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Firefrets - no truss rod- Truss rods no not address neck angle, they give the illusion of a neck angle correction. They may lend stiffness to necks, but there are three better ways to stiffen the neck: carbon fiber spar, neck fillet and stacked laminated fingerboard - can explain each, but never a truss rod. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but think about thousands and thousands of flamenco guitars that don’t have them and still have proper neck angles. It’s a non starter.
As far as neck angle being treated by planing the fingerboard, I propose or advocate for a taper of neck material glued on to the top of the neck to articulate a subtly directed neck angle in combination with either a new fingerboard or existing board.
I explain the condition here. I’ve done this rather than just plane the fingerboard for a few reasons. If the neck is radically out of angle and planing the fingerboard results in a disproportionate amount of wood on one side or another a taper of neck material can be artfully employed to help mitigate the visual impact of the mess.
Shaving a new angle in to the board is a viable solution on the right guitar. It's invasive though, not just because you're removing material, but also that 5 angles are effected.
The 2 to be aware of are your headstock angle, and the break angle behind the nut. Often the strings will hit the headstock afterwards, particularly on a guitar with rollers.
I've done it a handful of times to guitars that needed it, but on old guitars especially, I'll often consider heat, in order to maintain originality, and avoid the above.
Often I'll look for gains in as many areas as I can get them, so as to lessen the effect of a single process.
Even if you make the neck so strong that it can't possibly bend, the body is still vulnerable, so you can't win long term. Something has to give, right?
There are a couple of splits on the tapa underneath the fretboard.
If you read Ramirez 3's book, this is EXACTLY how he wanted it to occur. Most guitars the splits occur visibly on either side of the ebony over the body join there. Almost all guitars have that that are actually played and not stored in a glass case with forever climate control. The ebony shrinks and pulls on the top. the cracks represent the exact amount of water molecules expelled. Often there is a correspondence to the frets poking out all of a sudden. Ramirez said these splits are not that important and to "fix" them cosmetically, he deliberately only puts glue in the CENTER of the ebony board so when it shrinks, the cracks are invisible to the outside, as yours are.
If you can't lower the bone saddle, you can consider planing down the bridge to expose more saddle, then lowering the saddle to where you want it. The break angle can go to zero (maybe you already had this and it was the buzzing that occurred), so then you have to fill the string holes and have them re-drilled at a DOWNWARD angle from bottom toward headstock. I had a student's guitar fixed this way, it worked nicely.
As per estebanana and other suggestions of the neck, you likely have enough "meat" as he said to plane the existing fingerboard then refret it after you get the action you want. My Sanchis has the opposite problem, but at least 50% of the fingerboard could be shaved...it is almost as if they did that deliberately for the future. None of my other guitars have that much ebony going on.
This is very reassuring and useful to read, Ricardo, thank you very much!
I did shave a little bit from the bridge but the break angle is too shallow and does buzz a bit. I think I’ll ask Stephen Frith to plane the board for a better angle and less relief. The guitar seems quite flexible, if I raise or lower the pitch of the medium tension strings by about a half step the action moves by about .25mm after settling for a while. I think both the bridge raises and the relief increases. Frith said it’s a quite thin top, no more than 2mm.
The wedge approach is a really nice method, but it's very expensive labour wise.
The price of the repair is relative to the value of the guitar. On an $8000 dollar guitar it’s worth it. It’s also worth it on a $1200 dollar guitar, because taking the back of of that guitar is ridiculous. The cost is on the time it takes to touch up the finish. If you don’t touch the neck finish then it’s a cost effective repair. For me that’s a fretboard replacement with a tapered piece to correct the neck projection, plus new frets and fret dressing, followed by touch up. Under a $1000 dollars and probably realistically about $600.
I first saw this neck projection correction on my cello teachers cello in high school. She had just gotten it back from the shop one afternoon when I went for a lesson. She pointed out the long taper
Yeah, there's a lot of work needed. Removing a board can be an ordeal on some guitars, especially if white glue was used. I need to do a modest shaving on a 100 year old flamenco I'm currently restoring. There's no saddle, just a wooden lip, so a bit to figure out angle wise. Once I have her strong enough to risk strings I can put her back together and see what's what.
