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Which set of plans?
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: Which set of plans? (in reply to Cymro)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Cymro Hi all, it's my birthday today (Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me etc . . . ) and a kind soul gave me some money, not knowing what else I would want or need. I've been looking at the GAL plans for a while, but put off buying because of the weather (85% humidity for the next few months.) I'm also finding it hard to decide between the Barbero and the Reyes plans because I have no information on either. Purely on gut feeling, the Barbero has it for me - one reason is that it has a slightly longer string length and my current 650mm guitar feels a little cramped. I could scale up the Reyes a little, but don't know how the rest of the dynamics might be affected. So; would anybody be able to offer me any advice based on anything but instinct (experience, maybe?) please? Bear in mind that this will be my first guitar of ANY sort! I've built about 5 guitars with the RE Brune Barbero plan and they were good but one was so fine that Brune wanted to keep it for his collection. However, the Reyes plan is a much easier build. I drew this plan with the idea of giving the builder a good reference point with a few fine tuning basics, and some first time builders were very happy with it. However, no plan is without fault in explaining everything you would need to get things right. I would be sure to have a teacher available for some of the basic building techniques. The Barbero plan is good but it takes a lot of tweaking to get the sound and articulation right. The one that Richard Brune liked, took me about two months to get the voicing in line. BTW, the Reyes scale is 655 mm and this scale fits what Reyes has designed in his guitar, so it would not be a good idea to change the scale.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 20 2010 12:41:53
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Cymro
Posts: 22
Joined: Mar. 8 2010
From: North Wales, UK
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RE: Which set of plans? (in reply to Cymro)
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Thanks for the replies; I've only just read them since we had a few friends round yesterday to help celebrate the day (60 down, 40 to go . . . ) OK, based on your collective experience, I'm sold on the Reyes plans. Maybe I'll try the Barbero at a later date? I agree that it would be helpful to have a teacher on hand, but I'm afraid that's just a wish. None of my friends, relatives or acquaintances are even woodworkers, let alone luthiers. I do have an 18-year-old son of a cousin on the Isle of Man who has built an electric guitar, but that's it . . . ! I'm afraid I will have to rely on what I can find in books - I have Irving Sloane, Donald McLeod (both probably 1960s/70s) John Bogdanovich, Jim Williams and Andrew Allen. The techniques used are fairly universal, (except for the McLeod book which uses a dovetailed neck joint) Some use a solera, some don't; some use a mould, some don't - but they all seem to work out in the end. I originally envisaged building a classical to modify into a flamenco guitar, but at that time I wasn't aware that the flamenco plans were available. The description of some of the techniques can be difficult to visualise from a book, but I find that actually doing the job usually points the way. I already have the wood for my project - the soundboard is Englemann spruce, cypress back and ribs, Spanish cedar for the neck and birdseye bocote for the fingerboard, bridge and head veneers (I may yet change the last two for some very nicely figured morado I have) Does that sound a good combination for the Reyes plans - not necessarily aesthetically, but in terms of tone production? Thanks again to you both for the advice; experience is a thing you can't beat and can't buy!
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Nov. 21 2010 7:45:35
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