No center seam brace on back ?

[Rockysdad]

I'm curious if anyone knows why, on my L-03 custom shop Flame Maple there is no brace ( don't know the proper terminology ) ? All my other guitars have it but not on this Flame Maple.

[unclrob]

Do you mean a center seam brace?What year?

[Mikeymac]

Larrivees typically don't have a center seam strip of wood inside the guitar, even though all Larrivees have two piece backs. It's just the way Larrivee builds 'em.

[B0WIE]

It's not a brace. It's often just called a center seam strip. It's there for cosmetic reasons on some guitars. I've been advised by a few luthiers that it doesn't really offer any support (discovered this when I researched repairing the strip inside my Bourgeois).

[AZLiberty]

The Center seam strip used to be used only on Larrivee guitars that had a decorative center strip for extra reinforcement.

At some point the California shop started doing it on everything because (as Matt said) it actually cost less to simply do everything the same.

None of my Larrivees have a center seam strip.

[Rockysdad]

I'm curious if anyone knows why, on my L-03 custom shop Flame Maple there is no brace ( don't know the proper terminology ) ? All my other guitars have it but not on this Flame Maple.

Sorry, Yes I mean the center seam, on the back. It's a 2016, my L-10 has it. When I saw a picture of another Maple back that someone had posted I noticed it didn't have it either, so I was curious as to why some did & some didn't. I've only noticed it missing on the Flame Maple wood.

[eded]

At some point the California shop started doing it on everything because (as Matt said) it actually cost less to simply do everything the same.

Same reason all Larrivee have the reinforcing cloth where a potential "barn door" would go, and drilling out the endpin hole.  Cheaper to do it to all than to mark individuals for special treatment.

Ed

[willynelson13]

I'm curious if anyone knows why, on my L-03 custom shop Flame Maple there is no brace ( don't know the proper terminology ) ? All my other guitars have it but not on this Flame Maple.

Here is an explanation from Matt, from a very old thread I was reading. I was searching for who makes L body copies.
http://www.toonz.ca/bose/wiki/index.php?title=Larriv%C3%A9e_Guitar_Models



Construction - Internal Back Strip
LarriveeInternalBackStrip.jpg

    Jean's first guitars had the internal back strip [as mentioned]. I believe he used it somewhere through to about 1983-84. If I remember correctly it stopped when we moved to North Vancouver. At the time the strip did serve to reinforce the back because we had a decorative strip of purfling down the center seem. When that purfling strip was removed from the design, the mahogany re-enforcement was no longer necessary.

    Fast forward to 2007 when we made the JCL re-issue guitars... We put the re-enforcement strip on these guitars because we added the purfling strip again. We looked at it and realized we liked the look of it inside the instrument and so we decided to put the strip on all of the glossy guitars in the California shop. The Canadian shop also puts the strips on -05 series and up guitars but does not put them on -03's because of the added cost involved. We do sometimes add the strips to special run -03's that we make in California.

    The strip is mostly decorative – It does help somewhat on extremely oily woods, but really the center seam join we do is so strong that it is un-necessary.