Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
Wow. Some of those jigs are amazing! The door/mold thing used to clamp braces and the spin thing used to install binding might be doable for the home gamer. And what was that device used to install the bridge... some sort of alignment tool. I’m surprised the fretwork was done by hand and not machine
There is another video of a Chinese Violin factory which is also very cool
Many years ago Richard Bruné used to outsource a line of guitars to Asturias in Japan. He then visited the factory and reported to American Lutherie a factory tour describing the many jigs and machineries used in Asturias. A small company but the workflow was quite impressive. Since then Bruné copied some of the jigs he saw (for instance the machine to shape the neck for the spindle joint) etc. and become more productive. Robert Ruck was also known for working with a lot of self-made jigs and was incredibly productive, having made more than 1000 guitars in his career.
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: How it's done in a big Chinese f... (in reply to JasonM)
My friend Mario Cesar Oretea (MCO guitars) has been building guitars at his home only within the las year or two. He was modifying and repairing guitars for a long time. His first builds are all Thin body acoustic electrics. His first or second full body flamenco to traditional design was just finished on Monday.... I saw it with poly urethane finish Monday night, no machines or frets or anything playable yet. On Thursday night he was already using it on the gig lol! And I mean he installed electronics and set it all up etc. so he’s working pretty fast too I think!
RE: How it's done in a big Chinese f... (in reply to mrstwinkle)
I know a guy who recently quit his job at PRS because they changed their assembly line. They used to have workers switch up to different jobs and now they do the same job day in and day out. Sounds terrible.
RE: How it's done in a big Chinese f... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
The music was very Cool!
Check out for seventie´s albums of Steeleye Span, Incredible String Band, Pentangel, Magna Carta, Kottke & co. -
- Looks as if for such lines fret wire ought to be delivered with excess, so that it can be leveled in then, independently from eventual necks deviation.
One thing certainly not happening anymore in such production is green wood. Meanwhile they must be making sure about such.
Had a soft but really lovely sounding acoustic bass from Chinese cheapo mill. ... Until its soundboard badly warped.
Also own a sweet parlor that must have come from such a place. A lucky strike like they appear to come about among batches from time to time.
Watching that rushing process hurts, though. A bit similar to like how people are treated in some of late elderly homes. (Sort of kind, yet impersonal.)
Then again, weird way of fascination about what utmost of automatisation and serial processing can do. -Despite of indiscriminate treatment of individual wood sections properties. (-Like a certain highly deemed traditional manufacturer of nylon guitars used to do since long time ago already.)