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The village Luthier
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: The village Luthier (in reply to Joan Maher)
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Thanks for the video, Joan...it reminds me of the first time I watched guitars being made the traditional way in Ramon Zalapa's workshop in Paracho, Mexico. Zalapa himself didn't make guitars, he just owned the small factory with ten workers. He sold the guitars, along with paint and some office furniture in his store on Avenida Independencia.
The workers used just a couple of knives they made themselves out of old automobile leaf springs, a few planes they made of wood, with blades of the same material, a couple of chisels they bought from the local blacksmith, and a couple of saws. All the clamps and other devices were improvised.
They worked amazingly quickly and accurately, producing serviceable instruments in three grades of quality. I bought one of the best, for 300 pesos, $24 at the time. The lowest grade compared to the one in the video, and took only a few days to make.
Mine was quite presentable, with a rosette copied from Santos Hernandez "rope" design, but with the mosaic a little coarser. The top was some kind of decent looking spruce, the back and sides of caoba--some variety of mahogany.
After several years the neck bowed enough to raise the action too high. I took it to Juan Pimentel in Mexico City. He removed the rosewood fingerboard, planed the neck and put on an ebony fingerboard. He charged me 300 pesos, knowing that was what I must have paid for the whole guitar in the first place.
Pimentel never manifested any resentment at being asked to work on such an instrument, but I felt obliged to explain that the instrument had a certain sentimental value for me, being the first guitar I ever owned. The Maestro politely observed that most of the neck work was done by the relatives he employed, the guitar was decently made, loud, and played in tune--no doubt thanks to the new fingerboard.
Someone around Austin may still have it, thinking they own it, though the last I knew of it was at the end of a long chain of loans from one player to the next.
RNJ
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