Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi folks,
The backs of acoustic guitars are sometimes made out of more than two pieces of book-matched wood. The reason might be out of cosmetic nature, it also might be out of short supply to find big enough pieces of Brazilian Rosewood. But nobody would ever expect the top of a world-class Classical Acoustic Guitar to be made out of three, four or even five pieces. Here's a very interesting thought!
http://www.customguitarvideo.com/2009/10/11/jose-romanillos-04/

Enjoy,
Holger

Interesting to hear a guy like Romanillos talking about tops are preferable to be made out of many pieces of perfectly quartersawn wood rather than 2 pieces of wood that starts quartersawn in the center and then goes off quarter towards the wings.

I wonder if it is something he was able to get his Customers to buy -- a 4, 5, or 6 pc top with 0 runout and perfectly on-quarter vs a 2-pc top that has some runout and is only perfectly on quarter for 2/3 of the top.

Thanks

John

I don't think they pay more than $20 or 30K for those guitars with 4 piece tops and 4 piece backs, and only a 10 year wait. But, I am subject to correction.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

No. I doubt he had any trouble selling guitars with 4 or 5 piece tops.
Does anyone know if either of the Romanillos are still using a scraper finish? On the video he talks of sanding and also using a scraper, but it's unclear if he finishes off with the scraper.

As I understood, Romanillos sands the tops (normally? always?) and only mentions scraping for telling us what we can not see on the top he has handy: those "silvery flakes" (= parts of the medular rays) that come (partly) off when scraping perfectly quartersawn spruce.