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ORIGINAL: estebanana

Ah,
Here's what you got, a bit of an education in buying guitars. There's a learning curve in buying flamenco guitars. And I bet if you check back in a few months you'll be playing your guitar and will hardly remember the things you feel are troubles.

You mentioned you're an engineering student, often the things that catch the eye of one person will not bother another person. So the precision of the Taylor guitars agree with you. But here's the deal, the Taylor factory in San Diego CA is set up so the workers assemble pieces cut by computer guided routers. The workers don't have to have any special knowledge of guitar making, they are gluing parts together and moving them to the next assembly section. That is for the $600.00 models.

The parts are perfect at the Taylor factory and each parts looks exactly like the 400 parts of the same part of the guitar they cut that week. The parts were put together by the same team, which work around the clock, the Taylor factory has at least two maybe three shifts last time I checked, regular day shift, night shift and swing shift. The workers get a scale of about $12.00 her hour to start at Taylor. They punch in and punch out. The factory makes all levels of guitars, but the workers that do the majority of the assembly are not luthiers, they are assemblers who put together pre cut parts.

In Paracho they still make the guitar pretty much by hand, but in some houses they make them one by one and in some houses they make several at once, but the difference is in Paracho the guitars are made by small shops, compared to Taylor and they don't have the parts precut by computers. The cutting is done by guys at band saws and table saws and now days they have thickness sanders.

But here is the main thing, you may find the details sloppy, but the intent and time spent on the thickness of the top, bridge weight, fan bracing, neck angle, accuracy of intonation is still quite good quality work over seen by if not carried out by, an actual luthier. They are not working with pristine parts, they are working fast, but they are also paying attention as much as possible to the factors that make your guitar feel correct as a flamenco guitar under your hands.

I did not hear you mention the action was unbearable, or that the intonation was horrible, or the wood was deeply flawed. Or that the neck was super bumpy. You did say the structural integrity of the guitar was good. You basically got a hand made guitar over seen and probably partially built by a luthier who has a good touch for top thickness and bracing for $1000.00.

You can see it for what it is, a hand made thing in a world where machine cut perfection is the rule. You bought a piece of a persons judgement and labor, whereas, (not saying it's bad) if you buy a Taylor you buy a computer guided routers accuracy, but it lacks the judgement and oversight of a guitar maker who understands how flamenco guitars should feel.

Congratulations, you bought into humanity and all it's imperfections- and after all the saving and planning you bought from a dealer who has scruples and pride in the product he carries. He is helping you by continuing to support the line he carries even after you gave him your hard earned money. Taylor would have done the same thing too, I have done warranty work on Taylor's and they give great repair support. But do they make guitars as flamenca as the guys in Paracho? Probably not.

Mazel tov!

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It really bothers me how a lot of people on this forum consider anything less than a $6000 Conde a cheap guitar.

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Yamaha CG171-SF