I have no idea how thick the bridge plate will be. For all I know John will thin it until it sounds/feels right to him.
Perhaps he will enlighten us when he has a moment between brace deflection tests!
I believe he put these braces with the grain Vertical instead of the usual split quarter sawn easy to carve way, as an experiment. He knows I Love the experiments.
See his thread about this here:
https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=590038
I think he said If he is not happy he will shave them down to almost gone and heat them off. (And start over...). SIGH!
Hide glue is good for that.
I expect to see more soon as he IS working on this now. At least he was when I called a couple days ago to slow him down! Hahahaha
Salud, ALL
Paul