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Hi all. I'm looking for a self-adhesive golpeador for my flamenco guitar. I want it to be black or some other dark color. Does this exist? Should I just buy pickguard material and cut the shape myself?
Absolutely nothing. I brought my Ramirez in for a new tap plate. The guy calls and says some of the wood came off with the old one and can he put a black one on. I said ok and he installs a HUGE black one. Like something you'd put on a steel string, but even more disgusting. Ugliest thing I've ever seen. He ruined the look of the guitar. Still plays and sounds good, but I'll never step foot in that shop again. Solid tap plates are for guitars that some of the wood came off with the old plate. I'm still pissed over it and it's been years.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Stu
I can't help you, but I'm curious..... why do you want black golpeador?
I see white ones quite a lot and neve really like the look. What's appealing about black?
I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Goodness me, that's one ugly golpeador. There is no accounting for taste.
pause it at 2:10.
Looks like he used an orange magic marker to cover the holes under the clear golpeador change. That is the trade off I guess. But I agree that the dark or white golpeador kills the aesthetic beauty of the instrument not unlike this invention:
jeez that carbon fibre golpeador looks pretty wild! is it textured? how does that work? looks kinda spongey, like it wouldnt give you the right kinda contact with flesh and nail to get a decent golpe sound.
Absolutely nothing. I brought my Ramirez in for a new tap plate. The guy calls and says some of the wood came off with the old one and can he put a black one on. I said ok and he installs a HUGE black one. Like something you'd put on a steel string, but even more disgusting. Ugliest thing I've ever seen. He ruined the look of the guitar. Still plays and sounds good, but I'll never step foot in that shop again. Solid tap plates are for guitars that some of the wood came off with the old plate. I'm still pissed over it and it's been years.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Stu
I can't help you, but I'm curious..... why do you want black golpeador?
I see white ones quite a lot and neve really like the look. What's appealing about black?
Who did that? Which guitar shop?
White tap plates are kind of cool and retro, maybe you could get it changed to white. Or maple veneer. If you use a maple veneer as a tap plate, the person doing it can use CA glue as the finish and build it up thick and level it. It’s the same ashardness as your nails with CA glue
jeez that carbon fibre golpeador looks pretty wild! is it textured? how does that work? looks kinda spongey, like it wouldnt give you the right kinda contact with flesh and nail to get a decent golpe sound.
After our thanksgiving holiday I’m gonna need a moob apron ;)
Carbon fiber is really stiff and with the correct amount of resin vary low mass. And yes it has a texture just like you see in the up close foto. This is not like that fake look carbon fiber print, like Ricardo’s rosette stickers ;) , this is the real deal.
This one was the first and not sure but thinking rather than the one layer you see here that two wouldn’t be better. To be honest I didn’t like it at first. The CF was laid up on a granite plate with some release film and using a vacuum pump. I layer of heat actavated adhesive was smoothly brushed on, allowed to dry, then cut to shape. Then the golpedar was simply ironed in place.
So to answer your question it is not spongy, quite the opposite actually.
There are three reasons I wanted to try this, the first is the CF had some good sonic properties better than 1/2mm of plastic that’s for sure. Second is not using the glue on commercial self stick golpedars is a rubber like mastic that never dries and eats up a shot-ton of the sonic energy we are trying to turn into sound. Third is it’s cool as ****, like I said upthread: high speed, low drag.
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
jeez that carbon fibre golpeador looks pretty wild! is it textured? how does that work? looks kinda spongey, like it wouldnt give you the right kinda contact with flesh and nail to get a decent golpe sound.
After our thanksgiving holiday I’m gonna need a moob apron ;)
Carbon fiber is really stiff and with the correct amount of resin vary low mass. And yes it has a texture just like you see in the up close foto. This is not like that fake look carbon fiber print, like Ricardo’s rosette stickers ;) , this is the real deal.
This one was the first and not sure but thinking rather than the one layer you see here that two wouldn’t be better. To be honest I didn’t like it at first. The CF was laid up on a granite plate with some release film and using a vacuum pump. I layer of heat actavated adhesive was smoothly brushed on, allowed to dry, then cut to shape. Then the golpedar was simply ironed in place.
So to answer your question it is not spongy, quite the opposite actually.
There are three reasons I wanted to try this, the first is the CF had some good sonic properties better than 1/2mm of plastic that’s for sure. Second is not using the glue on commercial self stick golpedars is a rubber like mastic that never dries and eats up a shot-ton of the sonic energy we are trying to turn into sound. Third is it’s cool as ****, like I said upthread: high speed, low drag.
I confess I'm a bit of a worry-wart and would be concerned about what happens to the golpeador as it wears. Is there any danger of it fraying with use and releasing little strands of fibre that can get stuck in the fingertip? Ouch. Serious question, I really don't want to come across as contrarian, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw it (actually second, the first was how does the texture feel under the finger when golping).
SF guitar works on Potrero. I should have known better but I thought changing a tap plate was basic stuff. I changed one myself at some point but wanted a good job…….
