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estebanana -> RE: Pulsation (May 26 2025 12:24:50)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: silddx
Quote: If you read Ramirez 3's book
Ricardo, is this the book? ‘Things About The Guitar’
https://guitarrasramirez.com/en/new-edition-of-the-book-things-about-the-guitar-in-english/
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.
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