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.
|
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde?
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
  
ernandez R
Posts: 737
Joined: Mar. 25 2019
From: Alaska USA
|
 RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
Forgive me father for I have sinned.
I've been working up a few ideas for my headstock design, rather then the flat top I've been using, had a flash of inspiration, pulled up a photo of a Torres guitar, later tombstone version, did a rough draft on card stock, flipped it upside down on the headstock on my trusty numero uno, and whacked it off. Joked she was now the "anti-torres", think I'll call her La Profano
Some time ago I took one of those vary cheap, in price and construction, mechanical tuner sets apart so I could use the worm and crown gears to make my own set with aluminum frames and smaller diameter rollers for more precise tuning. I like the idea of trying my hand at engraving, looks at shaking pre Parkinson hands and laughs...
Melted one of the plastic handle off one worm gear shaft and made my own wood one as a test, hickory I think. Came out nice.
The parts are in a bag waiting for someone to ask me to replace the pegs on one of mine with mechanical tuners or commission. Might be this winters project.
I've worked with titanium and it's not friendly or fun.
Thinking I could lay up some carbon fiber plates: high speed, low drag!
Wish I could get some high quality gear sets, yes in titanium, to make up my mechanical tuners...
I have an opinion about mechanical tuners: people ether play guitar or play with guitars. Reading a number of guitar building and playing forums and it's the same, hundreds of threads and thousands of comments, steel string or Spanish, oddly you never hear of violinists or cellists going on and on about their pegs. Now it is not right or wrong so don't feel bad about fiddling your tuners for no reason other then you like the pleasing pressure of a tight tuner, still it seems so many get wound up over a worm and crown gear that has nothing to do with playing. Anyway, I ask you to ask yourself, what do you want to do, play the guitar or play with your guitar.
Friction pegs, über alles! (HT DK)
HR
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
 Attachment (1)
_____________________________
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
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 7:51:39
 |
|
estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to mecmachin)
|
|
|
It’s medieval looking, it’s cool.
I was not trying to be an overbearing pedagogue, well maybe a little. Spreading the gospel of Torres; I’ve looked carefully at Mozarabic motifs, they don’t look like early to mid 19th century guitar rosette design, a lot of it looks like it’s based on base 12 divisions of space, you see a lot if six sided motifs in Spanish-Arabic work that’s not present in Torres and other 19th century makers. Their work, at least to me, looks more rooted in an earlier form of geometry that if the Roman period in Andalusia.
I was once looking at Roman mosaic floors in Dumbarton Oaks, a museum that was once a residence. The owner reassembled Roman mosaic from Andalusia as part of the architecture. Also the Getty museum in California has extensive reassembled Roman mosaic and it all feels much more like Torres’ rosette themes than anything six sided.
Especially the border work in Roman mosaic, you see some of the ‘Roman Key’ pattern in Santos Hernandez and Esteso Tio Domi.
This is an observation I made because I look at a lot of ancient art, it doesn’t mean Torres went directly to these mosiacs an copied them, I feel it’s more like a thing that was favorable at that time in history in decorative arts after the Neo classical direction in French culture, I think it spilled over into other countries and Spain and had also been in the consciousness of furniture makers in Torres’ day because the Arabic themes weren’t in fashion then.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 9:48:56
|
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to ernandez R)
|
|
|
quote:
...oddly you never hear of violinists or cellists going on and on about their pegs. Now it is not right or wrong so don't feel bad about fiddling your tuners for no reason other then you like the pleasing pressure of a tight tuner, still it seems so many get wound up over a worm and crown gear that has nothing to do with playing. Anyway, I ask you to ask yourself, what do you want to do, play the guitar or play with your guitar.
Violinists and cellists may not go on and on about their pegs, but they will dispense with vast sums of money chasing other intangibles, which are expressed in the physical characteristics of the instruments they purchase.
Regarding your question, why can’t people do both?
