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I just got back yesterday evening from a 2 week Jose Romanillos guitarmaking course that is held annually in Siguenza, Spain. The focus of the course is to build a traditional spanish classical guitar using only hand tools in the method of Jose Romanillos.

The course is geared mostly at builders who are amateurs that have built guitars before although in each class (a maximum of 20) there are some that have never built a guitar and usually a few professional luthiers as well as people that have attended the course 1-3 times before. The focus is 100 percent on building a spanish classical guitar and not even flamenco is considered in that in the time of Torres there was no difference between "classical" and flamenco, just the materials used and how the action was setup.

In order to build a guitar from start to finish it is necessary to have completed the neck ahead of time from plans sent beforehand. All other materials are brought as well as the handtools you will be using. The sides and back can be EI Rosewood, Cypress or Maple but a couple of people brought madagascar rosewood and brazilian rosewood. Wood is to be brought rough, not thicknessed in any way and is inspected before building for suitability.

The tops must be European spruce or Englemann...NO Western Red Cedar or any other top material other than spruce!

Romanillos contends that the top is the most important part of the guitar and that it is better to have a 4 piece top that is the best quality than a 2 piece that is not sonically the best available. Since he wrote the definitive work on Torres and documented the number of tops that torres used that were 3 or more pieces and I really think he is right on this.

He spent one of the first mornings inspecting and commenting on each persons tops. It was asked that each bring more than one top and he would tell you how your tops are and which will be better to build with...he was 100 percent on target and showed examples of how tops could look fine but be less than optimal.

Jose Romanillos is known for the use of a through V-joint neck and that is what the plan calls for but splice joint necks are acceptable as long as they are built to the plan. A Romanillos neck also uses a wedge that is inserted between the sides of the guitar and the heel instead of the traditional spanish slotted neck. This insures that the joint is tight from the outside as opposed to the slotted neck in which you have to fuss with getting a good fit as any gap really shows.

The instructors for the course were Jose's son Liam (who has been building for 25+ years) and Steve Rees, a former student of the course who is an experienced builder from the UK. Jose while he is not one of the instructors does do a morning lecture/demonstration as well as visits each person each day to monitor their progress and help to direct them with any issues.

Each person has their own workbench area and a table for their wood and tools. Each works at their own pace with the instructors helping to guide more than instruct. They are very accomplished builders so they serve more to troubleshoot where needed. Because of this without a good knowledge of woodworking or having at least built a guitar before the course can be very tough for someone building their first guitar.

One builder planed 2 sets of EIR too thin before getting it right as he had never used a hand plane to thickness...another cut the rosette (also cut by hand) too close to the soundhole and while chiseling to depth broke out the side of the rosette trough into the soundhole.

While I have built classicals for a long time, for me I went to sort of re-connect to building with only hand tools. This is not a slight to any of the great builders that build amazing guitars with power tools but for me the discipline of having to thickness sides and backs to 2mm (~.080") by handplane and scraper helped me to reconnect to the process as over the years more of what I have been doing was becoming all routers, thickness sanders, jigs and forms.

It was hard shifting gears to doing everything manually...often the things we were doing were things that could be "knocked out" by a router in seconds but it was an exercise in how to in a way in which your hand skills determined the output, not the precision of the jig.

I also went because I wanted to talk to and meet Jose Romanillos. A chapter he wrote in a book titled how to build musical instruments was one of the reasons that I started building. Until then the only book I had read that was the only book I could find at that point was A.P. Sharpes's How to Make your Spanish Guitar, which coincidentally was the book that Romanillos started from. While he has been retired from full time building for about 10 years (he is 74 this year), he was still full of energy and would do things with great accuracy and speed by hand.

Romanillos is very open about how he builds and has a process that enabled everyone in the class an opportunity to build a classical guitar that is of excellent quality. There were a couple of guitars produced that were of amazing quality. Even though new and without finish there were a couple of instruments that were as good as any concert guitars I have heard. There was two evenings in which touring concert guitarists played and afterwards they then played all of the instruments that were completed by that point and even they were blown away by the quality of instruments.

For classical builders the course is invaluable. The insights for classical builders are things that you will not find documented anywhere else. There is a currently waiting list of about 150 people so you may not get in the first year but it is worth the wait.

