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Regarding choice of plans - I started out with the Rodriguez plan and I am finishing up #1 now, with #2 at the binding stage. Going with this plan was no big choice for me - I knew very little about classical guitars when I started, so anything would have worked. My number 1 sounds OK, but this is really a very unqualified judgement. I've had a chance to compare it up close to a Raya Pardo, and it sounds different, but worse or just different? I can't tell yet.

Since getting started on this, I've seen several comments indicating that it's easier to get a small bodied guitar to sound better consistantly. The Rodriguez is a really big guitar body.

Based on a lot of CD listening, resulting from the fact that all my present customers want classical guitars, I've gravitated to the Romanillos guitar (the Naxos Laureate CD by Antigoni Goni is still my favorite classical CD, after dozens of listens). Low and behold, the Romanillos body is TINY compared to the Rodriguez. I plan to explore this for a while.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Hmmm... the Romanillos plantilla is the bigger of the two I offer.

A friend and I saved Antigoni's Romanillos from the wretched lonliness of a monestary's dining hall. She was relieved. Its a very fine instrument - equal or better in real life to the reconrdings.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

[QUOTE=jfrench] Hmmm... the Romanillos plantilla is the bigger of the two I offer.

A friend and I saved Antigoni's Romanillos from the wretched lonliness of a monestary's dining hall. She was relieved. Its a very fine instrument - equal or better in real life to the reconrdings.[/QUOTE]

An intriguing story. I really love that CD and that guitar. I know she played as the featured guest at one of the Romanillos luthier classes, was that the same guitar?

I really like that guitar. Gush, gush...

The Rodriguez is a really big bodied guitar.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Well, the featured guest was Jose.... then Pepe Romero and THEN Antigoni Goni. But this was at a surprise party, not the course. Same guitar.

I had a guitar teacher a few years ago with a "church door" Rodriguez - I really liked it. He lent it to Pepe Romero who didn't want to give it back (in fact, I wonder if he ever did). I think the Rodriguez design is a very good one.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

Speaking of Jose Romanillos but tying in the beginning of the thread as to what wood to build a classical guitar from...

Jose Romanillos is probebly the most knowledgable person in the world on the history of the Spanish classical guitar and insists that the traditional and preferred wood for a top is European Spruce or any other Spruce with similar characteristics, namely light weight, consistent grain width (not too small, big or changing consistency across the piece) and long grain (no runout and well quartered).

It is not because the Spruce is European, it is that historically European Spruce has shared all of the characteristics mentioned above. Having said that the overall availability and quality of European Spruce is not what it used to be as sources have been used up. For all intents there is no "German" Spruce...it comes from other parts of Europe. It is still possible to get good Spruce but tougher all the time to get great Spruce.

Antonio De Torres at times in his career as a luthier did not have or could afford good quality Spruce so he would make tops that were 3, 4 or 5 pieces so that each piece would be as well quartered and the best he could get, even if it meant having several pieces for the top. Jose's contention is that it would be better to build a top made from multiple pieces that were great rather than to have a top where only certain parts of the width were optimal.

Note that when Jose built the guitar that Julian Bream played for many years, the sides and back of that guitar came from the top of a table. The table was a Danish modern table from the 50's that was Brazilian Rosewood .

I like Italian Spruce alot and have found other european sources that I have liked but was impressed when I found the Lutz Spruce from Shane. It doesnt matter how good a species of Spruce is if it is cut poorly.

Harvesting and processing Spruce into tops is a combination of having access to old growth wood but also having someone who knows what to look for. Englemann is a great wood for tops and can rival European Spruce but tends to grow in a spiral so runout can almost always result. When you purchase a tree in log form (sometimes not even cut and on the ground yet) you have to be able to assess the quality of the wood and even then it can be a surprise.

Because Shane splits all of his bolts and billets as part of his processing, it is virtually free of all runout, because it is old growth is very even in grain, and has the strength of sitka with the color and lighter weight of White and Englemann Spruce.

When I attended the Romanillos course this last Summer I brought a German Spruce top I had been keeping since the 70's and one of Shane's tops. At the Romanillos class he personally inspects all of the tops before you start building (not sanded or planed so he can see the long grain) and then tells you how good the top is and which you should build with... I baited him in that I showed him the German top which is very good but not master grade and then one of Shane's AAA tops.

Jose said he was not familiar with the species but without hesitation picked the Lutz Spruce top. Since then I (made possible with Shane's generosity) sent 2 tops to Liam Romanillos (in England) and 2 to Jose Romanillos (in Spain) so they can try a Lutz top for themselves.

Regarding Western Red Cedar...Jose states that he does not like it in that it has no place in Spanish traditional classical guitar building and was only introduced to Spain by the Jose Ramirez shop in Madrid. Many Spanish builders today build with WRC but it is more because of the immediate results and imitating Ramirez than to produce a traditional Spanish sound.

I believe this is one area where we in Europe have the advantage when it comes to getting good wood. Some of our wood suppliers have access to some very nice samples of P.abies. The guy I get my tops from goes round the wood mills in Europe a couple of times a year to personnally select all of his tops. As do a number of the other European supply houses. What's left get's sent to the rest of the world!

I would need a very good reason not to use anything else on my guitar tops. I have found that if they are not overbuilt (a common fault) that they open up very quickly to a very acceptable level, and then over time become incomparable.

That said, when you have heard the sound that a two or three hundred year old instrument can make, you just wonder what your own guitars will sound like when you are long dead. With WRC I get the feeling that what you have now is what you get, and what will it sound like in 200 years?

Colin

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

What great info.
Thank you all very much