colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397 
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 9:49:07 GMT
If I was restricted to say two B&S woods for my guitars they would be walnut and mahogany. What are your favourites for soundboards? If restricted to one it would have to be European Spruce, but I also use Caucasian Spruce as well. The only ones I would use of the American spruces are Lutz and White Spruce. I also love Redwood and on the right guitar Cedar can produce a great sound. Recording technicians often say that the best recording guitar is cedar on mahogany. My #1 combination would I suppose be Walnut(or mahogany) with a European spruce soundboard. Then a again for the blues nothing beats an all mahogany guitar! Colin |
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Post by earwighoney on Mar 28, 2015 10:50:53 GMT
If restricted to one it would have to be European Spruce, but I also use Caucasian Spruce as well. The only ones I would use of the American spruces are Lutz and White Spruce. I also love Redwood and on the right guitar Cedar can produce a great sound. Recording technicians often say that the best recording guitar is cedar on mahogany. My #1 combination would I suppose be Walnut(or mahogany) with a European spruce soundboard. Then a again for the blues nothing beats an all mahogany guitar! Colin The all Mahogany guitar seem to fly under the radar of sorts, they work really well for electro acoustics through the PA. Like all woods, it's more about the hands of the builder than the actual wood itself and I've found that's even more apparent for Western Red Cedar as a soundboard (for nylon strings in particular). A slightly unconventional choice perhaps but my ears find the combination of WRC and Spanish Cypress to be the most conducive for favourable results; I absolutely love old Ramirez and Gerundino blancas in those configurations. All in all though, IMO German/European Spruce is wonderful and from my perspective as a player they are quite consistent as well. Adirondack has a great reputation and I've come across some great guitars but some absolute dogs as well. The pick of Martins I have come across was a '50's 'Mystery Spruce' 000-18 which I was almost certain it had a German Spruce soundboard. I have no experience of playing the other types of Spruce you mentioned of Lutz, White, and Caucasian. The only two types of Spruce I'm not massively enamoured with as a player are Adirondack and Englemann. |
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 12:49:25 GMT
A slightly unconventional choice perhaps but my ears find the combination of WRC and Spanish Cypress to be the most conducive for favourable results; I absolutely love old Ramirez and Gerundino blancas in those configurations. I have no experience of playing the other types of Spruce you mentioned of Lutz, White, and Caucasian. The only two types of Spruce I'm not massively enamoured with as a player are Adirondack and Englemann. I have to admit I'm not a big fan of WRC as a soundboard for nylon string guitars, I guess it's because I'm a 'disciple' of Torres who always used 'pine', one either Euro spruce or Caucasian spruce, like all of the 19th century Spanish builders. I'm very keen on cypress though, but with a spruce top. Interestingly of course when Torres was making guitars in the 19th century there was no such thing as a classical guitar or a flamenco guitar, just guitars. The more expensive ones using imported rosewoods and more complex decoration were bought by the richer customers who played the more intellectual Spanish music and which subsequently evolved into the classical guitar. The cheaply made guitars made from local cypress with less bracing and ornamentation were bought by the poorer gypsy players and used for their folk music, this evolved into flamenco and the flamenco guitar. It was economics that produced the flamenco guitar and directly the sound we have come to associate with flamenco. I build Spanish guitars! Probably the best sounding Spanish guitar I have made, and certainly the one that went for the highest price at the Barcelona auctions, (beating a Romanillos!) was a Cypress/Euro spruce tornavoz guitar.  Colin |
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Post by earwighoney on Mar 28, 2015 13:18:17 GMT
I have to admit I'm not a big fan of WRC as a soundboard for nylon string guitars, I guess it's because I'm a 'disciple' of Torres who always used 'pine', one either Euro spruce or Caucasian spruce, like all of the 19th century Spanish builders. I'm very keen on cypress though, but with a spruce top. Interestingly of course when Torres was making guitars in the 19th century there was no such thing as a classical guitar or a flamenco guitar, just guitars. The more expensive ones using imported rosewoods and more complex decoration were bought by the richer customers who played the more intellectual Spanish music and which subsequently evolved into the classical guitar. The cheaply made guitars made from local cypress with less bracing and ornamentation were bought by the poorer gypsy players and used for their folk music, this evolved into flamenco and the flamenco guitar. It was economics that produced the flamenco guitar and directly the sound we have come to associate with flamenco. Torres