Vintage Espana Bracing Issue

[skoshi84]

I am trying to repair an older nylon string Espana guitar that has been in my family since the 60s.

It has a slight belly, so I decided to look into installing a Bridge Doctor on it. Before doing the install, I took a look inside the guitar and discovered that the two lateral braces are separating from the spruce top. The brace closest to the bridge cracked as well. The fan bracing on the top seems to be perfectly fine, and the back braces are also fine.

The guitar doesn’t rattle or anything, but it is a little dead. If you look at the video in the link below, you’ll notice that the braces are barely attached.

I’m debating on whether or not installing the bridge doctor at this point is a bad idea. it doesn’t rattle right now. Do you think installing the bridge doctor will pull the braces closer to the guitar as it flattens and cause it to rattle?

I’m also considering removing the back of the guitar and reworking the braces. I was already planning to redo the binding on the back of the guitar anyway, as it is deteriorating.

The worst idea I have had is to remove the problem braces and see what happens with only the Bridge Doctor and fan braces to support the top. That would mostly be to satisfy my morbid curiosity.

Any guidance will be graciously received!

If you want to see what it looks like in the guitar, I took a video. It is in the link below.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0QG4TcsmGUQXCm