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Posts: 302
Joined: May 27 2005
From: Zürich, Switzerland
Question for luthiers
Hi all
Recently i've finished a flamenco guitar and i've got several problems on that guitar. I have already mentioned some of them in previous treads.
Soundwise the guitar is not too bad after it is somewhat broken in. However there are some ugly tones on the d and a string from the fifth fret upwards. The tone is nasal and sounds like out of a cardboard box. Has anybody an idea what could be the reason for that. Well as you might know the guitar has a too high string action of 4mm at the 12th fret. The distance from the low e string to the soundboard is 11,5mm at the 19th fret. However the ugly tones should not appear as classical guitars have that string distance as well and it doesn't sound like that.
The back is rather stiff, about 2,3mm thick and 2,2 around the periphery. The top has about 2,1 mm and 2,0 around the periphery. The top has too much doming of about 4mm in the center. the bridge is made of indian rosewood and it has a weight of about 22 grams.
The problem with the doming occured when i glued the braces on the top. The pracing pattern used is shown on the link below.
The top deformed to such a shape as shown below. Allthough the solera has not more than three milimeters of dome in the center, the dome of the soundboard came out between four and five mm. I was taking care about humidity during glueing. Humiditiy and possible change of humidity should not be the cause.
ah dear, armando. First the top doming may be causing you problems. doming works best when you have an even distribution of tension. secondly the hight at the bridge is important. If it is too high then you will emphasis the kick of unharmonious notes. BUT Most important, Get a new saddle in the and make the action 3mm on the bass and 2.5 on the treble. leave that to settle and then have a listen. sometimes you get less buzz when the bridge height is lower. With your build as a flamenco the guitar will work differently to a classical. lets see what happens! could be wrong!!
Thanks for your answer. Yes, i'll definitely have to remove the back in order to fix things. I'm somewhat affraid of doing that because last time i did it, the back cracked.
hello there! i am a new member! i am from greece and i am a luthier of greek folk instrument.last month i take some plans of Marcello Barbero flamenco guitar and i am trying to make it,i have a question,about the action at the 12th fret and the saddle hight.can someone tell me what i have to be carreful about this,thank you very much!!
Hi Mourgos Why did you pick this 7.5 years old thread to ask your questions. Before going on, I want to say that there are at least 2 Barbero plans out there. Barbero plans have been dicussed almost to death here, especially the neck angle, relief and setup. so try using the search funcion. It should get you started
i am a new member and i dont know what is this 7,5 years old thread.i dont want to copy the barbero ,i just want to have it for base plan.i am asking about the general mesured for the saddle hight in relation with the 12th action,thank you very much for the respons!
Many flamenco guitarists want the string height at the bridge to be very low. Many flamenco bridges have the bridge wood that surrounds the bridge saddle about 6.4 mm high off the soundboard. So a value for the saddle height from the soundboard could be about 8 mm. A typical string height from the top of the 12th fret is about 2.7 mm (to the bottom of the string).
Mourgos, try using the search funcion. We have had an enormous amount of discussions about flamenco guitar setups. So I will just say one more thing and this about the doming of the soundboard.. So if you want a 2.8 - 3mm 12th fret stringheight and an 8mm bridge stringheight, then the neckangle will be different if you compare a guitar with a 2mm dome to a guitar with 4mm dome.
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