Yeah, there's a lot of work needed. Removing a board can be an ordeal on some guitars, especially if white glue was used. I need to do a modest shaving on a 100 year old flamenco I'm currently restoring. There's no saddle, just a wooden lip, so a bit to figure out angle wise. Once I have her strong enough to risk strings I can put her back together and see what's what.
You should show us this 1925 flamenco you are nursing back to health. Can you give some photos to study?
I've still plenty to do, but have done a lot already. She's a fairly modest guitar, quite slender, and incredibly light, but obviously has a certain charm.
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yes. One thing to keep in mind as he relates his story about giving guitar after guitar to Segovia, trying to turn him back to Spain from German Hauser, (and the Fleta story that pissed him off at some point), I believe the Ramirez 3 guitar he concertized with toward the end of his life is known to have the AM stamp (Antonio Martinez, one of the guys working in his shop)....so it makes me wonder if he built ANY of the guitars he was giving to Segovia at all. . Maybe it turned out Martinez was building better guitars than Ramirez himself? Or he was testing Segovia to learn which of his own builders was the best?
Anyway the book is super informative, you learn Brasil Rosewood is illegal to use since 1960 so likely all modern guitars that used that wood were from black market sources...and also I suspect NOT true BR species. But who cares really. He admitted he could not experiment on flamenco modals, the players weren't having it (except he got away with the cedar tops). He was quite proud of his "de Camara" guitar but I have never played one.
yes. One thing to keep in mind as he relates his story about giving guitar after guitar to Segovia, trying to turn him back to Spain from German Hauser, (and the Fleta story that pissed him off at some point), I believe the Ramirez 3 guitar he concertized with toward the end of his life is known to have the AM stamp (Antonio Martinez, one of the guys working in his shop)....so it makes me wonder if he built ANY of the guitars he was giving to Segovia at all. . Maybe it turned out Martinez was building better guitars than Ramirez himself? Or he was testing Segovia to learn which of his own builders was the best?
Anyway the book is super informative, you learn Brasil Rosewood is illegal to use since 1960 so likely all modern guitars that used that wood were from black market sources...and also I suspect NOT true BR species. But who cares really. He admitted he could not experiment on flamenco modals, the players weren't having it (except he got away with the cedar tops). He was quite proud of his "de Camara" guitar but I have never played one.
From the late 1960s until the early 1980s I bought more than a dozen Ramirez 1a's from Ramirez at his shop in Madrid, imported them into the USA and sold them. The profits paid for first class plane tickets. Ramirez knew what I was up to and didn't object. During this time I became somewhat acquainted with him.
Ramirez III's shop was set up like those of the guilds of the middle ages and Renaissance. Ramirez himself was a skilled luthier, having worked for his father Jose II, but he didn't participate in the daily work of making instruments. Various parts and subassemblies were produced by apprentices, to be built into finished instruments by higher ranking oficiales. An apprentice could rise to the rank of oficial by presenting a finished instrument or instruments for approval by Ramirez. No doubt Ramirez authorized the construction of these masterpieces.
In an interview in the January,1982 issue of "Frets" magazine, Jose III went into some detail about the construction process. For example, soundboards were all prepared to a thickness of 2mm by apprentices. The oficial, whose initials appeared on the heel block, decided upon the final thickness and graduation of the soundboard, and the thickness of the bracing.
Another innovation besides the cedar tops was the catalyzed polyurethane finish. It is often described as "lacquer" by dealers, but it is quite different from the nitrocellulose lacquer employed by many other makers.
Both Manuel Contreras Sr. and Felix Manzanero talked to me at some length about Jose III's insistence upon strict adherence to his design and standards of quality. I once mentioned one of Jose III's foibles to Contreras. Manuel smiled, nodded, but said, "What a man! Where would we all be without him?"
Describing guitars by Contreras and Paulino Bernabe Sr. that Richard Bruné has had for sale, Richard has mentioned that they had considerable input into the design that Ramirez eventually developed, persuaded Segovia to play, and adhered to in the production of a few thousand guitars.
My 1967 1a blanca has Antonio Martinez's initials on the heel block. Some dealers have told me this makes it more valuable, others have said it makes no difference. My own experience in trying out dozens of 1a classicals at the shop in Madrid was that the output of a given oficial varied about as much as the variability of all the oficiales taken together.
