The other Barbero plan

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Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

The other Barbero plan

This plan is not being discussed very much here. And thats a pitty.
IMHO, its the best starting point for a new luthier. The reson being that it is very standard, referring to what I´ve seen over the years here in Andalucia. There´s nothing extreme in this design and so its a good place to start and eventually go on somewhere else. Besides that, it produces a very nice and well balanced guitar if you get the figures right.
The problem with the plan is that its confusing because the author, Lewis, has drawn 2 plans in one drawing. I refer to the Barbero guitar. Not the one Lewis made.
I´ve built some guitars from that plan, In the start I made the 7 piece fan braces 5mm wide and 4 mm high. This I changed to 6mm wide and 3,5mm high. Closing struts 5mm wide and 3mm high in both examples. Later on I made the bridge strap go all the way from one side to another, 15mm wide and 1 - 1,2mm thick. That last version I braced flat and all my guitars since then (60 - 70) have been braced flat. All this is a good example on how you can start with a design and devellop it into your likings.
I dont build this concept anymore. The last 40 - 50 guitars have a 5 piece fan bracing and 2 closing struts Layed out evenly to cover the whole soundboard and almost parallel braces. But for those wanting to build from a plan, this is a good starting point because its very middle of the road and very flamenco. It produces a solid sounding guitar. Percussive and responsive but with a bit more hamonics and sustain compared to the ultra old style designs. But all this depends 100 times more on the hands than on the design.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 14 2014 11:20:11

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Interesting Barbero reading:

http://www.vintageguitar.com/1949/marcelo-barbero-guitars/

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 14 2014 11:35:04

C. Vega

Posts: 379
Joined: Jan. 16 2004

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Just a couple of comments on the Brune article:

Barbero may well have completed the structural work on the guitars that were left in the Santos workshop following his passing but the finishing work was most likely done by Manuel Rodriguez I, the grandfather of the current head of the Manuel Rodriguez guitar manufacturing company. Barbero lived in had his shop in the same building on C. Ministriles in Madrid as the Rodriguez family. Rodriguez I worked as a finisher in the Ramirez shop for many years and later worked for a number of other Madrid makers including Santos.
There is a photo in the book by Manuel Rodriguez II of Barbero, Rodriguez I and the violin maker Fernando Solar Gonzalez posing in their working clothes in front of the old Santos shop on C. Aduana. Santos' widow was doing some wheeling and dealing in violins to supplement her income and had hired Solar to evaluate instruments and do repair work.

Feliciano (Felix) Bayon de la Morena was not married to one of Santos' nieces but rather to Esperanza Ruiz, a niece of Santos' wife Matilde Ruiz Lopez. It's quite unlikely that he knew or ever met Santos but he milked the marital connection for all it was worth by labeling his guitars "Sobrinos de Santos Hernandez". It was several years after Santos had passed away that he met and married Esperanza.
Feliciano's son, Santos Bayon Ruiz, essentially did the same sort of labeling thing.
Marketing, plain and simple.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 15 2014 1:32:49

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

C. Vega - your contact information has been requested by a dealer who has one of your guitars on consignment. He needs a current email for you. If you don't know which dealer email and I will tell you, otherwise you need to get in contact with the dealer via email. I was asked to pass this message to you.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 15 2014 9:21:43

Ricardo

Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to C. Vega)

quote:

Feliciano (Felix) Bayon de la Morena was not married to one of Santos' nieces but rather to Esperanza Ruiz, a niece of Santos' wife Matilde Ruiz Lopez.

Thanks for clarification, but honestly, my wife's brother's daughter is, for example, more than just a niece to me, more like a daughter. Her future husband will be like a son. So no need for splitting hairs on family ties we get quite clearly that Santos had no true apprentice so of course it's all marketing. But a niece is a niece.

Ricardo

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 15 2014 20:52:09

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

C. Vega

Thanks for chiming in. Its good to see that there are other builders visiting the forum here and then.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 16 2014 7:44:39

MiSz

Posts: 27
Joined: Jan. 26 2011

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Hey Anders,

this is a really great post - i have never read the article before.

