I've got hand-made guitars, and I play them either in Minnesota, where I burn wood for heat in the winter months, or Arizona, where dust from the desert is a huge issue. The inside of my guitars, ALL of them, either have fine sawdust from the construction process or pickup installation, fine sand dust that blows around in the Arizona desert, fine soot dust from the wood burning stove, or any combination of all three. All of which create a buildup which inhibits sufficient adhesion of the 4 white stick pads on the essential X-Brace. My reccomendation to Tonewood was simply to suggest that people invest all of 45 seconds to dust out the inside back of the guitar. Also, if you live far from town like I do, next time you're near a hardware store buy a small package of double sided tape similar to what Tonewood supplies. *Tonewood was good enough to supply me with extra stick pads, but with all that dust and a TINY soundhole on one guitar, I was glad I had picked some up as a ride to town mid-install was 30 minutes at 30 degrees BELOW zero when I was at that stage. For whatever reason they chose not to advise people to perform a quick dust-up, but it takes literally seconds, and nothing was more frustrating than to hear that brace dislodge, only to discover the stick pads had completely lost their "stick".

Answer I JUST had this experience! Ugh! My heart sank...