Contreras, Manzanero and Bernabe diverged from Ramirez's design when they set up their own workshops.
In an interview Bruné was asked how he got started as a maker. He replied that he started out making Ramirez 1a copies, only cheaper. Of course Bruné also went on to develop his own world class designs.
its close to my Juan Struch , mine have many work to do , yours is mint comparing to mine
Are you going to string it? if so please tell me how it sounds , and better a audio clip (or whatever), so i can decide if i give her to restaure and string it to play (from time to time)
yes. One thing to keep in mind as he relates his story about giving guitar after guitar to Segovia, trying to ……..
From the late 1960s until the early 1980s I bought more than a dozen Ramirez 1a's from Ramirez at his shop in Madrid, imported them into the USA and sold them. The profits paid for first class plane tickets. Ramirez knew what I was up to and didn't object. During this time I became somewhat acquainted with him.
Ramirez III's shop was set up like those of the guilds of the middle ages and Renaissance. Ramirez himself was a skilled luthier, having worked for his father Jose II, but he didn't participate in the daily work of making instruments. Various parts and subassemblies were produced by apprentices, to be built into finished instruments by higher ranking oficiales. An apprentice could rise to the rank of oficial by presenting a finished instrument or instruments for approval by Ramirez. No doubt Ramirez authorized the construction of these masterpieces.
In an interview in the January,1982 issue of "Frets" magazine, Jose III went into some detail about the construction process. For example, soundboards were all prepared to a thickness of 2mm by apprentices. The oficial, whose initials appeared on the heel block, decided upon the final thickness and graduation of the soundboard, and the thickness of the bracing.
Another innovation besides the cedar tops was the catalyzed polyurethane finish. It is often described as "lacquer" by dealers, but it is quite different from the nitrocellulose lacquer employed by many other makers.
Both Manuel Contreras Sr. and Felix Manzanero talked to me at some length about Jose III's insistence upon strict adherence to his design and standards of quality. I once mentioned one of Jose III's foibles to Contreras. Manuel smiled, nodded, but said, "What a man! Where would we all be without him?"
Describing guitars by Contreras and Paulino Bernabe Sr. that Richard Bruné has had for sale, Richard has mentioned that they had considerable input into the design that Ramirez eventually developed, persuaded Segovia to play, and adhered to in the production of a few thousand guitars.
My 1967 1a blanca has Antonio Martinez's initials on the heel block. Some dealers have told me this makes it more valuable, others have said it makes no difference. My own experience in trying out dozens of 1a classicals at the shop in Madrid was that the output of a given oficial varied about as much as the variability of all the oficiales taken together.
Contreras, Manzanero and Bernabe diverged from Ramirez's design when they set up their own workshops.
In an interview Bruné was asked how he got started as a maker. He replied that he started out making Ramirez 1a copies, only cheaper. Of course Bruné also went on to develop his own world class designs.
RNJ
I would be remiss if I did not place an additive on this comment, suffice my writing to stand in for a post script that the esteemed Mr. Jernigan is too modest to write himself.
The beast days of the 1960’s Ramírez shop were also the shining epoch of another Madrid institution, for these were the times of the Hotel Wellington’s famous Jernigan Suites rooms. The lair of Richard Jernigan who was also known about town as Tres Pulgas, because his alzapua was so devistating it’s if he had three thumbs working together to ratchet out notes like an air driven hammer. The Jernigan Suites were on par with the American Academy in Rome as a meeting place of the most cultured tertulias in the city. Most importantly the suites were a humanitarian oasis fulfilling a complete agenda spanning the sponsorship of great authors in residence, a science foundation dedicated and co operated by the Cousteau family, and finally a setting where the moral virtue of wayward senoritas was preserved.
Once upon a time Ramirez was the holy grail and Torres and Santos worth nothing. According to Arcangel, Ramirez was the great deceiver of the Spanish guitar building tradition, but I don't think so. I find the big problems with Ramirez, Contreras, Conde etc. is consistency.... Too many guitars and too many hands involved. Some production years are better than others, but you may find true gems even in modern guitars.
Once upon a time Ramirez was the holy grail and Torres and Santos worth nothing.