I have a few questions about this plan:

The bracing seems to have a quite long taper in front of the bridge making the bracing less controlled in the upper area - did you make any soundboard tapering apart from the usual edge taper?

Why did you changed the fan brace size - due to stiff pulsation?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 16 2014 9:16:45

C. Vega

Posts: 379
Joined: Jan. 16 2004

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson

C. Vega

Thanks for chiming in. Its good to see that there are other builders visiting the forum here and then.

Thanks, Anders. But just for the record, I no longer make guitars. I haven't made any guitars in nearly 10 years.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 16 2014 10:23:37

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

quote:

Thanks, Anders. But just for the record, I no longer make guitars. I haven't made any guitars in nearly 10 years.

I know, but I still consider you a builder and will always do.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2014 8:05:21

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to MiSz)

quote:

Why did you changed the fan brace size - due to stiff pulsation?

That is sooo difficult to explain with words. You more or less have to try yourself. And in the end its a personal thing. I just find that lower and wider braces work better for flamencos. They get a better and bigger sweet spot and a better high midrange growl. And thats the reason I find Romanillos bracing very bad for flamenco.

I dont understand what you mean by "a quite long taper in front of the bridge".

I didnt do any special tapering of the soundboard. I taper very little before assembly and control thickness after assembly with a hacklinger guide. You always end up making the soundboard (and the back) thinner towards the edges when you trim the bindings and purflings.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2014 8:11:15

Tom Blackshear

Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

quote:

I dont understand what you mean by "a quite long taper in front of the bridge".

It could be that he meant that some brace patterns have a more parabolic style of taper from top to bottom but I agree with your ideal of keeping the braces fairly even in their height from top to bottom.

Eugene Clark once explained it to me that braces in a flamenco guitar act like a fishing pole with a whipping action along their full length and its best to keep their height even along the full length.............and

.....like you say the lower braces give a sweeter sound with higher frequencies.

However, this is not to say it is a hard and fast rule, as I've seen parabolic bracing on some modern flamenco guitars. But I didn't like it that much.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 18 2014 12:03:21

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The other Barbero plan (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

So just a round up.

This thread (that I started) is yet another one that puts a lot of emphasis on the bracing of a flamenco guitar.
When you read forums like this one. You get the idea that the way you glue the little sticks (the bracing) inside the guitar has an enormous importance for the guitars sound and playability. Therefor guitar plans are being handled as if they were some sacred treasures and the drawers of the plans like they were the apostels with the direct knowledge from the old master themselves.

Well, the little sticks are important. Just as the bridge and many other things are important. But IMHO the most important thing is to get the soundboard right. Not only in the preparation of the soundboard, but specially on the final product. Its the soundboard that produces the sound and balances out the instrument. The little sticks are there more than anything to control the soundboard. So if the plate isnt right, you can only try to make a decent compromise using the sticks, but you can never make a really good instrument.
I have tried flamecno guitars from very well known builders that had extremely different bracing systems and that sounded and played almost identically and that all had that special sound of that builder.
Why: because the builder had his way of calibrating the soundboard and balancing out the instrument.

The problem here is that trying to explain to someone on an internet forum how to make the soundboard right is more or less impossible. I have never seen any posts that got near saying anything valuable about that theme. And there is, of course, no right way of calibrating and balancing out the soundboard. Thats why there are so many good builders. Bot nowadays and also in the times of the "old masters". In the end taste is different. Some like theirs eggs 3 minuts and 30 seconds and others prefer 10 seconds more or less.

So we end up discussing details and some posters like it that way because then they can keep on profiling themselves as being the masters of the little sticks.

The plan I posted here is good but its nothing more than a plan. Its a very typical "middle of the the road" approach to a good flamenco guitar that is easy to use as a base for trying things out. But just as any other plan, it misses the most important information, the soundboard. I mentioned the way I changed the bracing over the years. That was good for me. But it might be wrong for you because maybe you have another way of balancing the soundboard.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Oct. 22 2014 7:23:17