estebanana -> RE: Romanillos-like bracing in a flamenca - what do you think? (Oct. 14 2014 6:41:47)
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It might be worth noting that Santos' and Barbero's fan designs are often are not that far apart from each other. And since Barbero finished some of Santos' guitars we can assume he had a look at the fan braces. Here is a photo of a Santos guitar with the back off. It is a 1920 Santos. From the photo you can see enough of the fan braces to understand the cut off bars are far inboard from the sides and at a very steep angle. And the fans are basically under the bridge a more or less parallel. I made a pencil tracing over the photo to show where they are. Compare it to the 1951 Barbero, they are extremely similar. A judgement a call of what a vast amount of uncontrolled soundboard vs. the results inherent in these two really fine sounding guitars seems odd. I think Santos in general made many guitars that resembled this bracing or something very close. He built a lot of guitars, and unless you have seen inside the majority of them it's kind of difficult to categorically claim what is an anomaly and what is typical. I honestly can't because I have only seen four Santos guitars. These designs work, one has to start somewhere and I'd rather say begin with a plan and then change to your own style or your own permutation on this very ubiquitous design. It's kind of plucking out cat whiskers instead of petting the whole furry cat to keep mulling over who is more authentic based on where you live. The world is now an information ghetto and everyone knows that you can go with a plan or you go with your own variation on a fan bracing theme. Or get good information about Spanish guitars from a few Yankee and English experts, who frankly have seen inside more Santos or Torres guitars than anyone. There are probably less than a dozen humans on the planet right now who have seen inside a large enough cross section of Torres, Barbero and Santos guitars to really authenticate them and to say what is typical a what is not.We have a great Torres book, but as of yet we have no authoritative book on Santos or Barbero that shows the entire output of either maker. Plans are important historical documents as well. So it may seen crazy to draw them and reproduce them exactly, but this affords the new, and old builder, a chance to literally apprentice in that guitar makers style. And this training is an invaluable step in teaching oneself, whether you continue in that fan pattern or not.
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