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
quote:
ORIGINAL: Mark2
Absolutely nothing. I brought my Ramirez in for a new tap plate. The guy calls and says some of the wood came off with the old one and can he put a black one on. I said ok and he installs a HUGE black one. Like something you'd put on a steel string, but even more disgusting. Ugliest thing I've ever seen. He ruined the look of the guitar. Still plays and sounds good, but I'll never step foot in that shop again. Solid tap plates are for guitars that some of the wood came off with the old plate. I'm still pissed over it and it's been years.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Stu
I can't help you, but I'm curious..... why do you want black golpeador?
I see white ones quite a lot and neve really like the look. What's appealing about black?
Who did that? Which guitar shop?
White tap plates are kind of cool and retro, maybe you could get it changed to white. Or maple veneer. If you use a maple veneer as a tap plate, the person doing it can use CA glue as the finish and build it up thick and level it. It’s the same ashardness as your nails with CA glue
Funny, I reserved SFguitars as my domain name a million years ago, I didn’t use it, eventually it came up for grabs and they grabbed it. Some domain name Robin Hood pointed this out to me to buy it back. It was several years ago, but I vaguely remember some fracas about them being pissy about it, even after I pointed out my initials are SF. lol 😆
Anyway, I’ve heard it’s a better place to take electric guitars, than classical/flamenco.
Without seeing the damage, I can say that today ( and in the past depending on who) you can get a lot of these ripped out wood situations restored so well you can’t tell it happened. If you ever want to remove the black plastic and have the top restored so that it’s whole again I can make a recommendation and how they do it. It’s probably not going to be cheap or fast, but it will be invisible and precisely color matched, correct refraction and color matched on the finish.
An aside, working in Stewart Port’s shop for two years I saw dozens of vintage Martin, Gibson, Washburn etc that had pick guard replacements, not uncommon to see lifted out grains or chunks of missing wood on these because the stakes are low. Dark black or tortoise pick guards are always used, so the fellers that pop them off aren’t always too careful, there’s always going to be a dark opaque pick guard on there to hide the mess. Bearing that in mind, unless a primarily steel string repair shop has some special knowledge or experience with clear plastic tap plates I wouldn’t trust them to get it right. They start peeling up the plate and get over confident and rush it, then splinters get pulled up. They don’t stop to consider which solvent is correct or work with finesse.
Most enjoyable part of making a guitar for me is brace carving day. I should say, brace carving ten minutes. It's so much fun but goes by so damned fast. You get to lean over the guitar, chisel in hand, and pretend to be in one of those ubiquitous guitar maker photos, staring intently down the chisel like it's a finely crafted cue in the hands of Ronnie O'Sullivan, channeling the spirit and energy of the great Santos hisself. Ah...you know what I mean...
Second most pleasurable part of making a guitar has to be right after cleaning up the freshly inlaid rosette and laying down a spit coat of shellac over it, just to see it pop. Makes it all worthwhile.
Least enjoyable, the one job I truly dread and tend to put off, is laying down the cursed golpeador. Nothing worse than inspecting the job afterwards and seeing a spec of black dust stuck underneath. Arghhhh!!! I know it's because I've been using the self-stick ones, I have a feeling using a glue paste takes a lot of the stress away. But I have a pile of self stickers to get through first. Maybe I should put them on sticky side up, using paste. Then people can personalize their guitars by sticking stuff to them. Like their cats. Or bananas. Bananas are good because that's Art. Some Crypto Bro will buy it for an obscene amount then eat the banana just to shove how f*cked up the world has become into the faces of the poors. Great fun, that.
Which pretty well sums up how I feel about golpeador installation.
Actually, selecting the wood might be more enjoyable than anything.
Can we just golpe banana guy on his face? And of course he had to eat it as a sort of performance art, bet the guy filmed it. Shame he didn’t go all Maplethorp with the banana and film that. A true artest would have choked to death in it during a pay-per-view event… The world is burning all around us and all we have is this ****…
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
I confess I'm a bit of a worry-wart and would be concerned about what happens to the golpeador as it wears. Is there any danger of it fraying with use and releasing little strands of fibre that can get stuck in the fingertip? Ouch. Serious question, I really don't want to come across as contrarian, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw it (actually second, the first was how does the texture feel under the finger when golping).
Best
Anyway, back to the subject at hand.
I can’t say for sure how durable my CF golpedar will be under the nails of a hard hitting pro? You and me? Doubt we could do much damage to be honest. A lot depends on the resin used for the layup, I used some basic hobby proxy, Duco brand I think, I’ve been looking for a high performance Hysol product I used in my previous aerospace life but havnt been able to track it down at the consumer level. The cool thing is if one did compromise the CF/resin matrix it would be easy to repair with ether CA or epoxy.
I’m surprised no one asked my about the heat activated adhesive and how easy it will be to remove if required. I’ll let you know when I get there. Plan was to make a test plate of shellacked spruce, bond a fiberglass plate, ad a test cause it’s cheap compared to the CF, let it cure for a while, a year or more would be ideal, then see how it removes by heat re-activating the adhesive. Broke up with my partner of eight years about the time I glued that black golpedar up so I’m still trying to get my shop set back up…
HR
_____________________________
I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
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