When was x-bracing invented?

[BlueMountain]

Anyone know approximately when X-bracing was invented? I recently bought an old mandolin for very little for the pleasure of repairing it. All mahogany except for the top. Seems handcarved. Someone seems to have sprayed it over and attacked the head with an electric circular sander. Tuners seem to be 20s or maybe 30s and are missing most of the gears. I was surprised to discover that it has X-bracing. It was well-fitted to the top, but crudely made. Coming loose on one end. Another end nearly split off. One end someone attacked with a pocket knife or chisel. Anyway, I'd guess that this was made in the 30s by a home builder with quite a bit of skill, were it not for the X-bracing. That's why I'm wondering when it was invented. Thanks.

[Dave Cohen]

Before your mandolin. I think it dates back to 19th century Europe. I have seen some accounts claiming that C.F. Martin #1 tried it in some gut strung guitars in the 19th century, then abandoned it in favor of the prevalent fan bracing. It was resurrected by the Martin Company when it was found to work well with wire-strung (i.e., steel string) guitars.

[Paul Hostetter]

Martin and a number of other German-surnamed contemporaries like Schatz, Schmidt and Mauel were X-bracing guitars from the 1830's on. The earliest Martins were ladder braced however, particularly the Stauffer items, and Martin always had a sprinkling of fan-braced guitars from very early on, and were somewhat more common on the really small (sizes 1, 2, and 2-1/2) models into the 1890s when they went fully for X-braces.

You can surmise that these German guys all brought the idea from Europe, since they were all of the same "school" of making before they immigrated. But finding the smoking gun in Europe has been pretty elusive.

I'm curious to know who put the first x-braces in a carved-top instrument. I was told it was John D'Angelico, but I really don't know.

[Eugene]

There is a gentleman who owns an X-braced mid-18th-c. English guittar (a type of cittern) and claims it to look to be original. This is just one of those features that is old enough and occasionally widespread enough that there is no good way to pin the attribution on any one entity.

[Dale Ludewig]

Mr. (Dave) Cohen, my friend, are we referring here to flat top mandolins? I would assume so. Certainly no carved top mandolins need such bracing...? Excuse me, tone bars.

So is the question actually going back to who first x-braced instrument tops, not mandolins? That's a different question. When did Weber start x-bracing? Were they not the first doing so with an arched top instrument?

I'm just as curious as the next person in line. Interesting question. But here we go: we must define what we're talking about. IMHO.

[Dave Cohen]

I was refering to X-bracing in general. Neapolitan mandolins were always (that I know of) ladder braced, as were things like Vega cylinderbacks (w/ some modification). Orville Gibson believed in as little bracing as possible. Don't know when someone first tried X-bracing in a mandolin or archtop guitar, but they would certainly had to have taken their inspiration from the guitar and cittern makers referred to by Paul and Eugene, as well as from Martin.

[Tom Smart]

Don't know when someone first tried X-bracing in a mandolin or archtop guitar...
I don't know either, but Gibson was producing X-braced archtop guitars in the 1930s. Also, Gilchrist was X-bracing mandolins many years before Weber.

[Dale Ludewig]

Thanks, Dave and Tom.

[Jim Hilburn]

This is something I read on someone's blog that I ran across while researching the octave and can't verify it, but he said they went to X bracing after pickups were starting to be used as a way to suppress feedback.
That doesn't sound very reasonable but it's just something I read. I guess that would mean a very rigid X brace.

[Paul Hostetter]

Gibson was x-bracing instruments before they put pickups in them. They did eventually build their archtops very heavy to help avoid feedback, but the bracing style wasn't part of that.

[BlueMountain]

Well, last night I washed the inside back of the mandolin thoroughly with wet paper towels, as it was extremely dirty, and set it aside to dry. Today I had a look, and what do I find but a pencilled date written below where the f-hole would be. 1947. So now I know how old it is, and now we know that people were making themselves mandolins with x-bracing sixty years ago. Interesting. Thanks for your help with this.

It's clear that at one point there was a brace glued horizontally across the back. It's no longer there. The back is mahogany, very thin, and it's cracked vertically in a number of places and been reglued. I can't find any evidence that it was carved, and I suspect it was instead steamed and pressed into shape. I think that tends to lead to internal stresses that lead to cracks in a large surface like a back. Do you think I should put another brace on the back? As I got this broken, I don't know how it sounds or if that sound might be decreased in some quality by the lack of the brace.

Thanks.