracing on the longer panels of whatever size cabinet you re building to keep the panels from humming in the mid range. A guitar s internal bracing is one of the most important elements of a guitar and is sometimes overlooked.

The wood for bracing needs to be light but strong and spruce fits this bill well. Braces are always quarter sawn as this is the strongest cut of wood. The soundboard bracing doesn t just minimize the distortion from string tension but it affects the sound of the guitar itself. Contrary to resonance in a guitar this can produce some nasty results.

Normally the guitar is braced with the same wood that is used for the top. Braces add most of the stiffness to the top. As their name implies their purpose is to add stiffness and strength to the guitar s thin top as well as help define its acoustic voice by influencing different movements. What wood is best for bracing top bracing is most commonly made from spruce regardless of the tone wood used for the top itself.

This is often used on classical guitars but also sometimes on steel string acoustics. Spruce has the highest strength to weight ratio of any wood and is the preferred wood for sound board braces because of that. Bracing for the top is the most important bracing in terms of the tone of the guitar. Most guides out there are filled with lots of details but unless you want to dive deep into it you don t need to know the nuts and bolts at the molecular level.

However some guitar builders find occasion to use an exceptionally stiff species such as adirondack spruce on a top that needs extra support such as cedar or redwood. This wood is strong and stiff making it a good candidate for necks and fingerboards especially for bass guitars. This is necessary to prevent the top from destroying itself from the tension of the strings. Koa is a pricier wood as it s less common.

I d like to discuss the basics of bracing used in classical guitar making. This is a guest post by luthier marcus dominelli victoria bc canada. A brace with the same strength made some other wood will be larger and hence carry more weight making it less ideal. So use sitka spruce to brace a sitka top german spruce to brace a german top and so on.