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So after more than a year of work I finally finished my first guitar build, here she is:
caucasian spruce top mediterranean cypress back/sides BRW headplate, bridge and bindings cedar neck ebony fretboard 660mm scale, weights about 1350g french polished
action: 7.5mm at bridge 10.5mm at soundhole(not ideal, but playable, I hope) 2.7mm at 12th fret
A big THANK YOU to all the luthiers around here who always helped me when I was in doubt!
A couple of pics:
By some lucky strike I even managed to comply with the long debated "old rule" about matching color of top and back woods (sorry, couldn't resist :)
Thanks once again guys, it is a great feeling to finally hear this guitar.
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Ahhh.......Well done you. Give yourself a good pat on the back. There is nothing quite like hearing the first few sounds - and if it's nice ( which I'm sure it will be ) it should only get better.
Martin, well done. Looks fantastic. Love the headstock and what I can see of the rosette. Looks like a nice piece of spruce. Frets looks nicely finished off. How do you find the "Nut" though? When playing at first position, do you find the nut slightly sharp. It looks sharp to me, but that could just be the photo. I don't feel comfortable with a sharp nut. Wow! I'm jealous of your achievements and dedication.
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Rhythm, grace & passion. El ritmo, gracia & la pasión Be the change you want to see in this world - Gandhi
I can't judge the sound very well because I never held a real flamenco guitar before and I only started learning flamenco guitar yesterday :)
I was hoping the guitar will be more "sweet modern" than "raspy traditional" - like the sound of Tomatito, Vicente Amigo or Pedro Sierra. I know that it's not possible to predict the sound of your first guitar, but I did what I could - I followed the flamenco plan from LMI (B.Lewis), chose a little softer piece of spruce for top, used solid linings instead of kerfed, flat bridge shape, D'addario j46 strings...
At first I thought that maybe she sounded too sweet/classical but after I lowered the saddle and the fret buzz kicked in I was more than happy. Plus it looks like the guitar will be quite versatile - I played some latin/jazz rhythms and I liked the sound a lot. Maybe I'll try some brighter treble strings next time.
Also, the sound changed quite a bit in the first few hours, I'm looking forward to hearing how will she sound in a year :)
In the end I'm very pleasantly surprised - the result is much better than I was expecting when I started this project. And I admire the luthier's work even more now - it's a lot of work to put together a guitar!
my wife is really not happy about me using a router in the living room :)
As a male I don't see any problem with that whatsoever What's wrong with sitting down in front of the telly and getting out some power tools? Women just can't stand to see us having fun
I´m curious: What is your plantilla? It looks like nit has either a pretty big upper part or a small lower part
Good eye :)
Two things happened:
1. I was following a plan that I bought long ago from ebay and it turned out to be a badly scaled copy of LMI B.Lewis flamenco plan (the seller confused two scales shown on the plan and copied 650mm scale to measure 660mm) - I haven't noticed this at first so the whole guitar was going to be slightly larger.
2.I was too lazy to make a mold so I was bending/assembling it "freehand" and tried to correct the copy error. The lower bout came out as it should, the upper bout is a little wider.
It's a pity that I haven't built the proper mold and/or solera as I could probably use them in the future. On the other hand I understand the geometry of the guitar better now so I will be doing things differently next time.
So far I made only a Cejilla , but I'm a very technical guy , and I always liked to get into the smallest details of every thing I use, fit it to my needs and make it unique , and so it is with guitars. Though i guess it is many players' dream to make their own guitars :)
kominak , out of curiosity , how long it took you to make her? and if you don't mind , how good your woodwork skills are? (I mean , do you have any background in wood/guitar making)
The thing to where my questions lead is: how hard is it to make a flamenco guitar (that will sound good of course) in "homemade conditions"? I know that my question sound a bit silly , I'm well aware to the fact that you can't turn into a luthier out of a sudden , its just an issue I'm very interested in :)
kominak , out of curiosity , how long it took you to make her? and if you don't mind , how good your woodwork skills are? (I mean , do you have any background in wood/guitar making)
It took about a year from start to finish, but I spent one year prior to that collecting every information I could - reading books, internet forums, ...
I didn't have any woodworking skills when I started - I used to do some woodcarving with my grandpa as a kid, but that was 20 years ago :) One thing that helped me a lot was a local guitar making course - it was only 7 days and of course nobody finished his guitar, but many things were explained, prepared and a lot easier to finish at home.
Then I just followed the plan and hoped for the best :)
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What's wrong with sitting down in front of the telly and getting out some power tools? Women just can't stand to see us having fun 
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