Jose Rammirez III Interview

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Richard Jernigan

Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA

Jose Rammirez III Interview

Thanks to echi for cueing me to the January, 1983 issue of Frets magazine. I found a copy on the net. It has a fairly long interview with Jose Ramirez III, which answered a question that lingered in my mind for quite a while.

How much latitude did the individual luthier in the Ramirez workshop have in responding to the inevitably variable qualities of the soundboard materials?

In conversations with Manuel Contreras, Sr. and Felix Manzanero, both emphasized Ramirez's insistence upon strict adherence to his design and specifications.

However, Ramirez himself, also in conversation, frequently referred to his 18 years of making guitars "with my own hands," to gain experience in the "artistic aspects" of guitar building.

The interview was conducted in Spanish, an English translation is in the magazine.

"Do you adjust the stiffness of the braces in some special way to tune or voice them?

No. The braces by themselves do not cause the guitar to have good sound. The height of the sides, the quantity of air withinthe guitar, the diameter of the boca (mouth, soundhole) the length of the strings, the thickness of the woods, the way the fretboard is intonated, all of this and more is included in the whole--all must work together."

So, no tuning of the braces. At least by the '60s many "folk" players "had the braces shaved" on their Martins and Gibsons, maybe it had been going on long before. So the idea of shaving or tuning the braces was familiar to the people at Frets magazine. Tom Blackshear tells me that tuning the braces requires learning and aptitude, and can consume a lot of time on an instrument.

So could a 1960s-80s Ramirez 1a have been produced by a very accurate machine? Not so fast. Much further along in the interview:

"Do you use any machinery?"

We do the major portion of the work by hand, and use machines to do the ordinary work--none of the artistic work. For example, if a soundboard is 5mm thick, and we need it 2mm thick, it is not an artistic task to remove 3mm from the wood. For that we will use a sanding machine. But we only take 2mm off by the machine, and remove the last millimeter by hand, so that we can feel the stiffness of the wood."

I don't think this means that all Ramirez III 1a's had the same top thickness. I think it means that the final thinning of the top relied upon the skill and experience of the luthier to respond to the particular piece of wood before him.

Still, in my experience, there was variability in the output of a single master luthier, and across the master luthier's employed at any given time. Ramirez himself discussed this in person, and implies it in his book.

As Ramon Zalapa said to me in his store in Paracho 60-odd years ago, when I praised the $24 guitar I had picked out to be my first, "Pues, to'as no salen igual."

RNJ

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 23 2020 2:27:47

Echi

Posts: 1132
Joined: Jan. 11 2013

RE: Jose Rammirez III Interview (in reply to Richard Jernigan)

Thanks Richard,

There is a nice article written by Ramirez in an old American Lutherie journal: he clearly states to have experimented a lot with bracing but he consider it not that important as people believe. Other top luthiers share the same opinion and I heard Romanillos saying that the quality of the wood used for the top and the plantilla/plan has much more influence than the bracing itself.

In Ramirez the cedar top used to be pre-thicknessed at 2.8 mm to be precise but from there on each craftsman could decide the ideal final top thickness, the shape of the bracing, the neck set up etc. Btw each craftsman could pick the wood according to their taste.
Somehow it’s enough independence to determine the quality of the final result.
Of course, the plan was the same for everybody but it was a successful plan and the buyer eventually wants a Ramirez.
When Contreras set his own company he basically did the same. Many workers used to work under his direction. Same for Conde. Going back, wasn’t the same for Manuel Ramirez? Esteso, Santos and Borreguero weren’t that much independent: even today you can guess the maker just by the shape of the bracing.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 23 2020 10:41:44

Tom Blackshear

Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008

RE: Jose Rammirez III Interview (in reply to Richard Jernigan)

quote:

"Do you adjust the stiffness of the braces in some special way to tune or voice them?

No. The braces by themselves do not cause the guitar to have good sound. The height of the sides, the quantity of air within the guitar, the diameter of the boca (mouth, sound-hole) the length of the strings, the thickness of the woods, the way the fret board is intonated, all of this and more is included in the whole--all must work together."

Jose Ramirez was correct, as far as he went with his system of building. But My technique of fan brace tuning is also part of the over all system that is necessary for the final finish out of the tone.

My first 30 years of top tuning by using thickness graduation of the top, took me a lot of thought to experiment with fan brace tuning for practically the last 30 years.

So, with this system of tuning, I have had very little failure with tone since its development. It works for me.

_____________________________

Tom Blackshear Guitar maker

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 23 2020 14:20:09