is the father of the nylon string guitar and Santos Hernandez is the mother of the flamenco guitar in some ways, Domingo Esteso is the old man in the corner who fathered a lot of illegitimate children (for flamenco guitars), not sure these metaphors have much value to them. I came across this text on a website which is quite interesting "t was the legendary Spanish guitar maker Antonio Torres (1817–1892) of Seville, at the end of the 19th century, that succeeded in making the guitar required to accompany flamenco singing and dance, giving the guitar its definitive form. Most of Antonio Torres his guitars all were cheap flamenco guitars, the ones made from cypress wood instead of from the precious woods from Latin America. Local Gypsies could only afford these cheap guitars to play flamenco. In time they were adapted to? small variations and eventually identified as flamenco guitars. Antonio Torres increased the body size and the width of the neck, he increased the scale length, he introduced the seven fan braces instead of three to make a thinner soundboard and improved internal bracing. His guitars were now suitable for concerts; the volume was not too weak anymore to play along with the loud percussive footwork of the dancers and the powerful vocals of the singers. Often it is thought that the flamenco guitar is to be a derivative of the classical Spanish guitar. This is Juan Miguel Gonzalez is the last legacy of Antonio de Torres.incorrect since the classical guitar as well as the flamenco guitar have been developed, around the same time but separately, from their 19th century predecessors. Strangely enough, the founder of both the flamenco and classical guitar was the same luthier, Antonio de Torres from Seville." Torres came from Almeria in Andalucia and I believe flamenco must have been a really important part of his surroundings. As you may have guessed I am really into flamenco and looking around a lot of of the luthiers in Andalucia the majority of which are more regarded for their flamenco instruments rather than classical guitars. That's a beautiful guitar Colin. Is that a 12 hole bridge? Are they quicker for restringing than a 6 hole bridge? Cypress is a superb tonewood, IMO it's the king of back and sides (again from my love of flamenco!). I'm in a commission for a flamenco guitar and the up charge for Spanish Cypress is the same of Madagascar and Amazon Rosewood! (East Indian RW is the base price instrument) |
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 13:33:39 GMT
See, I wasn't talking rubbish! Torres, expensive guitars led to classical, cheap guitars led to flamenco. No it's an 18 hole bridge, I always use them on my guitars, they give a better break angle over the saddle than the traditional 6 hole bridge.  I don't understand why cypress should be an upcharge, the best cypress is only about £100 a set, the same as the best EIR. But then the LS redwood top I used on the competition guitar is a $1000 upcharge by most makers in the USA, whereas the wood itself is only $500 a set now, only about $350 a set more than good sitka, and it was cheaper in the past. Maybe I should be charging more! Colin |
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 15:23:43 GMT
One I forgot! Dave and I did a guitar swap after I had my accident, he made me a lap slide guitar, I made him a cypress/Caucasian 'classical'.   Colin |
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Post by earwighoney on Mar 28, 2015 16:56:45 GMT
See, I wasn't talking rubbish! Torres, expensive guitars led to classical, cheap guitars led to flamenco. No it's an 18 hole bridge, I always use them on my guitars, they give a better break angle over the saddle than the traditional 6 hole I don't understand why cypress should be an upcharge, the best cypress is only about £100 a set, the same as the best EIR. But then the LS redwood top I used on the competition guitar is a $1000 upcharge by most makers in the USA, whereas the wood itself is only $500 a set now, only about $350 a set more than good sitka, and it was cheaper in the past. Maybe I should be charging more! Colin Thanks for the info about the 18 hole bridge. I've never seen LS Redwood for sale, is there much of it left? It's often seen to be the 'ubobtanium' of the guitar world in some ways. The upcharge path is something I've never quite understood! Difficult to tell but I think the upcharge of Cypress might be down to it being old stock and from Spain opposed to sourced from Italy, Turkey etc. No idea whether there'd be a difference with old Spanish stocks and newer non Spanish stocks. Cypress grown in Spain itself seems to be a very rare commodity, due to their being few trees left large enough for guitars. I've seen more Brazilian RW for sale than actual Spanish Cypress! I've seen the guitar you built for Dave before, you posted it before. It's a beauty. |
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 17:15:04 GMT
I've got one more set of the LS redwood left which I bought some years ago from Hank Mauel a personal friend of the Carters. It can still be bought in the USA, at about $500 a set. I think the only people on this side of the pond that build with it are myself and George Lowden. I do have some of the Carter's Log A and Log B redwood, which I believe are nearly as good.