A fair amount of that is still woven into the current fabric, isn't it?
quote:
According to Arcangel, Ramirez was the great deceiver of the Spanish guitar building tradition, but I don't think so.
Whether or not this is true, it is worth looking for threads of deceit and distortion woven into the 20th century history of the Spanish guitar. Or maybe I should just say: extra-musical motivation. It's an intriguing exercise to wonder what might have happened if knowledge of the alternative guitaristic avenues for classical performance (there were several reasonably robust holdovers of the early Romantic guitar) was more widely available, if personal and perhaps even national agendas were not involved, and if there had not been hunger for a democratization of classical music that still didn't challenge its elite status.
Once upon a time Ramirez was the holy grail and Torres and Santos worth nothing. According to Arcangel, Ramirez was the great deceiver of the Spanish guitar building tradition, but I don't think so. I find the big problems with Ramirez, Contreras, Conde etc. is consistency.... Too many guitars and too many hands involved. Some production years are better than others, but you may find true gems even in modern guitars.
Somewhat to my surprise, a few experienced players have said they prefer my '67 Ramirez blanca to the '82 Arcangel blanca. Others have been of the opposite opinion.
I like the Arcangel better, one of the few I have played that I prefer to the Ramirez.
The best guitar for me may not be the best one for you.
I won’t go into it, my uncle retired now, was an agricultural economist in Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina. He had things to say about these commodities like Brazilian rosewood. I saw someone try to bribe him over something like this, he reported them. He’s honest. So that’s the world of these rare commodities. They are dirty at the very least and bloody at the worst.
Archangel’s opinion of Ramirez… come on, Archie made a connection to dump all his output in Japan during the boom years.
There's for sure a big problem with the exploitation of the woods in the Amazon forest and the most effective way to prevent it is just to make illegal the woods themselves. So, I think the CITES stuff is somehow necessary nowadays. Nonetheless in the sixties there was a completely different awareness of the matter and the use of braz used to be perfectly legal. As it was legal at the time, it's a nonsense to blame the old makers as it's a nonsense to ask me to produce the CITES papers of a very old guitar. Something in the system could have been better planned.
I think the poor Arcangel meant to claim the superiority of Santos, Barbero (and himself) in a time were these old master were not considered enough and the old Spanish way left room for modern methods.
I have one Brazilian rosewood guitar, made in 2009 in Mexico, 3 Indian rosewood instruments with dates varying from 1973 to 2024, and one which was sold as Brazilian in Spain in 1991, but about which I have serious doubts.
On the other hand the ground floor of my house is full of Brazilian rosewood furniture, made in Scandinavia in the 1960s. I bought it all used in Vancouver and Victoria, Canada after I retired in 2010, from a dealer who imports shipping containers of used mid-20th century furniture from Scandinavia.
I asked the dealer about possible difficulties in importing the furniture to the USA. He said they waited until they had a van load going to USA, loaded it up and drove to Bellingham, Washington.
I said, "How about U.S. Customs?" The dealer said Customs had impounded one van load, and threatened to confiscate it. The dealer hired a wood expert from a Canadian university to contradict the Customs people. In the end, despite microscopic examinations of wood samples by various exoerts, U.S. Customs could not prove it was Dalbergia Nigra and gave the stuff back. Customs had never bothered them again.
It was the Scandinavian appetite for Brazilian rosewood furniture in the mid-20th century which used up all the timber from the Atlantic forest and caused Brazil eventually to ban the export of Brazilian rosewood logs.
I have one Brazilian rosewood guitar, made in 2009 in Mexico, 3 Indian rosewood instruments with dates varying from 1973 to 2024, and one which was sold as Brazilian in Spain in 1991, but about which I have serious doubts.
On the other hand the ground floor of my house is full of Brazilian rosewood furniture, made in Scandinavia in the 1960s. I bought it all used in Vancouver and Victoria, Canada after I retired in 2010, from a dealer who imports shipping containers of used mid-20th century furniture from Scandinavia.
I asked the dealer about possible difficulties in importing the furniture to the USA. He said they waited until they had a van load going to USA, loaded it up and drove to Bellingham, Washington.