The setting is in the mountains of Spain and while Madrid is only 130 km away, Madrid roasts in the summer (it was 100 degrees F when I landed), Siguenza was much milder ~80 degrees F in the day and ~60 at night. It is held at a monastry so everyone has their own room and meals are homecooked and served in a dining hall 3 times a day. The variety of the menu is great and the food excellent.

The best part is the other builders are from all over the world and most play quite well with 3 in the class that had toured as concert classical guitarists... good times, hard work and a super experience.

Shawn

Thanks for the very informative report, it sounds absolutely facinating, did you finish a guitar there ?

RussellR38948.8230439815

Wow, What a great opportunity.
Sound like a great experience Shawn.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

What an experience! Thanks for the report Shawn!

Long story...here is a shorter version

One of my boxes of wood and tools got lost by the airline and never arrived ...after 19 days still so sign of the box...

So when it did not arrive in Madrid, I had to scramble as it was the box that had all of my side sets, my finished neck and handmade rosette. The only problem was that the only supplier in Madrid, Madinter (http://www.madinter.com) was closed for August along with the rest of Madrid.

I knew the person at Madinter that handles international orders (Luisa, a former professional flamenco dancer) so I called her and she met me at Madinter. I picked up an EIR set, 2 cypress sets, some cedar neck blanks and a case (for the completed guitar).

The next problem was that the sets I had picked up were not completely dry so by the time I went from Madrid which was 100 degrees and humid (60+ percent humidity) to Siguenza which was 75 and low humidity (a low of 23 percent at times to a high of 56 percent), the EIR back set curled up like a potato chip.

It was not Madinter's fault as their warehouse was closed and we did not even have lights to inspect sets. Alot of their sets go to builders in Spain who stack and sticker their sets for later use so if they can save money by ordering the sets undried, they do. Madinter lets customers know if the wood is dried or not and for woods like Madagascar which are often sold green, they will hose them down and then wrap them in plastic so they dont dried out while in transit. Other than that, MadInter's service is top notch and prices usually very competitive.

I changed to the Cypress set and after bending the sides they had such springback that a day later one side spontaneously split along the grain...bummer...

I was down to my last set of sides and it had started to split on one end so Jose Romanillos said when everything else fails, do it the way that Torres did it... While in general we had been thinning sides to about .080 (~2 mm) for this last set I thinned it to 1.4mm (.055") thick!!! Some early builders took their sides as thin as 1mm so we had a historical precedent and little to lose.

Because of the time that I lost trying to deal with the green sets I bought and having to build my V joint neck from scratch while others were already started, I got all but the binding/purfling, fingerboard and bridge installed before it was time to leave. the fingerboard and bridge are finished so I will bind and install the fingerboard and bridge this weekend.

Of the 18 people in the class everyone finished closing their guitar and 15 of those left with their guitars strung up and played which is not bad for 2 weeks from start, all done by hand with hand tools.

The only two exceptions to the hand tools were that there was a "Fox" bender to use if you did not want to hand bend sides on an iron and there was a Hegner scrollsaw for cutting the shape of the top of the head.
Also in use was a small drillpress for drilling bridge string holes.

Jose Romanillos uses a 18 hole bridge with 3 holes per string in the bridge in the shape of an inverted triangle. The bottom hole is angled toward where the string meets the top of the saddle. The two other holes are where the string end goes so that instead of having the strings loop over the top of the tie block the strings feed through those two holes leaving the bridge looking really clean. While it is possible to drill these with a hand drill because of the small size of the bridge a drill press is better to get the precision needed.

If I had had one more day I could have finished the build but what I learned and how close I was to finishing I was very happy with the course.

Shawn,

Great posts! Please everyone, forgive my absense lately.

I took the course in 2001, and went back in 2002 for Jose's 70th birthday. I hit it off with many people there and most of the fondest memories of my life are in Siguenza. Jose is a gracious and very giving person, and his insights into guitarmaking are incredibly helpful.

I adopted his entire method of construction, and as I started working with it, I began to see the genius in the things others would find weird.

