This link was posted on the OLF, and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you look through all the posts. It's not English, but the pictures of the building process are very good, and if you're like me, will be totally in awe of this fellows skill. He's raised the bar so high, that it's something that I just have to try to achieve. God only knows how long that'll take, but this is my new benchmark.
Be sure to follow through all the pages to see how he builds. Warning for those on dial-up that the photos are rather large, and it's bound to be be frustrating waiting for them to appear.
http://brazilianguitar.net/index.php?showtopic=1339
Classical Guitar Build on Brazillian Guitar.Net - Must See
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DarwinStrings
- Blackwood
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I was thinking that the purpose of the soundhole extension could be to link the suspended cross brace to the top thereby allowing the longitudinal braces to remain unimpeded throughout their entire length with the mass at the soundhole assisting the bridge to drive more of the top than would normally be possible. Maybe this extension and suspended cross brace design allows for more precise tuning of the top with material very easily removed from the extension itself to speed response and brighten trebles, or alternatively the suspended cross brace thinned to reduce it's structural integrity thereby loosening the top to soften the attack and increase bass.Toejam wrote:Jeez...$8500 and the sides are ply
Nice build, Thanks Allen.
Does anyone speak the language. I would like to know if that (I'll call it a sound hole patch) sound hole patch performs any other function other that to lower the frequency of the Helmholtz resonance.
Nice rosette too, very stylish.
Jim
But maybe not
What ever, like the rest of the instrument it looks great, thanks for posting Allen.Cheers
Kim
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hilo_kawika
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With all due respect to you and your craftsmanship and your appreciation of another person's skill in joinery Allen, I look at this instrument and am reminded of those router jigs that allow one to make nested dovetails with different wood types... What is the point of all this excessive joinery?
My questions would be first and foremost, how does the instrument sound? How does it feel to play it? What is the tonal separation and projection of tone in a playing venue without amplification? If those are less than outstanding, then the maker has lost sight of what's really important in making an instrument.
aloha,
Dave Hurd
www.ukuleles.com
My questions would be first and foremost, how does the instrument sound? How does it feel to play it? What is the tonal separation and projection of tone in a playing venue without amplification? If those are less than outstanding, then the maker has lost sight of what's really important in making an instrument.
aloha,
Dave Hurd
www.ukuleles.com
How to become a millionaire? Start with $2 million and become a luthier...
Fair call David.
I'm only fluent enough in Portuguese and Spanish to order diner and another beer, and if desperate, to find the toilet, so most of what is being discussed is lost on me.
For the price of the instrument, coming from Brazil I'm assuming, but could be way off, then that's a hefty price tag in any ones books. I'm guessing you'd need to go way above the norm in the way of over the top craftsmanship to get that sort of price. He's done that in my opinion, but not in an ostentatious way. Most of what is going on is on the inside, where those who are aware of how a guitar is put together are interested in looking. The outside, while attractive has not strayed to far from the very conservative Classical Guitar market.
Perhaps those plywood sides are to help control the Brazilian Rosewood cracks that some of you guys mention are so troublesome.
I know it's presumptuous, but if I had to put my money where my big mouth is, then I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone that can do that quality of work, has more than likely built an instrument that sounds and plays to a fairly high standard. And if he finds a buyer with $8500 for it that is happy with their purchase, then he's doing far better than me.
I'm only fluent enough in Portuguese and Spanish to order diner and another beer, and if desperate, to find the toilet, so most of what is being discussed is lost on me.
For the price of the instrument, coming from Brazil I'm assuming, but could be way off, then that's a hefty price tag in any ones books. I'm guessing you'd need to go way above the norm in the way of over the top craftsmanship to get that sort of price. He's done that in my opinion, but not in an ostentatious way. Most of what is going on is on the inside, where those who are aware of how a guitar is put together are interested in looking. The outside, while attractive has not strayed to far from the very conservative Classical Guitar market.
Perhaps those plywood sides are to help control the Brazilian Rosewood cracks that some of you guys mention are so troublesome.
I know it's presumptuous, but if I had to put my money where my big mouth is, then I'll go out on a limb and say that anyone that can do that quality of work, has more than likely built an instrument that sounds and plays to a fairly high standard. And if he finds a buyer with $8500 for it that is happy with their purchase, then he's doing far better than me.
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Pete Brown
- Blackwood
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For those of us who no speakada Portuguese:
- Go to Google Translate at http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=en#
Select Portuguese from the drop-down list provided
Paste the link which Allen supplied in his initial post
Great build log and the workmanship is wonderful, truly quality to aspire to.
I get why he has done some things the way he has but there are elements that I just don’t understand and never have. Like the sound hole ring and the use of individual little blocks to attach the top rather than standard lining (a lot of classical builders still do it this way). The suspended brace is something I’ve seen on a couple of very old guitars. I have a couple of Hauser plans, one has a suspended brace much like that which has been used here but attached to a block glued a couple of inches below the sound hole. The other plan uses almost the exact same bracing pattern but without the suspended brace.
