Product Review: Stew-Mac Shaped Dreadnought Braces

Reviewed by John Calkin

Originally published in American Lutherie #79, 2004 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015



Stewart-MacDonald kindly sent along a set of their shaped dreadnought braces for evaluation. This set up such an internal philosophical debate that I'd like to put off the brace examination for a minute.

Just how much of an instrument can we job out and still call it our own? Two decades ago, when I was green and full of attitude, the answer was simple — none of it! Beginning luthiers often harbor a purist attitude that can leave them dreaming of harvesting their own trees, processing their own lumber, and drawing upon nothing from outside their shop but machine heads and strings. Those of us who have actually engaged in such activities have usually found them very satisfying but demanding the answer to another question: Do we want to be luthiers or lumberjacks? In other words, reality can bite us in the butt pretty early in the game. There is so much involved in building an instrument that calling for help in the form of commercial parts might be excused or even expected. Will a commercial truss rod degrade the quality of an instrument? No. Will a commercial bridge or pickguard devalue our work? I don't think so. OK, so how about a commercial set of braces? Suddenly it feels like we're heading into a different sort of territory.