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I'm making a guitar inspired by Miguel Llobet's Ribot y Alcaniz couch guitar. The one Llobet played when he was hanging around the house moping. The plantilla of that guitar is small and narrow in the lower bout. I'll post a photo of it soon.
The one I'm making is not a copy, but a loose interpretation with my own bracing ideas and a really ****ty rosette sticker. ARE YOU LISTENING RICARDO?
The back will be four piece Hinoki, the top Western Red Cedar, ribs rosewood, scale 655. You're gonna hate it
You're gonna hate it.
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RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
It's lovely and a brilliant concept. One of your best efforts .
Btw, we're working on our first couple of double tops. I've already destroyed a beautiful cedar top with rosette inlayed trying to rout the cavity for the nomex. This is definitely a learning experience and hard on an aging brain.
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
In praise of being “small and narrow in the lower bout” …………
It is also good for guitars. I have played several and owned one. They all surprised me by their clarity and projection. Everybody should have one of these. Mine travelled by train and boat from Barcelona to London, journeyed all round London in the 60s on the platform of a Vespa scooter between my knees and spent 6 months in Rio with my son who became known there as “the man with the nice guitar”.
Slim guitars like this were not uncommon up to the middle of the 20th century. My little 1960 guitar came from Casa Parramón in Barcelona. Although sold as “new” it almost certainly wasn’t. It had a new cheap back, a perspiration stain under the varnish and evidence of replacement of a couple of frets. Ramón Parramón Castany (d.1955) opened his workshop in 1908 but from 1921 onwards all the instruments were made by Jacinto Pinto (d. 1956). Casa Parramón now buy in standard looking guitars from somewhere but my slim beauty was unlike anything else they had at the time.
Rob
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RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
This is why the project came up for me, I'm simply inspired by the photos of the Ribot y Alcaniz and of Llobet himself.
The of the braced top is showing it placed in front of a a guitar I made that is 14-5/16ths wide in the lower bouts. It hangs out a bit, you can see the binding line. The guitar inspired by the R y A is 19" long, but 13-3/8ths wide. And that material is cut out of the lower bouts and basically nowhere else. Essentially a full sized guitar with a narrow lower bout.
When John mentioned double tops I thought about the Dammann concept of giving the lower bouts wide glue blocks which in effect, impinge on the top lower bout width and effectively create a smaller activated top surface. This not a new idea in terms of cutting down top surface area, but Dammann's idea od doing it inside the guitar yet keeping a fuller plantilla is a newer concept....unless you count the guitar inside a guitar style that John also builds and that we have historical models of built by the Ramirez shop when Santos was the foreman.
That is a lot to take in. What I'm getting at is there are a few ways to utilize the idea of reducing the surface area of the top while still maintaining more or less the same amount of air in the box- and the smaller active surface area theoretically the same amount of string energy will activate less top. Hopefully resulting in more output.
So it is an aesthetic venture, but also grounded in a nice guitar energy efficiency concept.
The top is pretty thick, and the braces are pretty beefy. We'll see what my calculations render.
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RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to RobJe)
quote:
In praise of being “small and narrow in the lower bout” …………
It is also good for guitars. I have played several and owned one. They all surprised me by their clarity and projection. Everybody should have one of these. Mine travelled by train and boat from Barcelona to London, journeyed all round London in the 60s on the platform of a Vespa scooter between my knees and spent 6 months in Rio with my son who became known there as “the man with the nice guitar”.
Slim guitars like this were not uncommon up to the middle of the 20th century. My little 1960 guitar came from Casa Parramón in Barcelona. Although sold as “new” it almost certainly wasn’t. It had a new cheap back, a perspiration stain under the varnish and evidence of replacement of a couple of frets. Ramón Parramón Castany (d.1955) opened his workshop in 1908 but from 1921 onwards all the instruments were made by Jacinto Pinto (d. 1956). Casa Parramón now buy in standard looking guitars from somewhere but my slim beauty was unlike anything else they had at the time.
Rob
Fantastic story, I think I should change my name to Jacinto Pinto.
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
Just in case it is of interest my little guitar has bouts of 356 mm and 268 mm and a not far from standard body length of 487 mm. It feels quite deep in proportion at 91-103 mm. The scale length is 645mm. Sorry I have given up eighths and sixteenths!
Posts: 1708
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
Stephen--
Have you found that the open harmonic bars and running the fan braces up through the upper bout makes a significant difference in sound or responsiveness? If so, can you describe it?
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)
quote:
The brazing looks very heavy, but I believe you have your reasons.
Indeed, I'm going into new territory for a flamenco maker. I want it to sound like nothing I have made before. The top is 2.8 mili thick. We'll see what happens.
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
I've finished the project. It worked out pretty well. I strung it up last week. The guitar has a clear almost 'reedy' sound, but it's not nasal.
I began it in Japan and shipped it to CA to finish it while I visit my family and friends in Oakland and San Francisco. So here I am with Stewart Port in his shop on a rainy day, working out a few details and set up points.
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RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
I like the rosette alot, what woods did you use in it? The bridge is also nice but great to hear what it sounds like as I am making a similar bracing pattern at the moment.
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
hey stephen, interesting project. i would like to see how back and sides fit together aesthetically. could you post some back-side photos of the guitar? greetings ben
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ps: does hinoki smell like cypress?
Similar, less "spicy" in my opinion. Maybe a hair more....floral?
Nice stuff Stephen! I'd love to hear it in action! Your back in Cali??? Keep me posted if you make it down to LA, I've got a night on the town with your name on it!
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to estebanana)
I left this guitar in Oakland to be picked up by a young friend of mine who is a guitarist. Her name is Jasmine Stade the daughter of a friend of mine. I've been watching her become a guitar player since age 12.
She went to Girls Rock camp at 11-12 and formed a band with her kindergarten buddy Emmalee, they called the band Poison Apple Pie and wrote songs about chainsawing Bozo the Clown in half. Jasmine wrote the music. The two eventually went to the Oakland High School for the Performing Arts and graduated. Jasmine is now at UC Santa Cruz as a music major.
She works in the recording studios on campus and is a sound tech for the concerts of students and visiting artists. I asked her if she would take the guitar for a month or so and record with it. So soon we will have a recording of her work with Villa Lobos' guitar music and whatever other wacky stuff she comes up with. When she is into it I'll post links to the recordings.
RE: Something you're going to really... (in reply to SephardRick)
quote:
A fresh and cheerful design. The design makes sense now - designing it for a young music major. She'll turn some heads with it for sure.
I designed it for my own edification as a maker, but Jasmine was put into the seat as a test pilot. She finally sent me a recording, but I think one of her buddies in the sound recording dept put a little too much reverb to it. I asked her to send me an uncompressed unprocessed raw recording for comparison.
I've been happy to see her recording and listening back to herself. She offered to record more and says she's learning Albeniz' 'Granada' I asked her if she had any Sor or Bach on her fingers now... So more to come hopefully.
Jasmine recorded Villa Lobos Prelude 4 - I told her I like that she took the moving chord arpeggio section at a slower tempo than normal.
This one is still for sale, but on loan to "Jazzy J" - (her on air call name for her college radio show) for the semester.
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