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RE: Harmonic bars
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: Harmonic bars (in reply to estebanana)
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I just put away my Manuel Conteras, Sr. spruce/Braziian doble tapa. For those who may not know "doble tapa"means there is another back, inside the Brazilian one. In this case the interior back is made of spruce. It has three fairly substantial braces. I think it sits on top of the back braces of the outer, Brazilian one.
I got curious and stuck a mirror inside. The top has five braces. The center one is straight, The outer ones are curved outward toward the sides. There is a thin bridge strap. The strap is narrower under the heavier part of the bridge, but about the same width as the wings under the bridge wings.
Oh, yes, harmonic bars: the lower harmonic bar is scalloped on the ends and scooped out so it's not as tall in the middle as it is further toward the sides, before the scallop starts.
The Contreras is the second least played of the four classicals I have. But today, I calmed down and tried to get the best out of it. It's a really good guitar. Not as much tonal variety (the way I play it-or I suspect as most others would) as the Abel Garcia or the Romanillos, but the tones it has are very good.
The Romeros played Contreras before they switched to Miguel Rodriguez. I suspect my Contreras would stand up well to Pepe's very strong right hand. When I heard him last year he was playing an instrument made by his son. Sounded great, but not as much tonal variety as some players. Yamashita's right hand is even stronger, and he gets a wide range of tone on his Ramirez, while blasting the roof off the building un-amplified.
In June, 1991 I went to Contreras, Rozas (at the time almost next door to Contreras), Manzanero, Vicente Camacho, Bernabe and Ramirez trying classical guitars. I had only been playing flamenco--mostly. I had a Bernabe student model classical, but I hadn't put in any serious work on classical. Bernabe didn't have any first class classicals on hand in June 1991, the rest did. Of the guitars I played, I liked this Contreras the best. I suspect my choice was influenced by my flamenco right hand technique. Manuel Sr. showed me two spruce/Brazilian doble tapas. I picked this one, and asked if there was any difference in construction. It was the one without the suspended bar.
Manuel, Sr. said some people liked them, some didn't. Upon close inspection it looks like mine may have had a suspended bar when built, but it was taken out before it was shown to me. As I said, Pablo ("Manuel II") immediately offered to take the suspended bar out of my friend's doble tapa, at no charge.
RNJ
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 24 2016 2:22:51
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Harmonic bars (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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Yeah under the influence of this theard I trimmed a lateral bar down to a gastly 10.5 mm
The Santos thing, did he invent it? Probably not, I think the diagonal bar can be found on guitars a 100 years before Santos. As he used it in concert with the five mostly parallel fans it's his thing.
This is like the famed '51 Barbero, which is like some of the the Santos guitars of the early 1920's I have pictures of a 1920 Santos with the back off and the braces are almost verbatim like the 51 Barbero. I've mentioned this before but it bears repeating in the context of this thread.
My reckoning of the thing that happens with this diagonal brace is that it stiffens the treble side and makes one side of the top stiffer thus more apt to be sympathetic to high frequency vibration needed by the treble. In 2002 I built one of these, but as I braced the top, for some reason I thought I was looking straight though the top and actually seeing the treble side on the right instead of on the left. I was looking at plans that gave a 'through the top view' as if the top were transparent and as I built forgot to take this into account.
The guitar ended up having the diagonal bar point down into the bass side. It did not make much difference for two reasons. I was not as good then and just getting through a guitar was an accomplishment so it was not a big deal. But two, it did not make much difference anyway. If I had been clever I would have made it into left handed guitar, but it worked more or less fine with the bridge in regular orientation with trebles on the right.
Go figure.
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This one is 140 grams - the last one was almost 184 grams with braces. Thicker top, more brace wood in the top. 20 gram bridge, the sound was 'UUUGE', as the Donald would say. I expect the sound of this one to be UUGER.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jun. 9 2016 13:07:34
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