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Hello, I'm contemplating building small body/short scale guitar for my 6yo daughter this summer. Anyone has any experience with Roy Courtnall's Torres plan?
On a selfish note - as the guitar seems to be lightly build - can I expect to get a decent negra sound of it (using mad.rosewood instead of cypress)? Or would you put the fan braces more parallel to each other? As she'll grow up from that instrument in a couple of years and at the moment the playability is more important to her than sound anyway, I might as well set up the guitar as flamenco
RE: Small Torres build experiences? (in reply to kominak)
I've built a requinto and small scale Torres recently, the Torres naturally has a little growl like a flamenco guitar. Basically the same thing back then.
The Torres concept of the braces stays the same but the size of the guitar changes. If you see the book by Romanillos you can see the format Torres uses is this inverted 'kite' form, he scales the braces to fit body size without too much change. I'd just make it like the Torres plan and it will be a bit flamenco because his concept was the beginning of the flamenco development into a special flamenco guitar. I've even braced a few flamenco guitars exactly like a Torres and they sound flamenco. It's more about the braces, top thickness, bridge weight that give a flamenco sound more than back & sides. I think.
RE: Small Torres build experiences? (in reply to kominak)
When I was an apprentice, we made a Terz guitar with the tiny plan. I can't remember if we scaled it up a bit though. It was definitely small enough for a childs guitar though.
Really punchy sound being so small. We used Wenge for the back and sides as I think we got the set for £10 or something like that. It could be used for either classical or flamenco really.
RE: Small Torres build experiences? (in reply to kominak)
Not put any pics up but last guitar I've done was a small pattern. I looked at the small Torres in the Courtnall book, but I didnt like the curves. So, I did a cross using the dimensions of the small guitar but then used curves similar to Santo over this. Done my own internals and danced around cross naked at midnight etc. I'm happy and reports back are good too. For flamenco guitars I'm defo going to do another small pattern. They are loud and punchy which is somehow lost on the bigger models. Do not be frightened to give this a go.
RE: Small Torres build experiences? (in reply to kominak)
It took almost 2 years since I started gathering materials and almost 9 months of actual building over weekends, but finally the guitar is finished. Many thanks for all the encouraging words 2 years ago - my daughter loves the guitar and I was very pleasantly surprised by the sound the guitar produces. I doesn't sound small or cheap - the trebles are crisp and fast and the basses rivals those of my full sized blanca. If anybody is contemplating building such a small guitar, I can highly recommend Roy Courtnall's "Torres requinto" plan.
Some specs: Top: alpine (swiss) spruce from florinet Back/sides/bridge/headplate: Madagascar rosewood Lining: curly maple
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RE: Small Torres build experiences? (in reply to kominak)
Besides lower costs for the top/back/sides another benefit of such a small footprint is that you can get away with some cheaper jigs, too. Like this $0.25 "under the shelf" chop stick go-bar deck:
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