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estebanana -> RE: Canal Conde' - The 24 Hour Conde' News Channel (Sep. 29 2013 4:10:54)
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quote:
If you hate orange don’t blame the poor Conde bros. Blame Jose Ramirez III and Pepe Habichuela.
Until about 1966 flamenco guitars started out blond and went golden as they got older. Then Ramirez started making flamenco guitar tops from western red cedar he found it necessary to use a darker varnish to mask the contrast between cypress and cedar. The varnish was reddish brown. It took the Conde brothers a few years to catch up. Their version was less tasteful. If it wasn’t for Pepe it would have gone out of fashion long ago.
Hating orange, I don't hate orange, I dislike bad orange finishes.
Most orange finishes are cloudy, not transparent and have low refractive index. Nor are they highly dichroic, if at all. I dislike cheap orange opaque finishes that lack depth and color change as you move them in light. The majority of Conde's have this kind of lackluster finish. It's ugly and garish, and when you see a beautiful finish you learn to tell the difference and you don't want to look at crap.
Older Conde's often have deep brownish orange, dichroic lacquer finishes, they look great. The new ones have a rubbery obscure coat of muck.
Check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichroism
And Ramizez' idea to match the colors of his cedar tops to backs & sides was a dumb idea. Although he did do it with better finishes which display more depth more sensitive color and subtle color. I learned about this through Gene Clark several years ago because he was able to see dozens of Spanish guitars coming to California in the late fifties a early sixties. I received his information on guitar finishes from that time and he did report exactly as you say; the guitars came out of Spain with not much color if at all. The early guitars I have seen by Ramirez family, de da Chica et. al. are golden from oxidation and they look fantastic under clear deep finishes. I'm more interested in staying with that earlier tradition of not tarting up the guitar.
I've thought about making a few colored guitars and I've done some tests with colored grounds on the wood. I made a stain with pernambuco wood and made a ground with pumice and shellac colored with this tincture stain. I layered a red orange varnish over it, but I was not happy with the clarity. It needs to be stellar, it needs to glow, it needs to look miles deep, it needs to flash two complex colors as you move it back and forth. It should look elegant and not like a common fire hydrant or traffic cone orange.
I don't hate orange, I have high expectations of how deep and clear a finish should be. So far I'm not impressed with current Conde' varnish jobs, they look sub-par. I'd rather my guitars go out clear or slightly shaded, then get golden brown, than go out orange, until I make the orange that will make me happy.
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