Cross bar on some steel guitars

[Ron Scott]

Just kind of curious as to why the cross bar on some steels? My thoughts are, it has something to do with not flexing? Ron

[Marco Schouten]

It helps to prevent the body from flexing. Imagine a shoebox, when you push in the middle, the sidewalls move outward, allowing it to bend. if you connect the sidewalls with a bracket, you prevent them from bending outwards, thus reducing flexing of the top of the box. It works the same on a steel guitar, though the flexing can't be seen by the naked eye.

[Ian Rae]

I once had an old D10 which showed no signs of distortion at all, but I could barely lift it.
The puzzle of improving rigidity without adding weight (ideally) is ages old.
My modern instruments are much lighter but don't bend either, so clearly some progress has been made!

[Jack Stoner]

I was told Emmons did it becau8se as Marco mentions the aprons bowing out. I had a 71 Emmons with the metal bar and when I got my Franklin, that initially had some crossbar binding problems (that Mr. Franklin took care of) I decided to install a bar similar to the Emmons. Mr. Franklin saw it and apparently thought it was a good idea as he started installing them on the Franklins.

[Jim Palenscar]

Some guitars had a tendency for the aprons to warp and the cross shafts could fall out. To prevent that cross straps were used on some- many times not needed but an inexpensive ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure.

[Erv Niehaus]

The way the p/p Emmon's cross shafts were mounted needed the crossbar or they would bind if the sides bowed out.
I rebuilt an Emmons p/p and I had to rework the cross shafts mounting blocks to take care of the binding issue.
Erv

[Ron Scott]

My Franklin did not come with it and I have never had any issues. Jim Palenscar worked on it once and never said anything so never knew why. Thanks for the replys. Ron