It not really a question of form over function or of whether a musical instrument should simply be a tool in the service of a higher form of expression, it is an examination of that which is fundamental to our nature. The appreciation and expression of beauty is one of the hallmarks of what we are. Sure, there can be beauty found in the form of a purely functional object but that, in itself, represents an aesthetic that is being appreciated in an artistic sense. I’m not sure we are even capable of disassociating ourselves from this, it’s hard-wired. We tend to blend it all together. I think it’s natural.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 9:57:39
|
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
I was composing and then pasted in the last paragraph of my previous post while you posted your reply. I’m not sure if it changes anything but might clarify where I was coming from.
I think the “gear head” aspect of the guitar world does apply to the violin world to some degree. A lot of violinists have sound post setters and do mess around where they really shouldn’t. It’s a personality type (defect?), maybe, that isn’t restricted to the guitar world. I guess it’s also just fundamentally part of what we are. Not necessarily condoning it, mind you, and agree with you about the dangers.
I’m not sure I agree with your first statement, however, but not being a violin maker I can’t really argue. Some violin people do like to look down on the guitar world, however, and it often seems the more affected the accent, the more likely that phenomenon will be present. I do agree that without training it’s best to leave sound posts alone, there’s no doubt about that.
P.S. in hindsight, I think I misinterpreted what HR was saying. One of the side effects of the illness I’m recovering from seems to be the inability to get a good night’s sleep, so I log on at all hours of the night and then post these half baked replies while in some kind of quasi-dream state. I really have to stop doing this...
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 10:21:06
|
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
This could easily devolve into a Rolex versus Timex type of debate, but it shouldn’t. There are many people out there that can distinguish between cheap tuners and high end ones at a glance. Of course they can tell. Geez... But, yeah, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a set of Gotohs.
My thought is that the appearance of an instrument, as well as such intangibles as the perception of great age or the status of the maker, all have a strong influence upon how the sound and feel of an instrument is initially perceived. Then, once the instrument has been played for a sufficient amount of time the situation reverses, and the perception of the appearance, maker status, all the externals are then influenced by the sound and feel.
I’ve worn a Rolex for a long time now. I only ever take it off either when I’m using sanders or working on a guitar and I’m concerned it might nick something, otherwise it stays on. Even with that constant wear over many years it still looks new and keeps time as well as it ever has. It’s not one of the more common models, it’s an Explorer II with a white face and it’s pretty discrete. I’ve worn it everywhere and I never get the sense that anybody notices. It’s my own personal pleasure, a reward to myself for many decades of hard work. There are people out there, however, who can recognize what it is from across a room. It’s happened to me a few times in the last couple of years, once in a bearing shop, once in a Vape shop, and once by a sidewalk barker dressed as a clown standing outside a store trying to lure customers inside. Each time the person was close to twenty feet away when they called it. Maybe I should be more careful when travelling.
It just depends on what you like. I have a pocket watch collection of old American Railroad watches that I acquired over the years, seldom paying more than a couple hundred dollars for examples of manufacturing and engineering from past centuries taken to the highest level. I love the damn things. I don’t care if a Casio is more durable or more accurate. That’s got nothing to do with anything.
Recently Brune put a Hauser and a Torres up for sale at something like $150,000 for one and $250,000 for the other. Ricardo, there is your retirement fund, right there. I think those prices are absolutely insane, but clearly there is such an imbalance of wealth out there that people can buy stuff like that as a trifle. It’s obscene. It’s every bit as obscene as some rich git flying into space in a rocket that looks like a penis. But that’s the way we are. So I can’t see the point in wanting to deconstruct the aesthetics of the guitar into some kind of Bauhausian form and function debate. It’s not what we are and it’s not what the guitar is.
Ricardo, I’ll take a bunch of pictures and do a mini pictorial. It’s gonna take me a few hours, maybe even a day, but it’ll get done...
