3 Fan Bracing is enough for Uke,Or not?

How different if I use 5 fan brace?

Just want you all to share.

Thank you.

The less bracing, the better The better THE sound.....

Depends on the size of the braces. If you keep five at the weight of three, it could be just fine. Don't forget, some...like Allen...go with lattice bracing on some ukes, and that's a lot more braces than five.

We use three below a somewhat diagonal transverse brace, and folks like the sound of our ukes.

I've been putting in 5 on my tenors for the last 1/2 dozen and am really liking the sound as well as how they control the dome on the top. Of course they are much smaller and finer taper on them than using only 3.

For many years I did three braces, then five for a few years and I'm back to three now. I'll probably be doing five next week. But by itself, none of that really matters. The top plate has to thought of as a whole of it's components; the stiffness, strength and thickness of the top, any radius you might have, the bridge patch, whether or not you reduce the thickness around the perimeter, the number and arrangement of braces as well as their size and shape, etc. Change one thing and you'll likely have to change everything else.

Moore Bettah Ukuleles said:

For many years I did three braces, then five for a few years and I'm back to three now. I'll probably be doing five next week. But by itself, none of that really matters. The top plate has to thought of as a whole of it's components; the stiffness, strength and thickness of the top, any radius you might have, the bridge patch, whether or not you reduce the thickness around the perimeter, the number and arrangement of braces as well as their size and shape, etc. Change one thing and you'll likely have to change everything else.

Click to expand...

Hi Chuck,.....you had me curious so i took a look inside your Mermaid Soprano i bought from The Music Emporium a few years ago. It has a soundport, and i looked thru the main soundhole with a mirror also.
http://www.themusicemporium.com/product-detail/product/moore-bettah-soprano-mermaid.html

Heheh, when i first looked inside, i was looking just under the bridge plate and saw only a single fairly light brace
running straight back between the soundhole and tail block. I thought, that can't be right (thinking from a classical
guitar or steel string top mindset, where there are multiple fan braces back of the bridgeplate, among other places.)

Then it dawned on me to check around the soundhole, where i found 4 additional (and much stouter) braces at all
4 "corners" (boxing in the soundhole area). So mine is a 5 bracer........

I was actually surprised to find these soundhole braces as thick as they were, but that's only because the single one
under the bridge plate is so much thinner. Again,...this "uke" autopsy/visual disection being fairly new to me.
(and there is some support offered by the bridge plate,....a "6th" brace of sorts)

I was curious if you've experimented with a build that had the upper braces thinned as much as the single
lower brace? (or close) In other words, not a build you would feel safe in selling, fearing that the top may dome up over a period of time.

But a build that would tell you a lot about what little tone or volumn production you give up in order to build/sell a
ukulele that should be relatively problem free if well cared for? I'm sure every builder does some experimenting for
their own development, just wondering what you might have discovered?

This might be a possibility in a smaller scale soprano size, where the shorter scale exerts the least total string
tension of all the ukulele sizes.

BTW, the ukulele sounds wonderful now that i changed a bad A string 2 weeks ago, and have played it maybe
40 or 50 hours. It seems to have opened up a bit over that time, but was always very rich sounding with a lot
of overtones eminating. My only problem from time to time is on some fingerstyle pieces i'm working on.

I could use a bit more fretboard scale length, as in a concert size. Maybe a slothead tenor after that! :drool:

cheers,
Joe T

Shorter scale does NOT necessarily mean significantly lower tension, and it's actually possible for the opposite to be true.

You have to take into account the linear density/gauge of the string.

Rick Turner said:

Shorter scale does NOT necessarily mean significantly lower tension, and it's actually possible for the opposite to be true.

You have to take into account the linear density/gauge of the string.

Click to expand...

Yeah,....i can see that entering the picture. But the "relative" total string tensions do follow that for any given
density/guage of string set used,....the shorter scale instrument will have the lowest total tension.

I will say that playing my MB soprano with an Aquilla regular set of strings on is a lot easier on my now worn fingers
than playing my Bluegrass Ukuleles Tenor size with Aquila low G setup. A few more days and my callouses will be
fully formed, and it won't much matter,....from a "painful" perspective!