Guitar making Spring 2019

Here are some things I've been working on these last months.

Balsa doubletop: basically a laminated top with a pocket taken out and substituted with thin balsa sticks. The whole thing is glued up using hide glue. Very powerful sound but not nomexy or doubletoppy, rich sound, great clarity.

Laminated sides: a stiffer, more massive side is made up by gluing two 2 mm thick bent sides. Inner side in this case is redcedar.

Laminated back: a little harder to explain, but can be done if the back is a very unstable material  such as some hardwoods, also changes the way the back vibrates depending on the thicknesses of the laminations.

Brass tornavoz: a conical tube placed in the soundhole. Lowers resonance of soundbox. I'm using copper tape to close them so they can be easily removed.

Open harmonic bars: both the upper and lower harmonic bars are left open to the sides of soundhole. Very rich and colorful sound.

5 fan bracing: lighter bracing pattern. Quicker sound production.

Solid laminated linings back and top: very solid coupling of top and back membranes to the sides.

Closing the box top last: top is glued to the sides last when the structure is solid and ready to receive top...

Balsa doubletop concert guitar: 

Modified Torres FE-17 style:

A Brief Explanation of my Torres FE-17 style guitar

Antonio de Torres is one of my greatest influences and so I decided to make a guitar replicating one of his most famous instruments, the guitar made in his First Epoch in Seville that he made for himself but later sold to Francisco Tarrega, probably the greatest guitar virtuoso in Spain of that time.

These guitars use the same plantilla as the 1864 FE-17 that Tarrega used, but that is about it.  The rest of the design is an amalgamation of elements from different Torres guitars and some of my own construction style so in other words, these guitars are not really copies but guitars homaging the romantic guitar style of Torres.

To begin, these guitars have a smaller plantilla.  About 12 15/16 inches wide at the lower bout as opposed to the 14 inches of the last Tarrega Torres, the SE-114.

I used a smaller scale length (633 mm) than in the FE-17 which had a scale length of 645 mm. I think this string length of about 25 inches combines well with the smaller shape. It is very comfortable, too.

I used glue blocks for attaching the sides to the top instead of Torres' kerfed lining. I also used my laminated solid lining to join the sides to the back.

The necks are of modern widths, 51 and 52 mm at the nut.

I used pegheads planetary friction pegs because they give the guitar a romantic 19th century look but are 100% dependable to hold their tuning. They are also very light weight.

The tops are very thin, about 1.2 to 1.7 mm to be true to Torres' style and sound. One of the guitars has an open lower harmonic bar and one doesn't, but the one that has it has a transverse brace in under the saddle, something Torres never did.

Both guitars have a shallow wood tornavoz, again Torres only used a deep brass tornavoz on some instruments.

One guitar has a rosette and top purfling copied from another guitar from 1964 the FE-18. It looks a little like the one on FE-17 but is a little more simple.  I added a little something I saw on a Lucas Waldner guitar that I think made good design sense.  The other one has the austere style of Torres' simplest and least expensive guitars, which I think looks very nice. too.

And the bridges are pretty much the same proportions as the FE-17 but one I decorated in the style of Llobet's FE-09 with big pearl circles inlaid into the wings.

Variety

I have to say, this batch of 6 guitars has a lot of variety. Lots of different woods, three headstock designs, 6 different rosettes, two new models and some bracing variations.  Here are some new pictures from the workshop.

pegheads before drilling

finished pegheads

gluing soundhole and fingerboard reinforcements

planing reinforcements

beveling reinforcements

Here are pictures from the bracing process on the spruce guitars in the batch.

The 6 rosettes.

The 6 guitars have a partial wood tornavoz and here is the installation.

Binding Using Hide Glue

The main reason I use hide glue is because I believe the bond to be better, it gives more wood to wood contact and it uses less glue overall than any other adhesive. Hide glue dries hard and crystalline and most likely causes the vibrations in the guitar to be transmitted in a more efficient way. 

Using rope is the traditional way of attaching the binding to the guitar while the glue dries.  All the Spanish makers used and continue to use it.  I have strong convictions about this and believe it is an important element of making the best sounding guitars.

Spanish Guitar Bridge

Some say the bridge is one of the most important factors contributing to the quality and character of the guitar's sound, more important even than the bracing pattern.  To me it is all important, and I take great care in the crafting of my bridges.  I go for a light bridge with a low profile.  The bridges are finely shaped and all must weight less than 20 grams.

There are 12 holes on the tie block, one pair for each string.  This is a system that has been used for some time now and permits the downward angle from the saddle to the hole--where the string exits the tie block--to be constant.  For extra wear resistance, the bone strip is extended all the way down to the bottom of the channel, so that it surrounds the holes completely.