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 18:39:37
|
|
BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to RobF)
|
|
|
quote:
I’ve worn a Rolex for a long time now. I only ever take it off either when I’m using sanders or working on a guitar and I’m concerned it might nick something. Even with that constant wear over many years it still looks new and keeps time as well as it ever has. It’s not one of the more common models, it’s an Explorer II with a white face and it’s pretty discrete. I’ve worn it everywhere and I never get the sense that anybody notices. It’s my own personal pleasure, a reward to myself for many decades of hard work. There are people out there, however, who can recognize what it is from across a room. It’s happened to me a few times in the last six months, once in a bearing shop, once in a Vape shop, and once by a sidewalk barker dressed as a clown standing outside a store trying to lure customers inside. Each time the person was close to twenty feet away when they called it. Maybe I should be more careful when travelling.
It just depends on what you like. I have a pocket watch collection of old American Railroad watches that I acquired over the years, seldom paying more than a couple hundred dollars for examples of manufacturing and engineering from past centuries taken to the highest level. I love the damn things. I don’t care if a Casio is more durable or more accurate. That’s got nothing to do with anything.
I, too, have worn a Rolex (Submariner) for a long time and cherish it, just as I cherish an Omega pocket watch I inherited from my father, which he inherited from his father. I had the Omega refurbished, and it keeps excellent time. I have never owned a digital watch and never intend to own one. Although I do not collect railroad pocket watches, I can understand your interest in them.
I recognized long ago that I'm an analog man living in a digital world. A 19rh century man born out of time. I am probably one of maybe five or six people in the United States who don't own a cell phone of any type. Still have my old landline which suffices just fine. The last thing I want is to be "available" 24/7. Should I not be home, anyone who calls and wants to connect is welcome to leave a message on the phone which I will return.
I still possess a few three-piece suits that kept me sartorially sound during my career in the US Foreign Service. Didn't wear them in my tropical Southeast Asian and Pacific assignments (where the two-piece sufficed), but wore them in temperate assignments like Sofia, Bulgaria and Santiago, Chile, and Washington, DC. Today, I will occasionally wear a three-piece suit if the occasion calls for it, and I like to sport my father's Omega pocket watch in the waistcoat (sorry, vest) pocket on the right with the watch fob crossing the buttoned vest with the other end inserted in the left pocket. I'm sure some have thought it an affectation, but I have had a couple of comments from people who suggested they wish they could pull it off.
My complete lack of interest in being in the vanguard of "The Next Big Thing" no doubt goes a long way in explaining my taste in flamenco, with Sabicas my all-time favorite and Paco Pena my favorite of those still running the concert circuit. Also, my favorites in cante being El Chocolate, Fosforito, and Nina de los Peines.
When I have my pre-dinner sundowner and aperitif this evening, I will expand it to two copitas of jerez and give a silent salute to high-precision, mechanical wrist and pocket watches, landline telephones, three-piece suits, and the 19th century.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 20:21:17
|
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
Jeez, you are really mad at those tuners man!
I am now, lol.
quote:
Ok, so how are you guys telling the difference from photographs that tuners are cheap knock off vs $400 originals?
Actually, I just spent over an hour taking pictures of various tuners, from a cheap Chinese set I bought on Amazon for $15, through the entire Gotoh line from the 35G620 to the 35G1800 and 35G3600 and on to the 510 series, which is probably what you’ve been using. Then, I took pictures of Sloanes, Rubners, Der Jung, Fusteros, and even Rodgers. But I’m so darned insulted by the suggestion that I can’t tell the difference in qualities that I don’t feel very generous about posting a pile of pictures, when all this information can also be found online.
In lieu of pictures, which are a pain to process for a post, maybe some hints can suffice? To start, for the highest end stuff, one really has to be able to distinguish between real gold plating and gold coloured metallic plate. Also, the material used for the buttons can give clues.
Maybe instead of spending the time on a pictorial or listing hints, let’s just look at the tuners on the OP’s guitar. I would say that in quality they probably sit somewhere between that of the Gotoh 35G620s and the 35G3600s. That points to the 35G1800 series. I would prefer the 35G1800s to them, except they don’t look very Spanish aesthetically speaking, although that’s what I think was put on Paco’s guitar. They are serviceable tuners, but not great. There can be slop in the gearing and also problems with how well the buttons seat in the shafts. I still have a few sets of the 1800s left that I will find use for, but I probably won’t buy any more.
