Quote:
Originally Posted by redir
My understanding is that the term is used to describe the cross section of the brace once it's finished. It has nothing to do with the arch of the top and really nothing to do with scalloped bracing too. One can carve parabolic shaped braces into scalloped braces if they want. It's just a figurative word. A word used to describe the shape of the brace in cross section to be like a parabola. I think it's a useful term to describe the bracing shape.
The best guitars I have built have been with tapered bracing. When I first started building I had this idea in my head that scalloped bracing was rather silly. Why loosen up the top where it's strength is needed the most? Why have this big huge mass of a brace so close to the rim that scallops back up to the bridge? The rims themselves are a sort of brace. That's the strongest area of the top and no doubt the rims stiffen a good portion of the top around it. So tapered braces are strong where you need them, the center and weakest part of the top, and then taper off and get weaker and weaker as they approach the stiff rim.
Whether or not that is accurate is beside the point, it's what I adopted and has worked well. I have built a few scalloped braced guitars and will continue to do so. I just built a tenor guitar with scalloped bracing thinking that such an instrument would benefit from having more bass response. But so far I really like the tapered bracing.
All the braces on the guitars I build will have a 'parabolic' shape to them. Is that really even a new thing?
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Interesting, I wasn't aware of the term being applied to the cross section. I was thinking of braces shaped like an open umbrella longitudinally. Convex. Regardless of their cross section shape.
Regardless, I couldn't care less whether "parabolic" is a mathematically correct descriptor.
I'm just curious about convex vs Golden gate bridge profiles.