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I love "Un Sueño en la Floresta" by Agustin Barrios Mangore. No other piece of guitar music touches me as much as this one. Since quite some time I have thought about learning this piece. I have now started, but it's going to be a long journey. In fact, part of the journey will be to build a guitar for it, as I will need a 20th fret.

Now simply having a 20th fret on a Hauser design would mean that part of the fretboard will extend into the sound hole, thereby reducing the effective sound hole size.

What would you do?

a) not care
b) slightly increase the sound hole diameter to compensate for the lost area
c) have the neck joint at the 13th fret (which would probably alter the sound more than a slightly smaller sound hole?)
d) something else?

thanks, Christian

Why Hauser? I associate Barrios with the great Spanish luthiers, (and with steel strings). Segovia had a soft spot for German precision, and for fascism. Is there any other reason to revere Hauser?

Shorten the scale length to 630mm?

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Extend the fretboard under the E string only, or the E and B. Add the same amount of area to the hole, if you think it matters. Probably about 2mm in radius, or less.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Exactly as Howard said.

Colin

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

I suppose bending the string up a semitone at the 19th fret would be frowned upon

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

The way Howard put it is the regular way. I think you can increase the size of the hole from 84 to 85, or leave it at 84. Shouldn't really make any big change, there are 100 other things that come before this.

I cut mine after a 37mm circle internally tangent to the sound hole circle. I am happy with this size, not too big not too small. I also don't like the corners to be too rounded, but that is a matter of personal taste.

Here are a couple pics from a guitar I started to french-polish.

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Build log

Wow! Beauty, Alexandreu. The smaller circle tangent to the regular sound hole gives a very refined "classic" look. If I ever do an extended finger board I will use this approach.

Best wishes,
Max

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Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

Thanks, I'm glad you like it!

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Build log

Here's mine. I didn't change the sound hole dimension. It didn't seem to make any difference, or the soundhole was too big anyway.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have recently been testing sound hole radius. I make the actual sound hole deliberately too small and with a decibleometer and a strobe tuner I measure the effects and enlarging the sound hole one mm at a time. Opening the sound hole does make the box louder and lowers the frequency. These measurements are small however and the effect of a small portion of the finger board covering the sound hole will be minimal if you can measure it at all.

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

Here is a pic of how I do my 20th fret.

Great...thanks a lot - your implementations of the 20th fret look really good .

I'll probably have more questions along the way.

As to why Hauser...well...I have the plan, and I really like my Hauser copy I have at home. It just never occured to me to be using another plan.

cheers, Christian

Steven Boone wrote:
"Opening the sound hole does make the box louder and lowers the frequency."

Every time I've tried this making the hole bigger raised the pitch of the 'main air' mode, and that's in line with Helmholtz' predictions.

You can just move the hole down a little. I regularly end up with a 20th fret, and it doesn't seem to make any difference in the sound having the hole that low.

Thanks for that correction Alan.

I always get that mixed up! Raise the pitch. This is why I have a note book and need to go back and read it every time.

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