Brace wood

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Not Good. Too Heavy

Dougbias said:

Wondering a what the consensus out there is about using Baltic Burch for brace wood?View attachment 121539

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Apart from experiments into laminated Balsa, I have not strayed from Spruce for soundboard bracing. For back and side bracing however, I have tried a few different woods that were stiff/strong enough, quartersawn and not too heavy. It appears that Baltic Birch is a general classification, and can vary greatly from piece to piece. If you cut a brace-sized stick from your stock and test it, it may prove to be suitable for back bracing.

I heard a Birch guitar played once and it was fairly bright and clear. My understanding is that it's a wood that really benefits some from aging to produce its best tone, and which results more in the tone becoming clearer than full or rich. Apologies in advance for using words with ambiguous meaning to describe what I heard

Birch top but usually still has spruce braces. I would not want to use birch, why make the instrument less efficient than it could be?

I would not recommend using plywood for braces. Use spruce or cedar (usually the same wood as the soundboard).