Looking at the OP’s first photo of the tuners you can see the plates are covered with a cheap baubly overly shiny gold coloured metallic plating. The plates themselves are stamped and the edges haven’t been cleaned up. The screws are not counter-sunk and sit on top of the plates. The tabs that hold the tuner shafts are bent metal which is then pushed through the plates, which are likely of base metal and not brass. Base metal degrades, and when it does those tabs will let go. Looking at the side picture, which I had yet to see before declaring the tuners as being cheap, one can see the design on the plates has either been stamped into them, although if they are base metal it is more than likely they are just cast (poured). I’m not a machinist so I shouldn’t stick my neck out too far about processes. Better tuners are engraved, either by machine or hand, and the base material of the plates will at least be of brass (although you won’t necessarily be able to tell that from a picture). A cast base metal plate can often have a “lumpy” or undefined appearance to the “engravings”. The fancy-pants hand engraved Fusteros pictured in that Orfeo article are little works of art, right up there with what can be found on Rodgers machines.
I can’t speak to the gearing, the buttons look nicely proportioned and are plastic. Depending on the quality of the material they may or may not last before getting sloppy, don’t know. Good tuners use better materials, super high end ones can use genuine pearl and the like for their buttons. It’s not always easy to determine the quality of a button material from pictures, but looking for clues like flashing on the edges and the like can help. Other clues can be found in the execution of the worm and barrel gears, but I hadn’t looked at that on the OP guitar.
That’s just my seat of the pants evaluation, the bulk of which I arrived at probably within about ten seconds after first seeing the picture. It is more informed by experience than anything, by seeing how cheap tuners look and perform on inexpensive guitars up to having possessed and examined some of the finest examples available. Maybe because of my watch collecting days I’ve developed a bit of an eye for this stuff, but honestly, I can tell the difference.
A super affordable tuner that I really like is the Der Jung 306GX-AS. The main shortcoming these have is really soft plates, so there is some concern about durability. But they have roller bearings, capped buttons, and are super attractive. If I saw those without knowing I would think they cost at least four times as much as they do. They perform really well, too, well beyond their price point. Same applies with the Rubners. They are utilitarian and a little bulky looking, but I prefer their look over Gotohs in the same price range and they are very well made for the price. Their Superior series also has roller bearings. So, there are lots of good tuners in the couple to few hundred dollar range; Gotoh, Rubner, DerJung, Sloane (a little more pricey), Schaller, all of these companies make nice tuners in that price range. They are also genuinely nice, not pretend nice. The one’s on the OP guitar might be OK, but they look overdone and flashy. Aesthetically, tuners by any of the companies I just mentioned would be a better bet, IMO.
In closing, I’m not a machinist, and I also don’t consider myself to be any kind of tuner expert. But I do have an eye that I trust. I really don’t have any interest in engaging in pissing contests over this. If someone wants to add to the information then I think that’s great. If someone wants to engage in some form of internet bullying take-down because they think they’ve caught me out on a mistake and want to rub my nose in it, or for whatever other reason, please don’t waste my time, or the Foro’s. We deserve more respect than that. At any rate, I hope this post was of some help...
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 21 2021 21:35:00
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to BarkellWH)
|
|
|
According to their web page Graf makes a "super light" model which can weigh as little as 98 grams. https://www.graftuners.com/super-light.html
Landstorfers, 1973 Romanillos
Fusteros 1982 Arcangel Fernandez
A 1991 Manuel Contreras Sr. has the same model Fusteros
Fusteros 2009 Abel Garcia
Fusteros 2016 Blackshear
Wrist watch? Eleven years ago my friend I hired to represent me in real estate dealings noted that he had stopped wearing one years before. If he wanted to check the time he just pulled out his cellphone. But he wasn't all modern. He drove a 1963 split window Corvette which he had bought new.
Out of long habit I wear a wrist watch. For every day, a Seiko Quartz Divers 200 Meter day/date. It it is accurate to a few seconds per month, stout as hell, and is the souvenir of about 1,500 dives, mainly in the Pacific. The bezel is a bit scratched up, the sapphire crystal is pristine, and it has an ugly black rubber wrist band.
