New guitar for Casa Luthier

Posted on 03/07/2013 by johnray

I am filling an order for Casa Luthier in Barcelona and since they held the guitars of Rolf Eichinger in very high esteem I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to finish some of the work he left behind. In this case I am using a neck and a bridge that he prepared so I can’t really say that the guitar is not mine. I won’t be putting any indication on the label but the heel is firestamped on the inside with his initials as he used to do on all his work. The top bracing is different from his although the underlying ideas are the same, he had been using five fans almost exclusively for years. Every time I make a cedar guitar I think of Rolf because he is the one who taught me how you have to treat cedar in order to get a similar response to spruce as it can be very boomy otherwise.

Let me point out some “innovations” on Rolf’s bridges. Looking at the photo below you can see that the tie block has a slanted back side which allows for a lip while respecting the width of the tie block itself. The only advantage I can see to this is the sharper corner which helps to keep the strings from slipping. Of course you have to be more careful to bevel the corner so that strings don’t break. The other feature is a tipped-back saddle slot which is something he talked about when I first met him but never did until near the end. The advantage to this is that the higher the saddle the more compensation there is. The reasoning is that the higher the string is off the fretboard the more string compensation you need. I know, it is hard to see in the photo.

So this will basically look like one of my guitars except the headstock is different, the body measurements are not mine and the bridge has this funny look to it.

I also wanted to say that it is a real pleasure to once again make 4 concert guitars at the same time. I used to work that way and it is very efficient but between flamencos, the Torres copy, the new Arias copy and the romantic model it has literally been years since I have had 4 of the same model on the go.

Photographs of my work

Posted on 17/06/2013 by johnray

I used to drive every year to Cartagena to attend the guitar maker’s exhibition which was organized as part of the Semana de la Guitarra festival at the conservatory there. It was an opportunity to show my guitars to students and teachers and to have them played on a stage and compared with other makers’ work. When my son was born I stopped going although by that time I had a decent waiting list for my instruments and had stopped travelling to show my instruments. I enjoyed those exhibitions and I heard some great music, learned a lot about my instruments and the players needs and met some wonderful people. One of those was María Isabel López Gonzálvez, a young student of photography who was finishing her degree and had thought of a subject for her end of degree monograph. She had been asking the guitar makers one by one if they would mind if she spent some time taking photos of their work. She was very clear that she wanted to be a fly on the wall and not stage any shots. Of course this meant that in order get photos of many different processes the project would have to be stretched out over quite a long period. Perhaps you can imagine that the makers were not interested in something that would only interrupt their concentration and their work and would offer no benefits for themselves.

I think it was in 2002 that she approached me with this idea. Her interest in guitar making was unusual for someone who neither played the guitar nor worked with wood and I was carried away by her enthusiasm. María had to travel for three hours for each session and was still studying at the time and I had my limitations as well so it took a long time to get enough images to satisfy her. The final project consisted of 100 images ranging from 30 X 45 cm up to 70 X 100 cm which she would then have to present to the committee which would evaluate her work. In the end, although she did develop the images at full size the presentation was made in the form of a book which was put together just for the occasion. She printed 10 copies, one for herself, one for each member of the jury, one for myself and one for my mother (María was 18 and just the sweetest person).

When I saw the book for the first time I immediately thought that it should be published and in time we got that done. The current edition is actually the second try, the first one was larger and the binding started falling apart very soon. This edition was finally presented at the Cartagena festival of 2006 along with some of the full-size photos and a few short pieces played by Daniel Vissi on one of my instruments. The book is sold by Strings by Mail and also to a few shops in Spain and in Germany at Dick fine tools in their instrument making section. Don’t let that give anyone the wrong idea, this is not a method for building a guitar. It shows quite a few of the stages and I believe there are many photos which are interesting to builders but it is primarily a beautifully shot photographic essay and nothing more. Each photograph is accompanied by a short caption in Spanish and English.

The full exhibition only appeared once and was organized by a bank and the town council where the María lives. Get the book for a reduced price now at Strings by Mail

Here are some readers’ thoughts on this book:

review

(in spanish)

from a newsgroup

Rosewood Torres-Evaristo Valentí

Posted on 27/04/2013 by johnray

I have a good excuse for writing such a short post this week. Just a reminder: Everything with a sharp edge can be dangerous if your attention strays. The cut isn’t so bad actually but enough thickness of skin came off that it will be awhile healing. Meanwhile here is a shot of the bird’s-eye which came as promised from Rumania and some music played on a Rosewood Torres copy. The guitarist and soundman is Evaristo Valentí.

Lobet’s Torres

Posted on 19/04/2013 by johnray

One of the most talked-about Torres guitars is the guitar which Llobet owned and played for a part of his career. This guitar has been recorded and copied, examined and published and, quite recently, played in concert. It was difficult to examine because of the tornavoz but we did get some very good information. This badly shot video shows some of the tools we used to take measurements of the different guitars at the Barcelona museum.

(I need to learn to choose between handheld shots or tripod shots but never drag the tripod around the way I did here) Most of the wooden tools were made by my neighbour Thomas Holt (also a guitar maker).

One of the pictures show a method for reading the original dome of the top. The straightedge is placed on the edge of the guitar in an attempt to follow the angle which the lining was planed at, or the peones (individual blocks) in other cases,were glued at. A measurement is taken at the other side and that straightedge will be tangent to the curve that the guitar was originally made with. The information in that angle with respect to the theoretical plane of the top is enough to give us the curve. This is something that Rolf Eichinger used to do when examining historical instruments. Here is Javier Riba´s first contact with this instrument. Soundclip

First Arias

Posted on 10/04/2013 by johnray

I finally finished the Vicente Arias copy! Since I wasn’t making this guitar for anyone in particular it kept getting pushed back by the guitars people had ordered. Here you have a video and some photos of it “in the white” The sound changes once it is varnished but it is a very slight and predictable change and the builders among you will hear the lack of varnish. Javier Riba, who will be opening the Cordoba Guitar Festival this year, came by and played a little Sor for us, study no. 12 op. 6. If you remember, he owns the original and let me do an extensive examination of it. When you make a copy you are usually trying for both an aesthetic and an acoustic match but the aesthetics are usually easier than the acoustics. In this case I was very pleased to hear Javier say that the feel of the guitar is very similar to the original and the sweetness of the tone is there too. The video was made with an audio recorder which also does video but it seems that for a really good audio take it needs to be quite close. Thanks to Toni Valls and Carlos Juan Busquiel for the advice on finding a recorder and on making the recording itself.