Official Luthiers Forum!

I’m very happy with the way this thing came out…
Western red cedar top
Birdseye maple back and sides
Spanish Cedar neck and wine every fretboard
Brazilian Rosewood Head veneer ,bridge and heel cap
Hard maple bindings
French polish finish
Rubner tuners










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Nice job Brad!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

That’s an awesome rosette!

Nice job as per usual Brad. What kind of bracing system did you use (any pics?) and did you get the tone you were going for or is it too soon to tell?

I used a traditional 7 strut fan bracing.


It sounds great right from the start, but I will know more when I get it in the hands of real Classical player.....

I got it from LMI

That's really sharp looking guitar! I like the top and birds eye maple looks great.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Well it was an inspired choice. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

The rest of the guitar ain’t exactly chopped liver either. Great job. Congrats.

Very nice, I like the birdseye as well!

Nice looking guitar.
Torres built a fair number of maple bodied guitars, and with restrictions on rosewood perhaps it will regain some popularity with the classical crowd.
One slight criticism - most classical builders carry the fretboard to the soundhole and have a divided 19th fret. I know steel string guitars often end the board above the soundhole, and it wouldn't bother me (because I never use that fret anyway), but it does look a little unusual for a classical.

" wine every fretboard" = wide ebony fretboard (auto correct ?)

Still at it doing beautiful work

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
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1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Clay,

It was actually my intention to do that but, I am so used to building steel strings that I was on auto-pilot before I realized it.

Not that there is any right or wrong, but my intention was to build a "traditional" Classical....

On the other hand there are some pretty famous builders who now do some pretty untraditional things like soundports,abalone rosettes, armrests,etc.

Thanks, Bob.

I see you are still selling beautiful wood...

Hi Brad,
There are a lot of nontraditional instruments out there, and I've unintentionally built a few. On occasion I've even lengthened fretboards by doing a half lap with the "top lap" ending at a fret and the bottom lap ending in the middle of a fret. It makes a fairly inconspicuous joint when done in ebony.
That is a very pretty guitar.
It makes me want to resaw a piece of birdseye I've had laying around collecting dust before it becomes wormwood like has happened to most of the curly stuff I had. I wonder if the bugs prefer curly over straight grained wood?

Brad

NIce choice of wood on that - very pretty. I trust it will sound as good s it looks.

What finish did you use - the maple looks still very pale which is what I am after on my current guitar right now.

thanks

Ed

I just re-sawed a couple of birds-eye boards I've had for a few years and the variation is quite striking. The color and the amount of figure within the same board can be huge. I have about 15 B&S sets and some are lighter in color than others, but that has no relation to how much figure is in each piece.

Brent

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Rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Hi Ed,

I french polished this one.

I used seal coat. It gave it a slight amber color.

Well 18 frets is traditional, on virtually all early classical guitars - otherwise known as romantic guitars. A player of the modern classical guitar will find it odd, not that they use fret 19 very much at all. In fact it's use is pretty rare, however it is used.

Hi Michael,
I might debate that. In fact if you check out images of "romantic guitars" they seem to range from 17 to 20 frets. A couple I have hanging on the wall have 19 (earlier) and 17 (later). C. F. Martin also varied the number of frets (18 -20) and soundhole location on it's models over the years, so even within a makers production there is a lack of consistency.
It seems modern Classical guitars are some of the most innovative internally (lattice bracing, double tops, etc) but - for the most part - retain an outward appearance unchanged from the Torres prototype (I'm sure even this statement could be debated)