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Hello everyone, this is my first my post, I was hoping some of you could recommend to me some books on building a Flamenco I only play guitar but have always wanted to build one for myself. My confusion came from only finding classical building books any help would be appreciated
secondly, you wont find books on building flamenco guitars. But, the bogdanovich and the courtnall books are solid gold. they will show you how to build a guitar. That is the key.
The differences of a flamenco guitar are slight, but important. If you understand the process of making the guitar you will be easily able3 to incorporate the small differences. You just buy the plan for a flamenco guitar and follow it.
As for the actual building, I have found that sometimes I get stuck. When I do my immediate reaction is to jump on the compy and head for the foro. This is generally a bad idea. because most often the response is "use your intuition" because, for the large part, thats how you build a guitar. it isnt rocket science, there is more than one right answer, and if you screw up, hey you learned a new way not to make a guitar!
Another really awesome resource is the El Guitarrero video you see the banner ad for at the top of the page. If you watch closely you'll see all sorts of details, like for example, how anders shapes the braces so that they are flared up higher on the end closest to the sound hole.
That and his general low key way and calmness will help reassure you that building a guitar is really just about taking some time.
Thank you for your book suggestions and your tips altogether i will be sure to post pictures of the process of my first guitar. Seeing as it is my first guitar I was thinking of using pine just for training so I can get the feel and most likely ruin a cheap wood, any suggestions about choice of wood for first time guitar building.
Hi, another good book is the book by Cumpiano and Nateson. I am doing my first steps in guitar making and there is something you should know, it is highly addictive.
Actually, pine is generally a very light yet ridiculously strong wood. The high quality stuff makes for great tops for steel string guitars, but as for using cheap pine on a flamenco? No idea. If you have nothing but time to kill then go for it, the worst that can happen is you learn something from first-hand experience.
but..... they aren't pine.... and i'm not sure he's european.....so i assumed that he meant pine.. like you get from home depot lol. where a new builder might think to go to beat the system....
When I first started playing guitar I kept running into references to Spanish Pine as top wood. I looked a lot like Red Cedar to me but what did I know? If a person is not a woodworker it would be easy get confused by naming conventions so I usually assume if a person refers to pine as top wood they mean Red Cedar.
It's also hard to imagine anyone tapping on a piece of pine and thinking it would make a guitar top. It's about as resonant as balsa . My first guitar was a flamenco with a body built entirely of Red Cedar with neckwood of Philippine Mahogany. I found a piece of ebony for the fingerboard and some rosewood at a shop where they made gunstocks but all the rest of the wood came from a lumber yard. Surprisingly it's still around after 40 some years and the neck is still straight.
post some pics for us so we can admire your handiwork llol
Oh no, I wouldn't want anyone to think I made something so ugly. I used a Dutch Boy stain that turned it sort of a greenish tone. Not at all what I expected.
If you want to see some pictures of our guitars look on my web page. It's currently being rebuilt but if you root around there are some pictures already up.
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. My first guitar was a flamenco with a body built entirely of Red Cedar with neckwood of Philippine Mahogany. I found a piece of ebony for the fingerboard and some rosewood at a shop where they made gunstocks but all the rest of the wood came from a lumber yard. Surprisingly it's still around after 40 some years and the neck is still straight. 
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