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Posts: 1827
Joined: Jul. 26 2009
From: The land down under
Type of rosewood?
Can anyone help identify the type of rosewood this is? Or let me now the likely candidates?This is a 1976 manuel lopez bellido that i recently purchased . I'm not sure what the back and sided are made of. Thanks
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Thanks Ethan. Google images of brazilian and amazon rosewood didn't seem to make it any easier to pinpoint. The colours and grains vary so much. I figured my best bet was to as you luthiers.
Manuel has made many guitars with Dalberghia Nigra (the real thing) But as I wrote somewhere else, its VERY complicated to judge and few of us if any will be able to judge from a photo. And few of us, if any, will be able to judge if we had the guitar in our hands.
You can choose to go into "myth mode" and belive its real braz rosewood and thereby think the guitar is better and finer than if it was made out of mumbo jumbo rosewood. Its all in the mind and you chose.
You can also chose to just like the guitar if its nice.
So how is the neck angle? Can it be set up to your likings?
Thanks for the info. I googled that timber and found plenty of info.
Like you say, I purchased the guitar for the sound so I'm not bothered if it's special brazilian or not. The timber looks interesting to me so It's just curiosity mainly.
This was sold as a classical guitar and i purchased it from the original owner who purchased it back in 76.
I decided to get a classical guitar for something different. I have been playing and writing a few ideas that i thought would sound good on a classical guitar. This guitar is somewhere between a flamenco and a classical IMO. The notes are fat and rich and the tension is quite high. It is quite comfortable to control and it does not boom out with rasqueados. The neck and set up are fine and it feels comfortable to play.
It had however been allowed to dry out. Below the bridge the centre seam had opened and lifted away from the centre strut. It still sounded great with the top opened when i went to inspect it. Fortunately the bracing style used has a brace running directly under the centre seam. After purchasing I took the strings off immediately and I took it to a luthier. He was able to close and glue the top back down without having to add any cleats. Luckily the weather has been really dry here lately so it was a good time to do the repair. It was lucky it came unglued and open at the seam as there are no other cracks in the top or the back.
Now I'm playing it in again. First set of new strings on.
Its normal that you can get very low 6th string over 12th fret setups on classicals. Classical guitarists normally dont care much about the stringheight at the bridge, so its often pretty high, meaning you can easily lower it a lot without getting it to low at the bridge. M. Bellido was mainly a flamenco builder and his classicals are known to be rather flamenco sounding and not to stiff either. I´ve tried a few when I worked in his sons shop and they were all like that. As a flamenco guitarists I like that.
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