Do you need advice on how to make your guitar produce a larger, more appealing sound? Well, look no further than Erica Hoskins and her thesis. Erica decided to attempt to create a guitar with a carbon-fiber structure; she hypothesized that the carbon fiber brace would create a better quality sound in the guitar. Erica’s mentor, Pat Wecther , and she designed a carbon-fiber, x-ladder braced guitar hoping to create a guitar with better sound.

Over the summer, Erica and Mr. Wechter designed and hand-made a soundboard with carbon-fiber bracing in order to create the base of a guitar. After creating the structures, they used a epoxy glue in order to hold the bracing together. Although the experiment failed, Erica and her mentor both are hopeful about the possibilities of carbon fiber bracing. They said that due to the width of the strips of the structure and the epoxy used to hold it together; the guitar weight and sound was not quite as loud as they had predicted. Both are excited to explore the possibilities of both bracing and different materials to create a more melodious guitar. Erica completed and defended her thesis on November 17th with flying colors, and she has joined the pack of seniors who have finished their thesis before Christmas Break.