Laminating the sides of classical guitars made with BZ with a softer timber isn’t unusual, go back thirty or forty years and I think you would find it was almost standard practice. The explanation I was given was that it is to tame the reverb and stabilise the sides, which are the area most prone to cracking. It’s interesting that a lot of the old master luthiers seemed to laminate the sides on guitars built latter in their careers.
As for the price… $8500 isn’t that bad for a handmade concert classical, you would pay about the same for a similar guitar from a local builder like Dan Kellaway and you wouldn’t get much change from this if you were to buy an Indian rosewood classical by Daniel De Jong. You would need double this amount for a handmade classical or flamenco from a big name luthier such as Romanillos, Rodriguez and the like.
I get why he has done some things the way he has but there are elements that I just don’t understand and never have. Like the sound hole ring and the use of individual little blocks to attach the top rather than standard lining (a lot of classical builders still do it this way). The suspended brace is something I’ve seen on a couple of very old guitars. I have a couple of Hauser plans, one has a suspended brace much like that which has been used here but attached to a block glued a couple of inches below the sound hole. The other plan uses almost the exact same bracing pattern but without the suspended brace.
Laminating the sides of classical guitars made with BZ with a softer timber isn’t unusual, go back thirty or forty years and I think you would find it was almost standard practice. The explanation I was given was that it is to tame the reverb and stabilise the sides, which are the area most prone to cracking. It’s interesting that a lot of the old master luthiers seemed to laminate the sides on guitars built latter in their careers.
As for the price… $8500 isn’t that bad for a handmade concert classical, you would pay about the same for a similar guitar from a local builder like Dan Kellaway and you wouldn’t get much change from this if you were to buy an Indian rosewood classical by Daniel De Jong. You would need double this amount for a handmade classical or flamenco from a big name luthier such as Romanillos, Rodriguez and the like.
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DarwinStrings
- Blackwood
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Hmmm...even after the translation (thanks Pete) it is difficult to work it out. I am now thinking that he is not even sure he has lowered the frequency of the helmholtz resonance. He mentioned something about aerodynamics and the way the air flows out of the cavity, I think he was saying the curved shape was so the air could flow smoothly in and out of the box. But its hard for me to work out.
He mentions the use of 0.5mm thick spruce to strengthen the sides. Sounds like a good thing with that rosewood, might be worth considering James.
After a second look the thing that makes me wonder about the build is that the neck is about 20 degrees off quarter sawn and he doesn't oppose the grain on the stacked heel. I wonder why he made that choice.
Jim
He mentions the use of 0.5mm thick spruce to strengthen the sides. Sounds like a good thing with that rosewood, might be worth considering James.
After a second look the thing that makes me wonder about the build is that the neck is about 20 degrees off quarter sawn and he doesn't oppose the grain on the stacked heel. I wonder why he made that choice.
Jim
The price is probably high for an unrecognizable name. If your name is Romanillos, you'll get $20,000 plus. As a matter of fact a used one just missed selling on the bay because the bid of 19,000+ did not meet the minimum. It was a beauty, and the detail was amazing. The guitar being discussed is interesting, but the soundhole extension is not a Tornavoz. It is, if you ask me, gimmickey. I, too, would wonder what impact it has on the sound. His work is immaculate, but, don't we all try to achieve clean detail?
Waddy
Build Albums 12 done - 1 in process
Clip for #1 Barrios' "Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios" - Not me playing
Build Albums 12 done - 1 in process
Clip for #1 Barrios' "Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios" - Not me playing
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hilo_kawika
- Blackwood
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- Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:29 am
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FWIW, I laminated the sides of the last 15-20 instruments I built. It all started out because I wanted to do a cutaway and needed to make the side fairly thin in order not to break the highly figured koa I was working with. The sides became remarkably stiff after the lamination process (no surprise there) but along with that, the air resonance went up noticeably as well - also retrospectively predictable. Well in order to deal with that, I needed to make the soundhole a little smaller to lower the air resonance. Sigh...
If I have interpreted the equations in this article correctly:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/Helmholtz.html
increasing the soundhole "length" will lower the air resonance. Whether the builder has done this in order to compensate for the increased stiffness of the sides is a matter of conjecture since the builder created tube length on the inside of the guitar doesn't seem longer than what one might calculate as the existing effective tube length (L ~= o.85 x soundhole radius).
But it looks swell...
aloha,
Dave Hurd
www.ukuleles.com
If I have interpreted the equations in this article correctly:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/Helmholtz.html
increasing the soundhole "length" will lower the air resonance. Whether the builder has done this in order to compensate for the increased stiffness of the sides is a matter of conjecture since the builder created tube length on the inside of the guitar doesn't seem longer than what one might calculate as the existing effective tube length (L ~= o.85 x soundhole radius).
But it looks swell...
aloha,
Dave Hurd
www.ukuleles.com
How to become a millionaire? Start with $2 million and become a luthier...
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DarwinStrings
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- Location: Darwin
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