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New Member Introduction
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LarryA
Posts: 2
Joined: Sep. 4 2020
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 New Member Introduction
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Hi all,
My name is Larry Atha, I live in Huntsville, AL. I am an amateur luthier (hobby builder) who has built one flamenca blanca in a master class under the tutelage of Paco Chorobo (Andalusian Luthier) with Robbie O'Brien in the O'Brien Guitars in Colorado last August (2019). I have wanted to build guitars, particularly flamenco guitars, since I was 10 and started classical guitar lessons. I am not a good flamenco player, but love the music and want to continue to learn to play. I have only been able to afford to buy the specialty tools and put a shop together in the last few years as my daughters got out of high school. I live in Huntsville, AL. I am an engineer (of ~30 years post-university experience) and did shock, vibration, and acoustics measurement and experimental modal analysis in the first 10 years of my career and continued doing signal processing and have been involved in measurement data analysis all these years. I am interested in using quantified methods to characterize and test the wood and tune the tops and backs - like Trevor Gore's methods. [I would like to develop an amateur luthier affordable laser doppler velocimeter and stepped sine exciter with a force gage for transfer function measurements of the guitar modes.] I also like qualitative methods and believe that these methods are obviously just as good as they have worked for the best luthiers in the world for a long time. I now have a mostly equipped 25' x 10' air-conditioned lutherie workshop that relies on the primacy of hand tools (but I use power tools, such as bandsaws and routers when they make sense) dedicated to building guitars. I have a very good memory of what I read and I have read books about it and studied these books for decades driving around and waiting for my daughter's sports practices and music lessons to end. I am in the process of building a parlor guitar right now but I ordered Tom Blackshear's Manuel Reyes Flamenca Plan this morning and the GAL red book with his notes and I want to build this beautiful guitar and learn more. I saw that Tom Blackshear was documenting a new build this year in this forum and wanted to watch, learn and study and join. I am excited to make all of your acquaintances and hope to be a positive contributing member of this society. Cheers,
_____________________________
Larry Atha
Huntsville, AL
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 4 2020 16:23:36
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LarryA
Posts: 2
Joined: Sep. 4 2020
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RE: New Member Introduction (in reply to JasonM)
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thanks for the welcome
JasonM, Paco and Robbie's class was absolutely worth it. I loved it! It was like taking a drink from the firehose of lutherie knowledge but great - very minute. We worked hard! I had bought the video course and liked Robbie and Paco so much - I wanted to take the class with them. I actually had started with Robbie's courses before that - and when I first started watching them - I wrote a snall mail to him and told him I wanted to come and build. His dry sense of humor appeals to me and I think he is a great teacher. I will go and build another guitar with them each again when I can when the sanitary conditions allow travel. As there is so much to learn - even once one gets the process and hand tool methods down. Paco is also a great teacher and so Passionate about excellence. Paco is just a super hand-tool as well as flamenco expert. And both guys are fun and made everything so enjoyable and they put up with me! {aside- I did have a hard time with the altitude in Denver(being a flatlander) - feeling a little breathless, having a headache, etc. I didn't expect the altitude to affect me as much as it did. } But I want to go to Spain and build another guitar or two with Paco (another flamenco and another classical or romantic guitar). And I want to go back to Robbie's shop and build another guitar (a classical) or two (a steel string) with him, too. There is so much to learn and because of the group - we had to go fast. There were three other experienced luthiers taking the class. Dr Mark French, Purdue Professor, wrote an article about our particular class in 'American Lutherie' - the GAL magazine. We worked hard all day from 7:45am until 6pm from the 12th to the 19th of August, every day. Just great all around - I don't see how anyone would regret going and taking the course if they want to build more guitars. I remain in correspondence with Robbie and Paco and it was just great. I can't recommend it highly enough for budding luthiers.
I'm not sure what Trevor means when his techniques don't work for flamenco. I'm not sure what you mean by doing the opposite, also - in that regard. I haven't read his books yet, so I can only say so much. my birthday is this month and I hope to give myself his books for a present. I think some of his goals would still apply though - you want to control what frequency the Helmholtz resonance is and control what freq the first bending mode of the top and the first bending mode of the back is - and controlling those so that they don't fall on top of a string mode resulting in a wolf tone. But then - I wouldn't use falcate bracing on a flamenco -and what works for a classical to ptimized for sustain and bell-like tones, are in opposition for the "dry sound' - which to me in engineering terms means a fast rise time for the note and a fast decay. Wbich is achieved by first - a low mass as well as good damping in the construction. But too much damping will result in no sustain -so you don't want too much. So I wouldn't expect what is optimal for a classical guitar to be optimal for a flamenco because the goals of the luthier are different. I'm pretty sure he is optimizing for tone and sustain. And a flamenco luthier is usually optimizing for the 'dry' sound. A fast rise time and quick decay - although modern trends in flamenco are evolving to slightly more sustain, according to Paco - who would know since he is a flamenco performer in Spain, as well.
As I build the Reyes from the plans I ordered, I was actually thinking about making more than one top - and doing some Gore inspired experiments and write them up along the way. I thought I might order a couple of higher grade tops and use one of the ones I already have and try to see how the data works to support Gore's methods. So maybe we can talk more about this as times goes along, but I warn you - I am a slow builder, since its just a hobby. But I will be out in my shop a lot more once fall comes and the temps and humidity are lower this fall.
cheers,
Larry A.
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Sep. 6 2020 15:35:28
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