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Ramirez blancas from 1950
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Ricardo
Posts: 14797
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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 RE: Ramirez blancas from 1950 (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
This is a lower tier guitar, not a fine master grade Blanca.
The bridge is over built, the rosette is nice. Look at the string slots cut in the headstock- shoddy work, really sloppy. Cut with a dull axe. Everything you want to know is right there.
Probably why jose, who built this one by hand probably as echi says, needed to hire a team of builders.😂
In fact that gives me an idea. This guitar could have turned out a whole lot better if you had one guy, an expert in just bridges, that cuts hundreds of em a day perfectly with a Machine, then a different guy who specializes in string slots, etc. wow, you could probably even reduce costs and sell more product! Ingenious!! No more imperfect guitars!
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Date Jun. 26 2020 20:30:10
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Ramirez blancas from 1950 (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
In fact that gives me an idea. This guitar could have turned out a whole lot better if you had one guy, an expert in just bridges, that cuts hundreds of em a day perfectly with a Machine, then a different guy who specializes in string slots, etc. wow, you could probably even reduce costs and sell more product! Ingenious!! No more imperfect guitars!
I know you’re kidding around, but I think the premise is wrong. Parts bin, cookie-cutter guitars are seldom perfect, oft-times they’re just boring. Which doesn’t mean they can’t make great music in the hands of an appreciative and capable player. I mean boring to Joe(sephine) Guitarmaker person.
There’s nothing preventing a maker from making up a batch of ‘perfect’ bridges and tossing them in a bin for future use, but that’s not how making a good guitar generally works. True, a lot of makers follow fairly rigid patterns, but there’s also a good amount who don’t. At the very least, most makers tend to select and match the woods for each instrument, not just cosmetically but also with the musicality of the instrument in mind. And, when the approach is taken that the bridge is also a component of the bracing system, then it’s important to have the freedom to match not only the wood but also for its dimensions to be optimal for each individual instrument. So, from one guitar to the next, the bridges can be slightly different.
It can also come down to why bother doing this at all? There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with patterning guitars after models and following systems that allow repeatability, but not every maker is interested in working that way. A good maker is going to make good guitars, regardless of the methods chosen, and each individual is going to follow the path that gives them the most satisfaction, if not money. Not every maker sees the craft as an industrial endeavour, in some cases it’s the opposite.
As far as the subject of this thread goes, I don’t know why people are bothering with it when the pictures posted are of such poor quality. There is a chance the slots are the result of a hack-job peghead conversion. My Contreras is like that, it looks like the conversion was done with the tip of a chainsaw, and this was to a top-shelf, signed guitar. What little can be seen of the rest of the headstock in the crappy pictures also points to sloppy work, however, so maybe I’m off base with that idea. I also wonder if the bridge is even original? It would be necessary to see the guitar up close to determine that. The reason I’m thinking in this direction is the rosette appears to be quite nice, maybe nicer than a low end model would warrant. But, like Ricardo has hinted, I suspect the Madrid shops were no strangers to the parts bin approach, so maybe it was just grabbed from a batch at hand.
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Date Jun. 27 2020 14:19:36
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Ramirez blancas from 1950 (in reply to TonyGonzales84)
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These posts got me to thinking about this a bit more last night. When I first got the guitar the first thing I had planned on doing was to plug and re-drill the badly placed holes, clean up the ramps, and put a nice set of Fusteros on from the small stash I acquired before they stopped producing. Converting back to pegs could be done, but I hadn’t considered it.
My feeling now is I’d prefer to leave it as it is, unless I run into problems with the tuner upgrade, in which case the hole placement might get addressed. But I might just see how these tuners perform after a clean-up.
My reasoning is the head is now a record of the history of this instrument and cleaning it up or altering it could be considered to be, in some ways, more of an attempt to erase the history than to add to it. I don’t adhere to the current trend of wanting old instruments to be pristine and super clinically perfect. This, and most of the old guitars I’ve loved, are anything but perfectly symmetrical or pristine.