I said, "How about U.S. Customs?" The dealer said Customs had impounded one van load, and threatened to confiscate it. The dealer hired a wood expert from a Canadian university to contradict the Customs people. In the end, despite microscopic examinations of wood samples by various exoerts, U.S. Customs could not prove it was Dalbergia Nigra and gave the stuff back. Customs had never bothered them again.
It was the Scandinavian appetite for Brazilian rosewood furniture in the mid-20th century which used up all the timber from the Atlantic forest and caused Brazil eventually to ban the export of Brazilian rosewood logs.
The CITES restrictions occurred years later.
RNJ
That’s interesting, furniture making used the Brazilian more than guitar making. Other countries used it for furniture as well. You see those huge thick table tops that would have made 20 guitars if it was resawn. I was using the social media platform ‘Threads’. I got into a joking argument with a Swedish woman who was advocating openly about what great folks Swedes are. I disagreed with her and said Swedes were not generally nice, but very grouchy and self centered. Eventually enough evidence of my counter argument a out Sweden amounted to what the censorship policy on Threads considered full blown hate speech. My profile was permanently suspended.
Which is ironic, because I’m part Swedish, but never really got a sense that Swedes were particularly nice, I fact… Now the censorship policies on Meta products have degraded to the point where there’s almost no limit on how far people can reach before their meanness becomes hate speech.
Well anyway.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Brazilian rosewood is a status symbol and a place market for money. Like a bitcoin, but called ‘wood coin’. It’s the same as the art market where certain brand blue chip artists names have become forms of currency traded between the ultra wealthy.
I’ve heard from another source about the inability of customs to identify Brazilian rose wood when wood science authorities become involved. There is long inactive Foro member who has a Conde’ negra purchased from an internationally known shop in Southern California that was sold as Brazilian, but was probably Caviuna or some iron wood, of which there are several types. But who could prove it’s not Brazilian rosewood in court if customs officials can’t figure it out? We have a strange situation where wood that looks like what people think Brazilian rosewood should look like will place more value on it, but it’s often unprovable. Many experts would agree to authenticate a Velasquez or a Matisse painting with 100% air tight security of opinion, but the wood still poses authentication situations.
its a recent thing regarding a mid/long term time frame, since 1990´s (if i can recall) that was include in the semi extint list . Only many years later was prohibited. altough has you now you can still sell and buy , a legal way , like old furniture and old infrastruture and make in this case new guitars (or whatever). And of course in some cases old stock.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Brazilian rosewood is a status symbol and a place market for money. Like a bitcoin, but called ‘wood coin’. It’s the same as the art market where certain brand blue chip artists names have become forms of currency traded between the ultra wealthy.
When I ordered my spruce/Brazilian classical from Abel Gsrcis Lopez in Paracho in 2006, he said he could build just as good guitars from palo escrito, cocobolo or Indian rosewood. He compared using Brazilian to putting jewelry on the instrument. I went for Brazilian anyhow.
I have a top grade instrument from one of Madrid's most famous makers, represented as Brazilian in 1991. It is stained so darkly that the grain pattern is hardly visible. At the time I assumed it was probably something else, but it was a good guitar at a good price.
The "Brazilian" furniture I bought in 2010 was good quality, cost no more than equivalent new pieces, I liked the looks of it. I looked up designers and manufacturers before I bought.
Nowadays in Austin "mid-century modern" pieces that I don't like sell at eye-watering prices for the recently arrived tech bros to furnish their high rise condos downtown.
I got into a joking argument with a Swedish woman who was advocating openly about what great folks Swedes are. I disagreed with her and said Swedes were not generally nice, but very grouchy and self centered.
Surely you've heard the story. A shipload of Scandinavians were wrecked on a desert island.
A year later the Danes had formed a co-operative. The Norwegians had built a boat and sailed away. The Swedes were waiting to be introduced.
A blonde Swede was sitting on a bus reading the newspaper when all of a sudden she starts to cry. The Spanish guy sitting next to her asks what's wrong and she replies that 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in a drug bust. The Spanish man agrees that the news is very sad. After a while the Swedish blonde asks, "How many is a Brazilian?"
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. Maybe it turned out Martinez was building better guitars than Ramirez himself? Or he was testing Segovia to learn which of his own builders was the best? 
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