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attila57 -> RE: Hola, M. Barbero found. (Oct. 27 2012 23:28:27)
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Hi Greg,
I'm back to you because of your 'found Barbero'. I think, you don't fully realize that you've entered a very slippery area this time. I've been doing repairs for some years and I have an opinion to tell you, if you don't mind reading it.
1. Without the signed, original label you can never be 100% sure if it's a real Barbero or not. One has doubts even with a visibly untouched label because, as I've already told you, labels can be manipulated. An independent expert's strong positive opinion and a signed, untouched, original label together can only assure people about the identity of an old instruments. Even then, it's nice to have, for example, the master luthier's original notes or book entries that clearly refer to the instrument in question. Without the label, the expert can convince himself and you about the originality, but a prospective buyer will always have some doubts.What I want to tell you is that whatever you do, if you want to sell the guitar later, its value will be lower than what you would expect or indeed, quite low, depending on the quality of the repair work done. You must consider that when you're about to invest your money in it.
2. I cannot assess the likeliness of the originality of your guitar, but I've already seen 'Rolex' watches for $200 that looked like real, weighed like real and even ticked like real and, you were offered original-looking documents with them, too...
3. If your Barbero turns out to be original (-1% doubt), and you choose to invest a fortune in its repair, for an expert it will still be just a suspicious, repaired instrument with a lower value. If your prospective buyer is serious and gets a decent expert's advice, he'll tell him the truth and you won't be able to sell the guitar for as much as you've invested in it. So I think it wouldn't be worth selling the repaired instrument.
3. I suspect it wouldn't be worth selling it now either, because only expert luthiers are ready to buy such an instrument, and they wouldn't pay you a good price because they would have to work a lot with it to be able to realize some profit on it.
4. So keeping it seems to be an obvious choice. If you're about to do this, it's OK, but you must decide what to do with it. You have two choices: either you hang it on the wall or put it in a case and say 'I have a real Barbero' or you have it repaired in such a way that you'll be able to play it.
5. If you want to hang it on the wall, or keep it like a museum object, then it's a reasonable idea to have it restored to a condition that's structurally and visually as close to the original as possible. In this case you must get a reputable, expert luther to do the job. His quality work, his name and his inscription would definitely increase your instrument's value. After all, a reputable luthier is supposed to work only with quality instruments! In this case you should get ready to pay him a fortune, because your badly broken and presumably inexpertly repaired top, plus the usual things on such a worn instrument would give him a lot of work for some time. But you must bear in mind that if in the future you decided to sell it for some reason, you wouldn't be able to get back your investment. It'd be more precious to you than to anyone else.
6. And what if you want to take it off the wall to play it? It would happen when, in the end, you realized that a guitar's only value lies in its sound. Then you could perhaps find that your visually beautiful, French polished top doesn't not 'sing' the way you've imagined. Perhaps it would not come up to your expectations or investment because of some reasons detailed below. In this
case you could hang it back on the wall and whenever you looked at it, it'd make you feel uneasy and frustrated. Or you could put it back to it's case and forget all about it - this way you wouldn't feel the frustration. Or you could wait until someone would be willing to buy it for small bucks.Who would want to buy an expensive guitar with a dull tone?
7. On the other hand, the restored top could even sound OK - you'd have a chance - and in this case you'd be a clear(?) winner of course.
8. But still, even if you had a nice tone, playing a lot of flamenco on a restored top that had been badly damaged is not advisable. You would want to do all sorts of things on that top, slap it, tap it with golpes all the time - these things can wear out even a new, strong top fairly quickly. Plus the rasgueos! Flamenco tops vibrate, man! And vibration could work apart the wood fibres of your nicely reglued top in time or open new cracks on the manipulated top right next to the reinforcing patches glued inside. A reglued top needs to be refinished, and, as a consequence, it loses some of its thickness. That's what you'd least want, I think, in this case.
9. So, if you really want to keep and play that instrument, it may be a good solution to put a new top on it. It'd definitely last longer, you could tap on it as you like and possibly, it would sound better, too. You must understand that old topwood is not always an advantage, especially with guitars that were allegedly left out in the rain. Lignin (wood material) can get cracky in time along its fibrous structure or can even become like a compressed powder that falls to pieces when stressed. It often happens to old instruments.Even if the 'tired' wood holds structurally, the sound of such tops may be compromised. The only
way to make these instruments playable is to make a new, matching top, preferably from selected seasoned wood that's similar in age and character to the original wood.The wearout of flamenco guitar tops is quicker than that of classical guitar soundboards, because of the stronger vibration that can separate cell walls in dead wood and line up lignin particles in an undesirable structure. The result is a dampened, dull sound due to the loss of flexibility and to the changes in the texture of the wood. These effects are greater with cedar tops but happen to spruce tops, too.This is the price we have to pay for our rasgueos and golpes.
10. Giving a new top to your guitar would have a definite drawback, unfortunately. Because of changing a major part of it, it would stop being an original Barbero - if it has ever been - and, because the top is generally considered to be the soul of the instrument, it would stop being a Barbero at all, and therefore, it would lose its value as such - if it has ever had. In return
you're likely to get a better sound and the increased stability of the top - your guitar would be playable. (This might happen to you with the re-glued top, too, but your chances are smaller.) A lot depends on your playing style and on the playing style of the previous owners,too. If you're a 'topbuster' for instance, you could crack the re-glued, old top more easily. And just think: your predecessors might have played the soul out of that topwood already.
11. Making a new top is an expert job. If it's done properly, it'll heighten the value of your broken instrument and improve its acoustic properties. A good luthier considers lots of factors before deciding on materials, thicknesses, glue etc. With a well-done new top the instrument's original and existing acoustic faults can be partially corrected, too. I cannot emphasize too strongly the role of a good luthier here.
12. Now you perhaps understand why I told you in my earlier comment that you had taken a bag of problems with that guitar.
13. Perhaps these problems could all be solved with a different approach. Therefore I advise you have other things examined on your guitar, too, first of all the action, the fretboard and the neckset. If the setting of the neck (the neck's alignment) is inappropriate, that might as well be a (somewhat sad) solution to your problem, the end of the story. A gradually increasing misalignment of the neck is a common problem with old instruments, especially with badly-treated ones. This grave fault would be a factor that should weigh your final decision about the instrument's future. It's a lot of work and therefore it's very expensive to correct a bad neckset (people call it a curved neck). You would need a new, custom-made fretboard with a negative slope built in it, or possibly the whole instrument should be taken apart and reassembled. If additional neckset problems do exist, I wouldn't go into it any deeper with that guitar if I were you.
14. In any case, you must be familiar with the terms and the posibilities of the guitarmaking trade to be able to decide on your future action. I strongly recommend you read 'Guitar Player's Repair Guide' by R.D. Erlewine, Backbeat Books, San Francisco 1990,1994. It's available on the Internet, too. That way you'll get to know what you can expect and what you'd be charged for before you take any steps with your 'found Barbero'.
Attila 'the Hun'
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