The other downside to attacking the head problem is, if I do so, I would be taking part ownership of it. The conversion was done in such a manner that I would never be able to bring it up to the standard that it would have been at if I had done the work myself from scratch. To do so would require removing more wood, and I’d also want it to look like something the builder would have done, instead of just doing it the way I would normally. In other words, a restoration of something that never was. So any solution will be a compromise and, if it doesn’t come out just perfect, people will wonder how much of the dog’s breakfast was due to my interference, and not the work of the original hacker. I don’t want to go there.
Also, although I appreciate the original reasons behind conversions, the advent of tuners such as Pegheds kind of makes them unnecessary. And if it’s unnecessary, then doing one could be considered to be vandalous. It’s a practice whose time has past, I think. At this point, I wouldn’t do one anyways, even if asked nicely by someone with a good wad of cash in hand. Which doesn’t really have anything to do with the current problem, I realize, but it’s the logical follow through on my thoughts.
So, I think the head is going to get a pass. I’ll do the things the guitar needs to make it healthy and playable, and leave well enough alone with the asymmetry and ugly ramps, lol. It can wear its scars and knocks with pride, there’s no need for it to cover them in shame, at least not for my benefit.
Well, those are my thoughts as of this morning, after thinking about it on and off throughout the night. But, yeah, I like peg heads a lot, too, this guitar would have been so cool if it would have just been left the way it was created. It’s still cool, I guess.
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Date Jun. 30 2020 14:11:49
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TonyGonzales84
Posts: 78
Joined: Apr. 23 2020
From: San Diego, CA
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RE: Ramirez blancas from 1950 (in reply to eccullen)
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Rob, I agree with your sentiment that, in looking at a guitar, one sees some of its history, and that it is "dis-respectful" and almost sacrilegious to take anything away from that. I would never recommend or suggest applying a face-lift to an honest, well used and loved guitar (which, unfortunately so many aging movie stars and such do -- I like to see them get their gray hair, not getting botox anywhere near their lips, etc).
The ownership issue you mention is spot on, and to quote Rush, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice -- perfectly valid. I figure that I am a current, temporary owner of the few types of physical things that I am in possession of that can actually be handed on, whether through my conscious gifting or re-sale, or those that my heirs may someday be stuck with. As such, within reason (I am not a collector, but a user) I definitely do try to respect the item's state, for any future owner's joy and wonder (if this guitar could only talk...).
Sheesh, I'm sorry for getting way too sentimental, especially so long before Happy Hour! 
_____________________________
Tony
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Date Jul. 1 2020 0:09:44
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ernandez R
Posts: 737
Joined: Mar. 25 2019
From: Alaska USA
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RE: Ramirez blancas from 1950 (in reply to RobF)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RobF
quote:
In fact that gives me an idea. This guitar could have turned out a whole lot better if you had one guy, an expert in just bridges, that cuts hundreds of em a day perfectly with a Machine, then a different guy who specializes in string slots, etc. wow, you could probably even reduce costs and sell more product! Ingenious!! No more imperfect guitars!
I know you’re kidding around, but I think the premise is wrong. Parts bin, cookie-cutter guitars are seldom perfect, oft-times they’re just boring. Which doesn’t mean they can’t make great music in the hands of an appreciative and capable player. I mean boring to Joe(sephine) Guitarmaker person.
There’s nothing preventing a maker from making up a batch of ‘perfect’ bridges and tossing them in a bin for future use, but that’s not how making a good guitar generally works. True, a lot of makers follow fairly rigid patterns, but there’s also a good amount who don’t. At the very least, most makers tend to select and match the woods for each instrument, not just cosmetically but also with the musicality of the instrument in mind. And, when the approach is taken that the bridge is also a component of the bracing system, then it’s important to have the freedom to match not only the wood but also for its dimensions to be optimal for each individual instrument. So, from one guitar to the next, the bridges can be slightly different.