All of my cypress is original Spanish stock. Spanish cypress isn't the easiest wood to bend, so an upcharge might represent the extra time and breakages that can occur.
Colin
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 18:49:43 GMT
Right, on with the build. As you may know I use solid laminated linings in all of my guitars, so for the two guitars it means preparing and sanding to thickness 32 pieces of wood and laminating them together in a two part mould dedicated to this shape. The laminations are not pre-bent but maintain their rigidity when the glue dries. A bit like the engineered timber beams being used in buildings now.  So, repeat the lay up process eight times and I have the linings for two guitars. The advantage of these are that they are exactly the same shape, they add stiffness to the sides and no chance of unsightly glue showing inside the guitar.  First job in putting together the ribs is to make and glue in the head and tailblocks. Mahogany for the Claro and English cherry for the English Walnut.  Then the linings are glued in (fish glue).  I don't need many clamps as the linings are a fit for the sides as they have been made using the same master template. When the glue has dried it's time to sand in the final radius domes to the top and back, 25' for the top 15' for the back. The sides have already been roughly profiled using a template, and the headblocks made with the rough radius built in. It is still good exercise though rotating the sanding dish on the rims, but it works the shoulders and back muscles, so a good workout for my archery muscles.  After a two cup of tea workout the rims are shaped and the linings now conform to the domes. This is a close up of the sanded linings.  Last job is to cut the soundports, I carefully calculate the main air resonance and the likely cross dipole of the box together with the proposed size of the soundhole, to decide the diameter of the soundport, I then look in my tool cupboard and guess what I use the same 39mm hole saw on all of my guitars, I just fudge the data used in my calculations so that the answer comes out 39mm. Ain't science grand!  [/URL] I then just add the internal laminations for the soundport, and the side braces and it's job done for today, and time for another well earned cup of tea.  Colin |
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davewhite
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Luthier
Aemulor et ambitiosior
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Post by davewhite on Mar 28, 2015 18:57:57 GMT
Colin,
Looking great . Which English wood did you use for the linings on the English guitar?
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 19:09:52 GMT
Some of the chunk of the Tree that you sent me and some pear for the English guitar and spruce/Cedrella for the Claro. I used English burr walnut for the soundport lamination.
Colin
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R the F
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 1,135
My main instrument is: bandsaw
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Post by R the F on Mar 28, 2015 19:20:56 GMT
Please tell me the photo of the sanded linings was the best bit you could find; they can't be that perfect all the way round, can they?!
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colins
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 2,397
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Post by colins on Mar 28, 2015 19:24:05 GMT
Please tell me the photo of the sanded linings was the best bit you could find; they can't be that perfect all the way round, can they?! Sorry, but yes they are like that all round!  The mould I use has cork linings so that when clamped together the laminations really do get that tight, and setting them just proud of the rims then sanding them with the rims using the sanding dish leaves as near perfect finish as I can get. Colin |
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R the F
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Posts: 1,135
My main instrument is: bandsaw
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Post by R the F on Mar 28, 2015 19:32:11 GMT
I give up, then.
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leoroberts
C.O.G. 
Posts: 26,142
My main instrument is: probably needing new strings
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Post by leoroberts on Mar 28, 2015 22:26:58 GMT
colins "First job in putting together the ribs is to make and glue in the head and tailblocks. Mahogany for the Claro and English cherry for the English Walnut." Why the difference? There's probably a really obvious answer to this... but I'm thick!
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The mould I use has cork linings so that when clamped together the laminations really do get that tight, and setting them just proud of the rims then sanding them with the rims using the sanding dish leaves as near perfect finish as I can get.
Jo whoever he is.
