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I just finished this falcate classical guitar.

Lutz Top Panama Rosewood B&S ebony bindings. Brazilian Head plate. Ebonised Walnut bridge.
Bolt on-bolt off neck 32' top radius 10' back radius.
Aqua Clear pore fill\shellac sealer and post catalysed Royal-lac finish.











For those into modal tuning ...

I used visual analyzer to take a frequency response curve. I was a bit off of my target frequency's. I was hoping that a top resonance of 190 Hz and the back 4 semitones above that. But I ended up with a top resonance of 186 just above F#. My back resonance was 232 Hz which is 4 semitones above 186. Unfortunately everything is close to being right on a note frequency.




As an experiment I decided to stiffen the back, using a trick Trevor told me, to stiffen the back with the hope that a higher back resonance will move the top resonance a bit more off of F#. I make my braces as shown in the Book with a gabled profile using a router table and a 22.5 degree router bit. I pre profiled the lower bout back brace carving a bit too much out of the center, resulting in a lower frequency for the back than I wanted.

Trevor suggested splitting a section of brace in half and gluing the outside (non cut side of the brace together to make a good fitting cap. Pictures make this easier to see.











The additional height on the brace raised the back frequency up to around 255 Hz with very little coupling to the top which moved toward 190 Hz. I shaved almost all of the height off of the cap with a small plane, mostly counting on what amounted to sister beams on both sides of the original carved out brace.

In any case after a lot of carving I ended up with a top between 188 and 190 Hz (depending how I hold the guitar while tapping) and 245 Hz for the back. The guitar still sounds good. I never really heard any problem with the original response, but it was fun to play around. Also note the relative back response is a little less than the original FRC.

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Lovely guitar, John!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Very nice! That back looks amazing.

I recently tried the Royal Lac post-cat. I loved the finish, but found after a couple weeks it shrank back so much that pores were visible in EIR. This was after very thorough pore filling with epoxy.

Are you seeing any of this? If not maybe I'll give RL post-cat another try.




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How do you like making falcates?

I like a lot, I made three steel string guitars and four classical guitar. They were all good sounding guitars, about half of them are really good sounding instruments. The classical guitars sound like classical guitars; closer to a fan braced guitar than to a smallman or other thin top lattice braced guitars. Probably as the falcate and fan braced guitars both use the same stiffness and thickness tops.

The steel string guitars for better or for worse have more attributes that are associated with classical guitar than most steel strings. Mainly very even response across all of the strings up and down the neck. There is also a clarity to each note. The singer songwriter with a D28 might not be happy with a falcate as they do not have the same response where the bass and trebles standout and the midrange (where most people sing) drops out. I have always wondered if the Larrivée guitars with the ladder braces under the X would even out the response.

Ed, if you are going down to the GAL this July you should stop by the day before when the Seattle Luthiers Group has it pre-GAL party. If you are interested let me know. Also the group has talked about seeing if they could get you sometime for our meeting to talk about your experience with Halcyon Guitars.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Thats a very nice looking guitar. I keep meaning to do a tuned back like in the book..

Lovely guitar, John. Thanks for showing the details on the brace cap. That's genius.

Did you take the pore fill back to wood or leave a thin coat on? I'm assuming you left some on and hence the sealer? I have a container of the post-cat. I've got some test panels in the works.

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Stunning guitar!


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John,

Even response up and down the neck, to me, should happen on all well built guitars, classical or otherwise. The note to note clarity as well. I feel this is an artefact of getting the principles in the G/G books dialled.

I was not aware of the GAL meeting or of the SLG. I feel I live in a bit of a backwoods here in East Van (albeit a backwoods with a 1.8 million knockdown price point), but if there's things you'd like to ask, maybe I could answer, but, everything I know comes from the books you already have, so...I'd be more likely to pick your brains about finish, frankly...

The Guitar Store on Aurora Dr. North is a dealer of ours, and will likely have one or two on hand if you're interested in examining one.

John,

Even response up and down the neck, to me, should happen on all well built guitars, classical or otherwise. The note to note clarity as well. I feel this is an artefact of getting the principles in the G/G books dialled.

I was not aware of the GAL meeting or of the SLG. I feel I live in a bit of a backwoods here in East Van (albeit a backwoods with a 1.8 million knockdown price point), but if there's things you'd like to ask, maybe I could answer, but, everything I know comes from the books you already have, so...I'd be more likely to pick your brains about finish, frankly...

The Guitar Store on Aurora Dr. North is a dealer of ours, and will likely have one or two on hand if you're interested in examining one.

She's a real beauty, good going John!

Pretty cool stuff, is your Panamanian from LMI? Very nice.

Very nice.

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