"Cornerless Italian & Spanish Basses"

[Arnold Schnitzer]

Originally Posted by Ken McKay

Ken,

Could you please look inside there when you get a chance and tell me the bracing on the sides. I am at that point in my cornerless construction and need some help.

Hi Ken,

I think you do nothing good by putting braces in the ribs of your cornerless bass. The 90 degree attachment will likely lead to rib cracks, just like at the corners of old basses where the rib shrinks and the block stays put. If you are concerned about a small rib crack developing into a "zipper" and traveling around the whole body, you can run some linen strips across the ribs about every 8-10" or so. Put them in with weak hide glue and run them up onto the linings, otherwise you'll cause a new stress point where the linen ends. My experience is that these strips remain a tiny bit flexible, and while they stop small cracks from spreading, they don't cause new ones. I have been using this technique in all my handmade basses. Old Martin guitars have similar strips I've been told.