Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
|
RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login  | |
|
   
Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
|
 RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR (in reply to n85ae)
|
|
|
quote:
quote:
ORIGINAL: n85ae
Not speaking for Ricardo, but as an owner of a couple PDM's he probably means the
way by which they farmed out a lot of their guitar construction, and then final tune
the guitars and sell them out of their shop as PDM's. At least for the semi prof models,
etc. Like the 27F variants, etc. Which if you look inside of with a mirror you can see
obvious whittling of the braces, etc.
Regards,
Jeff
Ricardo may have been a little facetious in regard to my ordering a PDM from James Greenberg, as a first class flamenco guitar advertised at Zavaleta's store.
I don't consider this as James fault and I don't return guitars, I just fix them and send them on to a good home, which I did and Dan Zeff sold it for me.
Does this reflect on all PDM guitars. Obviously, PDM has grown in knowledge and expertise from that time, and I'm sure he will keep going like all the rest of us.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 1 2014 16:13:48
 |
|
Ricardo
Posts: 14845
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
|
|
RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Tom Blackshear
quote:
quote:
ORIGINAL: n85ae
Not speaking for Ricardo, but as an owner of a couple PDM's he probably means the
way by which they farmed out a lot of their guitar construction, and then final tune
the guitars and sell them out of their shop as PDM's. At least for the semi prof models,
etc. Like the 27F variants, etc. Which if you look inside of with a mirror you can see
obvious whittling of the braces, etc.
Regards,
Jeff
Ricardo may have been a little facetious in regard to my ordering a PDM from James Greenberg, as a first class flamenco guitar advertised at Zavaleta's store.
I don't consider this as James fault and I don't return guitars, I just fix them and send them on to a good home, which I did and Dan Zeff sold it for me.
Does this reflect on all PDM guitars. Obviously, PDM has grown in knowledge and expertise from that time, and I'm sure he will keep going like all the rest of us.
I just remember you admitting to sanding the inside of one. It stuck in my mind for 2 reasons.
1. I have a few player friends, very GOOD players mind you, that love those guitars. I personally can't stand em, very stiff sounding. So when you said you went at one of em it made me curious as your description of your complaint about the instrument I was in agreement with....taste wise.
2. I was at Dan Zeff's place in 2011, I believe. He showed me one PDM I was not even interested to touch, but I did, and low and behold it sounding very punchy and flamenco. Could it have been the same one? Most likely.
So Just poking fun at you for saying, now after all, it might be "ethically" wrong to mess around with an other builder's work.
My friend, pro player and amateur builder, claimed that R. Diaz gave him a Manuel Cano years ago (aka andalusian) in hopes to promote the mexican builder that had a "Made in spain' label, but he proceeded to lop off and replace the hideous headstock, and went filing like crazy up inside at the braces and top to make it sound more flamenco. It certainly worked, I played it after all that. After all he put electronics in it. But I am thinking that simply removing wood will get any guitar sounding more percussive and flamenco....to the point the top just caves in I guess? 
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 2 2014 0:19:06
|
|
Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
|
|
RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
quote:
So Just poking fun at you for saying, now after all, it might be "ethically" wrong to mess around with an other builder's work.
I understand your having fun with it and I would not have messed with it at all, if I hadn't needed to recoup my investment. As it was, the fingerboard shrank a considerable amount and I let Dan figure that one out before he resold it.
The guitar had a non-voice to it, more like cardboard. But the potential was there to adjust the voice to be more significant.
So I took the fan braces down to about G#-F on the top key, which primarily was constructed at about A-B Flat This helped more music to come out of the top, which, in my opinion, was too thick at about 2.6 MM. This would have required a lot of playing to open up the top.
The guitar had fine wood and a beautiful Spruce top, so no doubt Dan found a good home for it.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 2 2014 4:32:56
|
|
estebanana
Posts: 9371
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
|
|
RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
|
|
|
I thought it was a Torres from afar, but it makes sense you would have a Rodriguez on your wall.
I'm trying to decide if I'll tussle with that again, I've built Friedrich, Rodriguez and Fleta models once each, A lattice top, but never a Hauser or a Torres. My next guitar after the blanca I'm almost done with is a Torres model with 640 scale. Then I think a Hauser just to do it to see what it is like. After that I'm going to make more classicals, but I'm wondering which style suit me best. The Friedrich I built was very good, the Rodriguez I did not have the feel for with only one, it was trickier than I thought. But it a good.
Have you ever work with Friedrich's ideas or Fleta? The Friedrich is deceptive, it seems like too much timber in the guitar, but it sounds complex and rich despite having half a lumber yard in there.
Are you using BWB Fiber Purfling? I was using that for a while but I found it a pain to chisel down.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 18 2014 9:00:07
|
|
Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
|
|
RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR (in reply to estebanana)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
I thought it was a Torres from afar, but it makes sense you would have a Rodriguez on your wall.
Definitely a Rodriguez picture :-)
quote:
Have you ever worked with Friedrich's ideas or Fleta? The Friedrich is deceptive, it seems like too much timber in the guitar, but it sounds complex and rich despite having half a lumber yard in there.
I've built all the major builders' guitars except Fleta, which i didn't have an interest in, even though I have a pattern for it. I've pretty much settled on the Miguel Rodriguez and the Reyes style, but with some modifications that I think make the guitars better.
quote:
Are you using BWB Fiber Purfling? I was using that for a while but I found it a pain to chisel down.
I'm not sure, as I get my binding/purfling built by Michael Gurian. This saves me time, not having to build my own. It's flexible but pretty hard. The binding is actually IE rosewood but the purfling is questionable. Most of my experiments were building at least 5 guitars of each model.
On the side: Richard Brune made some Fleta purfling for me years ago and I still have it in stock. Brune is an excellent builder but I have yet to build a Fleta style. I'll leave that to the artful hands of Brune.
BTW, Brune and his son, Marshal are going strong building their passion... extremely nice people, and Richard is currently fine tuning one of my guitar's fingerboards, which I have to admit, although passable, will never be as good as his work :-)
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 18 2014 11:44:27
|
|
Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3432
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
|
|
RE: FINE TUNING A GUITAR (in reply to Tom Blackshear)
|
|
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Tom Blackshear
Here is a picture of me, Manuel, and Carlos at a great restaurant for fish, to start our visit and business for the week-end.
Name of the restaurant?
I get down to San Antonio a few times per year, and I haven't found a good seafood place in Austin, except for my neighborhood sushi bar.
Every few weeks in the summertime I'll make it to Quality Seafood for 3/4 pound of jumbo shrimp, which I'll shell, boil and ice down at home. They have excellent red and tartar sauce. It goes well with a dry white wine, some French bread and a salad. If I get there early enough in the day, they may still have some flounder filets, which I sauté in butter and decorate with some mango/onion/cilantro/Tabasco salsa.
Of course I was spoiled for years by fresh caught fish at Kwajalein, the fish warungs on the beach at Jimbaran in Bali, good fish places in Honolulu, Bangkok, Tokyo etc.
Back when my parents lived in Corpus Christi I liked Black's Oyster Bar, and a place downtown where you could get good speckled trout.
When my brother lived in Galveston he was a member of the Pelican Club, the jacket-and-tie-only tourist-free private club that shared Gaido's kitchen. Damn! Now I'm remembering the stuffed flounder….
RNJ
|
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Apr. 27 2014 18:26:41
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
9.179688E-02 secs.
|
Printable Version
