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RE: Specs in a guitar plan
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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 RE: Specs in a guitar plan (in reply to constructordeguitarras)
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quote:
Did you ever communicate with Reyes? And did he tell you about his assembly method?
No, I deduced this from his 2003 model that I had a chance to examine. It belonged to Chris Kamen at that time. He was nice enough to loan me the guitar for about a week to view its pattern.
Years ago, when I was struggling to find a copy of Manuel Reyes to emulate, there was a player in Texas who was visiting my shop in San Antonio. The player had one with him so I asked if he would allow me to see his guitar, and he said that Reyes would probably not like it.
I remember saying that Sr. Reyes would most likely say that since you own the guitar you can do anything you like with it. Well, he called Reyes on my nickel and that's exactly what he said, almost verbatim. So the guy was aloof about the deal and never did show me the guitar.
Well, finally I got a chance to view Chris Kamen's 2003 model and build a copy in 2004, and this same fellow came by my shop to see it. After playing the guitar, he said "It does everything I tell it to."
BTW if you are wondering if I follow the same building procedure as Reyes; the answer again is No, I follow my own style, with slight additions to try and improve the sound. This is what I have done with some of the master's models for over 55 years.
I donated two of these plans to the Guild of American Luthiers; the 1977 church door Miguel Rodriguez classical guitar and the 2003 Manuel Reyes flamenco guitar. Both of these models were not a slavish copy but with slight modifications that brought the essence of both to the market for guitar builders to enjoy.
I understand that Sr. Reyes built his guitars upside down in a solera; I build my guitars right side up due to certain angles and such I try to accomplish. I manage to see the angles of the top better that way. Also, I use solid two part laminate lining for the top when glued to the sides. I think it improves the volume a little. This is similar to the Rodriguez design.
You can call Tim Olsen at the GAL and ask him about the number or popularity of sales for these two instrument patterns, if you wish.
1-253-472-7853
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Feb. 8 2018 9:15:07
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Specs in a guitar plan (in reply to constructordeguitarras)
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quote:
quote:
I found that every set of "carbons" I put on it went sharp as I moved up the fingerboard.
I have found the same thing on guitars that I have made, to my chagrin.
I've ordered a dozen genuine rubber fingerboards for the the al carbon players. More rubber bend in the neck to forgive the carbon not stretching.
Carbon strings were a bad idea that came to life. They work better on the lute as high treble strings in the G tuning range. The lute has flat neck in plane with the body so the string geometry is closer to the plane of the body and neck. The carbon works better with that geometry. If you make guitars with a really high belly arch and no forward neck angle and set a close action string sets that don't have as much give will fair better. Neck relief and forward pitch, plus higher action works better with a forgiving string.
And higher tensions don't automatically equate to more performance- it's an exhaustive and complex subject, but string tension, like a lot of other subsystems in the whole guitar, have a point of diminishing returns on individual guitars. I'm not a fan of carbon, I like nylon and even prefer on the more forgiving end of the spectrum. I think less forgiving strings, and I can't prove this it's anecdotal, set up potential problems with overtone activity
some guitars.
The way I think about guitars is that they should sound and project without having to resort to hard strings. No one asked for that, but there it is as a point of discussion. Anyone ever read Alan Carruth's essay called 'String Theory'? I can't claim to understand the math, but his interpretation of the data he collected says a lot about strings and high partials that is very interesting. He explains in his conclusion why high partials tend to go sharp, so I think why exacerbate an issue that is intrinsic to the system?
BTW after a little consideration I bought a slew of La Bella 820's because I decided it's possible without much trouble to re calibrate your internal sense baseline for what is a neutral string. I'm not going to praise Conde's or ever use that baby vomit orange, but Ricardo was right about the 820's for flamenco guitars. I like them because they are a meaty, warm pliable string. It's a good baseline string.
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Date Feb. 9 2018 4:34:22
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Ricardo
Posts: 14802
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Specs in a guitar plan (in reply to jshelton5040)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: jshelton5040
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
I am pretty good at guessing just by playing the thing and I think I prefer less compensation personally.
This statement is puzzling to me. A guitar either plays in tune (roughly) or it doesn't.
Well perhaps you never noticed two players play the same instrument back to back, and one guy sounded more “in tune” than the other guy? THis has to do with technique and the ear balancing the intonation while playing. Can’t tell you how many times I watch careless fingered players tune their guitar with a tuner then proceed to play out of tune many chords and melodic notes that are important. I learned that this was a specific thing to deal with as a teenager when I changed a bolt on neck on my electric guitar and had to come to terms quickly with both the problems with equal temp system plus the inaccuracies the fingers deliver to everything except open strings.
The intonation issue is not so obvious on nylon string guitars, and the lower the action the less the left hand will affect things. However it was many many years of playing and confirming the importance of left hand technique before I discovered this compensation thing that luthiers had been doing. A private discussion with Richard Brune where he gave me actual measurements for various builders that a light bulb went off in my head, and now I can pretty much tell which guitars are compensated more or less. What it came down to physically is this....you know vibrato technique (side to side not bending up and down) produces either a higher or lower pitch, correct? So this occurs every time we place a finger on a string to some degree. I argue against tuning to chords or ANY fretted notes and such for this reason. Next, the player becomes aware of lowering pitch pushing toward the bridge and raises it pulling away (opposite of a violin or cello because of the fixed fret)...I had been aware since a teen how “sweet” or “Flat” the high position notes on my dad’s Hauser were compared to all my other guitars, so much that I tend to pull back on notes in upper position....and when Brune told me how far back Hauser liked to position his bridge relative to other builders, it all made sense.
So when I play and I hear my harmonic environment, when I play a guitar I will be pushing pulling etc to some degree, very precisely each note I play. And the higher the action the more careful I have to be because a push or pull will be quite exaggerated. Compensated guitars I find I need to pull on more than un compensated guitars, which I have to push on the notes, depending on the interval. A specific example might be if I hear an E chord harmony, when I play notes in the upper register, I fine tune the melody by pulling back a hair on a B note, but pushing forward on a G# for example. It is not something I literally need to think about, I have been playing this way since I was a teen and it’s just how the ear dictates what our fingers need to do.
One last thing is, old trebles strings wear down and tend to go sharp up the fingerboard....so I tend to over compensate by pushing forward on old strings...until I actual feel my self doing it physically and realize it’s time to change the strings.
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Date Feb. 9 2018 15:27:24
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: Specs in a guitar plan (in reply to JasonM)
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Jason,
I think you can go either way on this if you graduate the solera to fit the top. Once the solera is built right then you can use it over and over again.
I think it's a matter of being able to function correctly with the build, not that one is better than the other. I developed my method because I build a lot of different masters patterns, and this ideal was good, as it didn't cause problems with a multitude of diversity.
However, building the top upright is not a new idea, as it was used by some builders in the past. All of my students, some with past solera experience, like my method, so it's a mixed bag for whatever you may decide.
But if you can get the solera fixed right, it would present a better, or easier way to fit the top, because it holds everything in place for the neck and box, without having to make little fixtures to hold the neck in place.
So if your friend is feeling better about using a solera then that's fine.
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Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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Date Feb. 10 2018 10:58:26
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. Seriously, I discussed this with an experienced luthier who insisted that he could nail the exact height to the 0.1 millimeter and luthiers claiming that they might not hit it exactly right between 1 and 1.5 millimeters were simply not experienced. 
