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I finished this about two months ago but only got around to getting pics now. I'm not a good photographer

Engleman Top
Unknown Back And sides
Ebony Fretboard
Rosewood bridge and head plate
Spanish Cedar neck
Maple binding with Mahogany purfling
Mosaic Rosette purchased at a music store in Costa Rica
French Polish Finish

I wanted to build this in a sort of traditional flamenco blanca style. a Working mans guitar, simple design. The backs and sides were resawn from floor boards. The only think I know about it is that it comes from Brazil. I was roommates with the guy who ordered it, and a bunch of imbua which he also gave me, if any one has any idea what it could be let me know.

I came up with a new bridge design to give me more space on the tie block because of the compensated saddle. You can see it in the picture. The foot print is the same but the block angles back to give it more meat.

The design was based on a Marcello Barbero plan. I made it a tad bit bigger. The resonant frequency is E. I have no idea how that happened as most of my guitars come out around a flat but it sounds great for flamenco.


The Pics:

Great looking guitar!! Nicely executed sir!!

The "full back" picture reminds me of Osage Orange - I believe it grows in S.America as well as here in the US, so it might be that.....just a guess!

Does it sound good? If so, why worry what the wood is......

Cheers,
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"

Nice build! The B&S look like yellowheart which is from brazil.

Really nice work! Beautiful guitar!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Oooooooooo! Pretty! I love it. I wish I had a chance to play it.
Patrick

Nice guitar. What strings are you using and does the compensated saddle help with intonation? How much compensation?

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

Excellent Flamenco!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Wondrously beautiful..!

What happened to the clapping hands emoticon? This one deserves it!

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

NICE;
But one question
Why is your saddle have a curved top?

mike

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Mike Collins

Thanks all. To answer your questions:

I built this guitar for myself so I am not really concerned about what the wood is but now that I have shown that it sounds and looks good then I will build another for sale and I think customers would want to know. None the less I may never know but it sure does look like that yellowheart thanks for the tip! I thought it could be osage orange but I thought that was limited to Texas and surrounding areas.

I put D'Addario normal tension strings on it. I've been doing compensated saddles for some time now. But to be honest my straight saddled guitars have just as good, or bad, intonation. In theory it seems like the right thing to do though. The compensation was set 2mm longer than scale length. This guitar is intonated well enough for my ear.

Mike I put a 20ft radius in the fret board so I arched the saddle accordingly. I've tried this on the last two classical guitars I've built. Both were for me. I still can't tell if I like it or not. Makes barre chords feel more comfortable. I suppose I could use a flat saddle to at least make the right hand feel normal but for the Flamenco I want lowest possible action too.

I always put a slight curvature on my saddles for classicals and flamencos. Less than 20', maybe 30' or something, I never really mesured it. I noticed that with a strait saddle, the 3d and 4th strings were always to first to buzz when bringing down the action. So slightly radiusing the saddle allowed for a lower action on the 1st, 2d, 5th and 6th strings. The feel of the right and doesn't seem to be affected by such a slight radius.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)