For more formal occasions I take a 1920s Elgin out of the drawer and wind it up. It is the thinnest wrist watch I have seen. The case and the wrist band are gold. The narrow bezel has a knurled pattern. It has a plain white face, slender gold hands and thin gold overlaid hash marks instead of numerals. My father-in-law gave it to me when his eyesight got to the point he could no longer read it. I don't know how accurate it is, since I never wear it for more than a couple of days at a time.
He also gave me a 1920s Hamilton pocket watch with a gold case and chain, which I wore with a three-piece suit in the 1960s and 70s when such were fashionable. The bezel is deeply engraved. The face is a matte silver color, but it is some other metal since it doesn't tarnish. The face is embossed with an art nouveau pattern which some people have mistaken for marijuana leaves.
I took the Hamilton to Thera Nance, the first, and at the time only, female member of the U.S. Railroad Watchmaker's Guild. She cleaned, oiled and adjusted it to keep about 10 seconds per month. It hasn't been checked for decades, since Thera retired long ago, and began traveling about the country in her camper van.
My main business with Thera was maintaining my (then) wife's collection of O-size pendant Walthams which she inherited from her grandmother. In the '60s and '70s they went nicely with long blonde hair and embroidered Oaxacan dresses. I only see her a few times a year these days. I don't remember her wearing one of the Walthams since I've been back in Austin. Even in her later 70s she is slender and dresses fashionably. I suppose the frou-frou late-19th, early-20th century Walthams might clash with her present tailored style.
The oldest watch in the immediate family is a utilitarian silver cased pocket watch and chain, with a stopwatch feature and engraved initials, now owned by my son. When I showed it to Thera without mentioning its provenance, she opined that it had belonged to a 19th century German naval officer. "Close," I said, "Norwegian merchant captain."
It belonged to Kristian Hansen av Seierstad, my son's great-great-grandfather (maybe one more "great"?) from a family who have owned land and ships in Norway since there have been written records. The builder's painting of a full rigged ship, "Fiery Cross at the Strait of Gibraltar, Kaptein Kristian Hansen" hangs over the mantel of the house in old West Austin where my son grew up, where he still lives.
My ex-wife's grandfather immigrated to America at age 22, a younger son with a Norwegian Captain's license in sail and steam. In the USA he had to start over as an able-bodied seaman, and pass the English language exam to qualify as a life boat captain. He earned an American Unlimited All Oceans Master's license, Pilot's licenses for seven major American ports, was a North Atlantic convoy commodore during WW II, and retired as Commodore of the the Texaco fleet back when the oil companies still owned their own tankers. My ex-wife inherited the silver watch from him, and gave it to our son on his 18th birthday.
Watches make great souvenirs, don't they?
RNJ
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
Attachment (4)
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 22 2021 5:10:02
|
|
RobF
Posts: 1611
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
|
|
RE: Is this an authentic Conde? (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
quote:
The fetishization of tuners on flamenco guitars is predominantly an amateur thing.
You make it sound so tawdry and maybe even a little dirty. I think the more expensive the guitar, the more expensive the tuners is how it was probably done. It wasn’t a big deal and this “upgrade” thing is a relatively modern contrivance. Regardless, there’s nothing amiss about admiring fine craftsmanship, whether it be in the wood or the metal, is there?
My point, this whole thread, has been that there was a period in Spain, right after the Fusteros closed shop, that guitars which would have originally worn the higher end Fusteros were then found in shops to have had their perfectly serviceable machines replaced with cheaper machines. The reason being for nothing more than greed, IMO, that’s all.
My old Conde still sports its original lower grade Fusteros. They work fine, so I see no need to “upgrade” them. Of course, when tuners wear, they should be replaced, hopefully with some level of sensitivity to the grade of the instrument.
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jul. 22 2021 11:51:34
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.109375 secs.
|
Printable Version
. But seriously I’m impressed how you guys can tell from a photo the differences when they are installed on the guitar already. (Photo from Rob faustero article) 
