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RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to estebanana)
I follow building threads and see the process, but when I see them complete it is still somehow magical and mysterious to me that someone can actually make a guitar. And these look beautifully made. I like the plantilla.
Posts: 3467
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to estebanana)
Congratulations, Stephen. You are following in the tradition of fine instrument-making. One hears a lot of prattle about "hand-made" instruments that come out of establishments with multiple employees performing different tasks on the guitar, but you are the real deal.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to orsonw)
Thanks, today polishing out the finishes and setting them up.
Ricardo, you need to spent more time in Granada.
I read an article about one of the best French polishers in Granada and when he was asked if he worked with Orange and dark red finishes he said absolutely not. “In Granada we don’t do that because it gives an uneven finish and is a sure sign the finish is thick and sprayed. Our aesthetic in Granada is better.”
But I’d still give you a discount for being a good person, and a studious accompanist. You just need some Granada time to learn about color 😂
RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to estebanana)
Thanks Stephen, nice thread. I hope I am not the one to hi-jack it. On the subject of 20 fets I have gone with a traditional maker's solution sometimes even though as you say there is no established canon. https://johnguitar.com/20th-fret/ I am referring to Arias and I don't think that it is particularly elegant but then neither is is lip on the back of the bridge (best idea since sliced bread). It means that the strongest pull to lift up the bridge is no longer at the edge but rather a few mil in. Oh ****! that would have made a good blog post.
You leave Ricardo alone and get your ass here to Granada for a few jars first.
RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
I read an article about one of the best French polishers in Granada and when he was asked if he worked with Orange and dark red finishes he said absolutely not. “In Granada we don’t do that because it gives an uneven finish and is a sure sign the finish is thick and sprayed. Our aesthetic in Granada is better.”
So basically he didn’t want to admit that he can’t do it <- That is a Ricardo-ism right there! But surely, this polisher must know about the color base coat only ?
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Ricardo, you need to spent more time in Granada.
I read an article about one of the best French polishers in Granada and when he was asked if he worked with Orange and dark red finishes he said absolutely not. “In Granada we don’t do that because it gives an uneven finish and is a sure sign the finish is thick and sprayed. Our aesthetic in Granada is better.”
I have been to Granada several times…a nice tourist trap.
About finish…never will forget my first gypsy wedding gig in DC. I was clueless, they wanted myself and the flamingo dancers. So I brought my shiny orange brand new conde I had acquire from Postigo in Sevilla, 1999. The gypsy guy that hired me did not have the wood floor tablao I asked for, so they laid down a round table with the metal legs that fold, right on the ground. After the first set, I left my guitar on the chair and went to the bathroom. I was shocked at all the little kids in there, smoking and drinking alcohol, dressed up like mafia bosses. When I returned, I found my conde faced down on the floor, with crown royal whisky poured all over the back, kids running all around the place like they owned it. In that moment, I understood why all the flamenco gitanos lately were also using these impenetrable poly urethane orange finishes … to protect their guitars from the kids during the bodas!!!!
RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to orsonw)
My conclusion so far is that this bracing design made a better spruce guitar than a cedar guitar. It reconfirms my notion that Cedar needs more structure. So I think I’m gonna go back to my slightly smaller plantilla with my kite fan system with lateral braces on the fan for cedar in the future. For Spruce I think this bracing is easier to work.
This is the Cedar bracing system that I’ve been working with. I think my best cedar guitars have come out of this idea with more support across the grain.
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RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to orsonw)
Gol dang I’m exhausted. I’ve been working my teaching job and this at the same time with a lot of focus. I’m going to make my deadline which I don’t think I divulged this whole time. Honestly if I didn’t make it I was going to lie and change the date. 😂 The dead line is December 19th to have them boxed and ready for pick up. I have to do a quick final polish the finger prints off them, my fingerprints from handling them and tape up the shipping boxes and make the labels.
December 20th I’m going to walk out in front of my house and get on the bus for a two hour ride to the airport and a three week visit to a different country. So I’ve made it. I have an unusual case of post building blues. Some people get mild depression after they finish a guitar or concert series or mount an art show. At the terminal end of a creative process there’s a little pain that it’s over. Sometimes I feel like fraud, like I didn’t make a good guitar, the results are underwhelming, sadness that it’s over and it didn’t go well. I don’t feel this way every time, sometimes I’m indifferent, like I changed the windshield wipers on my car. Other times I feel jazzed about the guitar and hop around with a lighter step. Usually when I make a flame maple back and sides guitar I get really happy when it’s finished because I’m mesmerized by the French polishing on tiger flamed maple, I can’t stop looking at it. I wish I could keep my own maple guitars because they are so beautiful to my heart having started out in a violin shop in high school.
Sometimes I think about my first instrument making teacher. He was in his mid sixties and I was around 17 when I started cleaning the shop and working for his wife in her antique shop. They taught me a lot about art history as they were collectors and antique dealers. Once in a while I think how nice it would be to show him my mature work, he died before I made any significant guitars, and I think the maple back and sides models would have blown him away.
It’s depressing that time is linear in respect to your instructors life timeline. Time has a shape in that we make stuff and it stays here when we leave. We shape things that last longer than us. It’s sad and it’s not sad, but we make shapes that occupy time and space after we stop being a 3 dimensional being.
Things are so weird.
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RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to orsonw)
Last night we rented the stage at the community center and my friend Masuzaki-san played them for us. He’s a pretty high level classical player, he can sight read like crazy has clean sound with good dynamics, but he’s been so busy he last few years with kids and work he doesn’t have time to practice. He said this was exciting and he’s going to rent a practice room and get back in shape. He’s going to order a guitar soon too.
So alls good okay. The guitars go out and I was able to hear them played by a good guitarist in a real performance space acoustic. That folks is the cure for post-building blues, a little gratification.
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RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to orsonw)
Finally the electric Persian Tar is finished.
This is my own design based onplans for an acoustic traditional Tar. Making an electric solid body with the neck fretting system of a Tar presented some design challenges, but in the end I went with a through neck design with a dropped on Macassar ebony top. The body is Kuwa wood, a native Kyushu wood.
I made the body and applied a base coat of finish and then passed it to my friend Charles Tweedy, a guitar maker in San Diego California and he executed the electronics pick up, frets and set up. The frets are 40 # monofilament fishing line.
The instrument was made for an academic ethnomusicologist who wants to play is in metal bands -
Behold The Death Tar
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RE: Building two classicals on a dea... (in reply to Ricardo)
Yes, Munemura
After hearing the spruce top in the theater I decided it wasn’t projecting as well as it could and I made a new saddle for it that was .80mm higher with a different round over on top. It significantly changed how focused was and the projection improved. It’s always these set up details.
The cedar top, with a lower saddle and a tap plate you could use it as a cuadro guitar probably 😂
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