It can also come down to why bother doing this at all? There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with patterning guitars after models and following systems that allow repeatability, but not every maker is interested in working that way. A good maker is going to make good guitars, regardless of the methods chosen, and each individual is going to follow the path that gives them the most satisfaction, if not money. Not every maker sees the craft as an industrial endeavour, in some cases it’s the opposite.
As far as the subject of this thread goes, I don’t know why people are bothering with it when the pictures posted are of such poor quality. There is a chance the slots are the result of a hack-job peghead conversion. My Contreras is like that, it looks like the conversion was done with the tip of a chainsaw, and this was to a top-shelf, signed guitar. What little can be seen of the rest of the headstock in the crappy pictures also points to sloppy work, however, so maybe I’m off base with that idea. I also wonder if the bridge is even original? It would be necessary to see the guitar up close to determine that. The reason I’m thinking in this direction is the rosette appears to be quite nice, maybe nicer than a low end model would warrant. But, like Ricardo has hinted, I suspect the Madrid shops were no strangers to the parts bin approach, so maybe it was just grabbed from a batch at hand.
Rob,
this is a reply to a comment you made upthread some. Hard to keep,up,with the fast moving Foro crew ;)
I have a theory about how different level parts get on different guitars. I think if one has a shop with just a few apprentices one will get to cut out say bridge blanks, he brings them to the master who determines which will go on the premium guitar and which on the student models, he hands the stack a blanks back to the apprentice telling him to shape all the less perfect pieces first and save the better ones for last under penalty of death for miss carving. Something like that. I ran my aviation maintenance shop under a similar system.
I built my #3,4,5 together using the less perfect woods on my #3 and the best top and other woods on the #5. My intention was to also improve my building skills also so I had learned much along with each one. There is a build thread on the Delcamp under Mk-III or something like that.
I had roughed out a set of six bridge blanks a couple weeks ago, I use a table saw so to make the slot etc so it goes fairly fast. As I was hobbling out of the wood shop I recalled this older builder video where the master was tossing bridge blanks on a tile floor and listening to the quality of their tone in order to determine which one he wanted. So there I was tossing the hickory blanks, all slotted up, but exactly the same size not exactly sure what I was looking for but for the general idea that one might have a hidden crack or inclusion that would effect, lower, or deaden the sound. They all rang true but one seemed to have a more clear and higher frequency ring so I chose that one.
Funny, I didn't like how this particular light toned hickory looked on the spruce top after I had chiseled it out a few days later, three days with my limited standing time of thirty minutes max. I went back in the shop afterwords and made a batch of oak bridges, from the same well aged block of oak I cut the fretboards, but haven't finished one yet. The blanks sound nice ringing on my concreat shop floor though...
HR
_____________________________
I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy,
doesn't have to be fast,
should have some meat on the bones,
can be raw or well done,
as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
www.instagram.com/threeriversguitars
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Date Jul. 1 2020 3:29:56
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RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Ramirez blancas from 1950 (in reply to ernandez R)
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quote:
I had roughed out a set of six bridge blanks a couple weeks ago
Yeah, I’ll rough out certain parts in batches, too. I always make a pile of peonies and kerfed liners in one go, anything that amounts to slog work that can slow down or derail a build’s momentum is a good candidate for batching. Sometimes I’ll make up four or five necks and bring them to the point that the heads are done and the heel blocks attached, but not slotted. Then I have some on hand if I’m in a hurry, but most often I’ll make the neck along with the guitar. I have batched bridges before, but I don’t always make them the same dimensions so I stopped doing that. I also like to match the bridge wood to the heads, so it seems pointless to make them beforehand.
Speaking of different types woods that can be used, I generally make my kerfed liners out of Spanish Cedar, mainly because I love the smell it brings to the guitar, but I have a bunch of nice Willow that I think I’ll use to make solid liners. It’s light, strong, bends well, and was the liner wood of choice of the old violin makers. I’ve used it a couple of times before and it worked nicely, doesn’t have the great smell, though.
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Date Jul. 1 2020 21:46:36
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