Official Luthiers Forum!

For all of you classical and flamenco builders here is a YouTube link to an 1863 Torres being played by Richard Brune. I have just recently finished reading the Torres bio by Romanillos and found this to be timely.

His commentary describing the guitar and its design characteristics and attributes is very interesting. The sound and projection of the instrument was astounding given it's small size and age.

http://tinyurl.com/1863-Torres

_________________
Peter

Here is Brune's article on it:

http://www.vintageguitar.com/features/b ... p?AID=3093

_________________
Build log

Thanks for that Peter. What a treat!

_________________
http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

The person who shot the video, should have recorded it on a seperate machine. He also has an old Flaminco guitar, but the sound quality is...criminal...

_________________
Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

That article is amazing.

A ladder braced Torres with no bracing in the lower bout.... and only 1 back brace in the lower bout.



and Brunes comments point towards Torres carefully planning this out and doing it on purpose.... and that it does actually sound very nice and plays very nicely as well.

Thanks for the heads up on this.

Very interesting!

John

John,

What, exactly, is that photo? Is it an interior shot of the Torres? If so, where did you find it? I did not see any interior shots in the article that I read.

Just to add, for clarification, the two horizontal bars would be called the harmonic bars, upper and lower. So, technically speaking, this 1863 Torres is not ladder braced.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

The article has 3 pictures, but the last 2 have a link called <<more images>> above them.

_________________
Build log

Alexandru, Thanks for the link to the article in Vintage Guitar. That really added some details that didn't surface in the YouTube discussion.

In the last paragraph of acknowledgements did you catch the mention of sturgeon bladder glues. The conclusion that one would draw is that it seems that even the esteemed Antonio Torres used 'fish glue.' Brune apparently did some comprehensive research as a result of the restoration efforts. My hat is off to him.

_________________
Peter

I spent three days at Brune's shop about three years ago learning french polishing. At that time Richard showed me this guitar. It was in the very early stages of restoration and the thinness of the sides was astounding. At that time he said they were about .75 mm.

I am glad to see that he completed the restoration. And the sound is quite amazing. Richard is an outstanding craftsman and quite an accomplished flamenco guitarist. While there he let me play a number of guitars from his collection including instruments of Manuel Ramirez and Santos Hernandez.

Max

_________________
Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

Right, well spotted. Maybe I coudl email and ask what was the actual result of the analysis!

Max, you lucky.... Was the soundboard thickness measured as well? Probably in the "2mm center" ballpark?

_________________
Build log

As Alexandru mentioned, there is a "More Images" clicky above the images in the article.
I clicked thru the images and found that one -- It got saved in my "Archive"
The pic is just linked out of that article.

Call the "Harmonic bars" or "Ladders" what you want -- I am still surprised to find that bracing scheme inside a Torres... not to mention only 1-back brace... Alan Carruth mentioned that he had done some repair work on an old "Ladder braced" Classical that (To his great surprise) had a wonderful "Torres" sound.... Makes me wonder if he somehow ended up with one of these!

To me, it shows Torres understood "Horses for Courses" very well, and understood the changes that needed to happen when guitars scale up and down.... That guitar was built to be Light and Responsive and to come Alive with a fairly light touch.

I think the cracks everywhere certainly attest that it wasn't built to stand up to the abuse that a more heavily braced guitar would.... like you wouldn't go hand it to your teenage Son to carry to parties and play Flamenco all night.

Thanks

John

Great link, that's amazing. Such simple bracing, wow!
How about that plate that angles from the heel to the upper ladder brace, I'd say that might be pretty important for keeping the action in place with such thin sides?

Joe

I also saw this guitar and had a great conversation with Richard about it. If I remember correctly he said that he had made a classical guitar with no top bracing in the lower bout to demonstrate that it can be done. I believe he actually took this guitar to a GAL convention and people were amazed at the sound.

Have any of you read this book? It's been on my wish list for awhile.

http://books.google.com/books?id=EOMU8U ... #PPA163,M1

I think that is the "Spanish Heel" on the neck.

It certainly appears to be substantial -- it looks bigger than the "Standard" ones I have seen.

The two transverse bars at the soundhole are a reminiscence of ladder braced instruments, but that doesn't really make this guitar "ladder braced". They are present in Romantic and fan braced guitars, and still are the norm in most classical guitars.

Yes that is the Spanish foot showing. Not overly enlarged, need to remember the guitar is small, parlor sized. The same foot would look more ok on a full size guitar. Also the foot on Torres guitars is larger than what modern builders use. I try to make them as long as the stock I have permits, and that allows me to butt the foot on the first transverse brace.

If we are at the neck, the bull horns headstock is not typical of Torres, however there is another early Torres in Romanillos book with the same shape. I forgot what the comment was, but I can imagine these could have been reused, or inhereted from another luthier with whom Torres shared the workshop.

The normal Torres bracing for the back of the smaller guitars consists of 2 braces, one across the lower bout and one about midway between the long brace and the foot. On this guitar he might have been short on spruce, short on time, and since the guitar was extremely simply built, and small, he thought the brace might be unnecessary anyway. He might have been experimenting, but in a quick way using some leftover stuff he had.

Romanillos' book will be highly recommended by all of its readers. It is my building holy book, even if it is far from a building method.

_________________
Build log

What is a graduated bar fret?

Thanks, I just ordered it.

I am glad to see the interest this has generated, though I would have been surprised if it didn't.
These history lessons are critical to my learning about guitars, even if I may never build a classical guitar.
Do you ever get the feeling that we are just re-learning some of the things early builders like Torres knew?
We "stand on the shoulders of those who went before" but it is quite a climb to get up there.

_________________
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

Cool! If you don't like it, I'll buy it off you. My copy is with a friend, a guitar player, he seems to have borrowed it indefinitely

_________________
Build log

Alex,
There are actually two other Torres which have the "bulls horn" headstock shape, the one you mentioned from 1857 at the Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments and one other from 1864 shown in the 2007 Cordoba Exposition catalog from the collection of Felix Manzanero.
This shape seems to be a fairly common motif on Early Spanish guitars, here it is on a n 1856 Jose' Recio guitar from Cadiz:



Many years ago I made an appointment to see and examine the two Torres guitars (one "attributed") at the Yale Museum. They brought the guitars out into a private room and I was allowed unlimited access to them. The only restriction was the use of metal measuring tools etc. I have a very good set of slides of these (FE 07) and need to digitize them at some point.

The absence of fan braces entirely is fairly common on modestly made old Spanish guitars. I've seen several and they often sound very good.

The "graduated bar frets" refers to Torres' practice of using heavier guage frets toward the nut and thinning them toward the bridge especially in the area past the 12th fret on the fretboard extension. They are also rectangular in cross section and not like the modern "T" fret.

I've restored a couple of guitars with similar bracing, it was fairly common on the bottom end of the market at the time. The thing is of course that the cheaper guitars didn't survive as they were 'cheap' guitars. The more expensive 'serious' instruments were better cared for and thus lasted until now. Therefore our sample is slurred towards the higher quality fan braced guitars.

The graduated fret is the standard method on lutes and is used to create the action angle. the 1st gut fret is generally around 1mm in diameter with the diameter of the other frets graduating down to about 0.6mm at the 8th fret, with the wooden body frets also around 0.6mm, it was also used on other instruments where the fingerboard was at the same level as the top.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Thanks! I had seen that, but it didn't work for me at the time. When I went back to look at it again I discovered that you have to click on the ">>", not the "more images".

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/