Hey OFC/BFLG!
What a crazy year it's been. I really pray all of you are doing okay. It's been so hectic, only one non-O archtop repair project is moving forward, but... there's been some seriously loud construction going on right in front of my house from midnight to 5am for the last 4 days and it has been impossible to get any sleep! Last night some of the construction workers were having a loud argument - just unbelievable! Doesn't even seem like I'm in Japan!

So, to keep my mind occupied I started going through my stash of lumber collected over the last 5 years since my guitar hacking days commenced, and I found some California Redwood and two sets of Hawaiian Koa. Set up my shooting board and have jointed one set a night over the last 3 nights.

The right Koa set is for an Aria AMB35s A/E rebuild. The center is California Redwood for a '64 Classical rebuild, and the set on the left is for my CC54i iDea. Currently, the iDea's original top is still intact with no braces; however, I'm very tempted at this point to pull the old Sitka Spruce top off in favor of this Koa set. First time for me to work with Koa for a guitar top; and man are these things hard! Ate through my regular sand paper in no time flat! So after consulting with some folks who know Koa more than myself, a 120 grit scouring pad was called into action, and voila - just great results. Nice, tap tone too!

Still have a set each of AA Sitka and torrefied Sitka Spruce, 2 Western Red Cedar sets, 2 Sakura sets, and a killer set of quartersawn Japanese Keyaki (Zelkova) sets. It's so hard to find a good set of straight grained Keyaki (almost always flat sawn for the deep and beautiful grain). 7 more sleepless nights of this construction, and all of these sets might be jointed! Lol! All kidding aside, this Koa is really inspiring me to take the iDea project off the shelf - not really a realistic assessment, but sure is tempting!

I'll make sure to post updates if the project moves forward. Stay safe everybody! Man, gotta catch some Z's!

Whew, I'm really liking this! Goin' with Hinoki bracing for the Redwood classical rebuild. This is not Sinker Redwood, so it's quite soft, but I'm hoping that the Hinoki combined with a modified Ramirez style bracing will keep the muddiness at bay. Can you tell what's behind the Hinoki bracing stock?

It's a glue-up (Hysol 9462) of 2mm CFRP sandwiched in 1mm Balsa. That's going to be bracing "stock" for my iDea rebuild. The CFRP/Balsa combination is so stiff, the main bracing doesn't even need to be 2mm high! Thinking about a custom bracing pattern and a low mass carbon fiber bridge design. With the hard Koa top, the guitar should be really sparkly. I don't think, I'll be able to get right to it, but man, the more I think about it the more I want to get going with the project!

So, stay safe OFC/BFLG and have a great weekend!

Thanks for the interest and nice comments everybody! The "on my door step" construction stopped for Sunday and Monday, but came back with a bang on Tuesday! Tonight, Wednesday, the construction continues, but has moved a few homes down. Feelin' sorry for our neighbors; but glad to be able to get some sleep!

...and, Yes, I do have a picture of my AMB35s in it's current state. This is not an O build so I won't go into too much detail here, but it's a small body acoustic/electric with the iconic Les Paul shape. This is gonna have one bass side F-hole, and two pick ups: one floating, and one 3 transducer going into a pre-amp. Planning on keeping the arrow like grain in the middle pointing up toward the neck for this project. I see what you mean about the Redwood table. Definitely thinking about flipping this one around! Thanks for the tip!

And below is my iDea Project that has been sitting on the shelf for literally years! The bolt-on neck with a neck extension that does not touch the top is already complete. Gonna try to remove and recycle the ebonized top on this iDea and keep it for another project. For this project, the top can accomodate the size of an O in only one direction.

This one's gonna get a custom bracing pattern loosely based on the A and Quintad braces. The tips of the CFRP/Balsa braces will need to be covered with fiberglass and epoxy to ensure the tips don't start peeling off the koa too. Of course, it's all a dream at this point, and with the snail paced progress of my in-process hack jobs; it's hard to imagine where the time is gonna come from! Hey, thanks for letting me share OFC/BFLG!

Please stay safe and despite the many limitations we're all experiencing, I pray you all have a blessed Thanksgiving!

After rough cutting my iDea top, I was also able to cut my CFRP/Balsa bracing stock down to the strips I needed. CFRP is a bear to saw, but it grinds and sands well, so I bought some inexpensive Japanese diamond cutters that fit my Dremel. And set-up my "hacks-r-us" jig (thanks for the kind comment seesquare! After re-reading my post, it almost sounded like I was fishing for compliments - sorry!). By my calculations, the brace stock didn't need to be more than 3mm, but after my first cut, 3mm seemed to be way more flexible than anticipated... so much for calculations. The brace height with the right flex turned out to be 5mm.

In either case, I'll need some 3mm braces for tone management too so none of this stuff will go to waste. Cut CFRP is really sharp and dangerous. Some say even the dust is dangerous for the lungs if inhaled so masks and goggles are a must. I forgot to wear my gloves, but CFRP is sharp and hard so it will splinter your skin easily and deeply. I was lucky this time, but gloves - definitely. Uploaded a simple video with my shopvac and Dremel at full blast (meaning turn speaker volume down!).

Was really pleased that this method worked! The jig took awhile to get right, but once set-up, it was pretty easy to finish the work. Just had to work really slow for each cut. The CFRP powder gets all over the Balsa, but each of these braces will be sanded to remove burrs, hand ground for flatness and shape, and cleaned. The CFRP provides hyper-rigidity and the Balsa provides a wide enough footprints for the adhesives to keep the CFRP/Balsa sandwich attached to the Koa top. The edges of each brace will most likely need to be further secured with fiberglass and resin. Even then, I should be able to make low-mass high rigidity bracing that will help the top resonate just a wee bit better. Will start a new rebuild thread, once the work of bracing the top begins. Thanks for letting me share!

The heirloom (left) rebuild features a slight variation on a '66 Ramirez bracing pattern. The soft California Redwood (not sinker) is complemented by slightly wide low profile ultra stiff Ezo spruce braces with a Koa bridge plate. The original laminated top collapsed two years ago. It was my Mom's first guitar, and I've been using it for years. This inexpensive student guitar had only 3 tone and two cross braces. 

The AMB35s features a variation on Ovation's awesome Quintad brace pattern. The Koa top is very hard and heavy (even when thicknessed to 2.5mm), but the braces are ultra light and relatively flexible Sugi cedar bracing that are shaped like the letter "I" and layed out in such a way as to treat the bridge on the top as a kind of "brace."

Voicing both tops took an enormous amount of time, but they both have excellent tap tone and sustain. The heirloom rebuild's box has been closed, and I'm waiting for parts to arrive for the AMB35s. Slow going, but definitely rewarding! Thanks for letting me share!