I would still struggle to make an acceptable guitar without the guidance of that course. When I went the instructors were Jose, Liam, Tobias Braun and Gerhard Oldiges. A freakin allstar team! I remember Tobias and I wasting a good 7+ hours trying to get the dang V-joint fitted...

Shawn, were you able to see any of the later Romanillos instruments there? Did Calos Trepat play? I found him incredible, and he bought the final Romanillos made by Jose, tornavoz and all... incredible instrument.

For Jose's birthday in 2002, Pepe Romero and Antigoni Goni played, amongst about 8 other guitarists. There were a couple of Torres there, and the most incredible exhibition of guitars by Jose's students you could imagine.

For those that don't know, many of today's leading classical makers are students of Jose's. Eventually all will realize the impact Jose has had on the classical guitar. It is huge. Utterly huge.

Thanks for your post Shawn. I haven't checked here too much lately. Your experiences brought back a lot of memories for me. jfrench38948.8965509259

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

Excellent report, Shawn! It's unfortunate that Murphy seemed to be your co-pilot when it came to wood. It's quite impressive that you still managed to get so close to completion. Hope you let us see the finished guitar.

Gerhard could not make it this year which is why Steve Rees filled in as instructor.

We had two nights of concerts. The first night was Eugenio Travansani, the second night was the duo of Carlos Trepat and Ignacio Rodes. Carlos is one of the most sensitive, expressive classical players I have ever heard.

Jose built a guitar during last years course as part of his demonstrations. It has a 4 piece top of bearclaw german spruce (40 year old), selected to be perfect for each piece. The sides and back are old Cypress. It sounded incredible.

Carlos Trepat had been playing a vintage Santos Hernandez "Blanca" setup for classical for the past couple years. After the concert the other night when he was trying out the various builders guitars, Jose showed him the Cypress from last year. Carlos proceeded to play it for over 4 hours before declaring that it was the finest guitar he had ever played, including his Santos. Jose will not sell it to Carlos but will lend it to him for the next year or more.

I got to see and play 2 recent Liam guitars and one that Jose built for Marian (his wife) that is tremendous with a base mode resonance that is one full tone below most concert guitars.

Joshua,

I mentioned to Jose and Marion that you are continuing with building and of your success with Tornovoz models and that you were working on a "Leona" guitar for someone...

Jose got a big smile on his face and said, "tell Joshua I wish him continued success and remember him fondly from the class and for attending my 70th celebration and am glad to hear he is continuing the path of Torres"...

I'd love to take that course someday.

I've been listening to two CD's from the Naxos Laureate series lately - Antigoni Goni and Elena Pandandreau (sp?),
and it turns out they both play guitars built by Jose. I have to say that I like the sound of those guitars as much as any that I have heard.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Shawn could you kindly post contact details for the course? Is there a website?

Thanks in advance

Shawn, thanks for the report, it sure sounds like a good time.

So, will you be adopting Romanillos all hand tool approach, or is it back to the routers, sanders, jigs etc. or something in between?

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Shawn that is a course that I intend to take one day after hearing about it from Joshua, your report just intensifies that desire! I have built quite a few instruments, lutes and guitars, just using hand tools, you can connect much more with the wood, which should be the ambition of every builder. There is nothing more satisfying than cutting a binding channel with gramil and chisel. I know the cousre will be a great influence on you future building, lucky devil!

Madinter are great suppliers of wood, Russell and I buy quite a lot from them but it always goes into store for 6 months at least before use.

Thanks for the report.

Colin

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

Thanks Shawn

Sorry to hear about your lost box, as Colin said we use Madinter for a fair amount of stuff, but the wood is quite green usually, so I can imagine the problems you had. The course sounds incredible, maybe one day I would like to attend, but I feel my hand skills and knowledge of the classical guitar would require some inprovement first.

I am a big fan of your posts and always find them insipiring and informative as you knowledge always shines through, Shawn is there anywhere on the internet were I could see some pics of your work.

Thanks for sharing this great report Shawn, i follow your very informative posts too, you are very knowledgeable!

A few more details about the class...

Arnt...there was a Norwegian builder there that had been there 2 times before who is an incredible guitarist. His name is Egil Haugland and he teaches guitar at the Academy at the University of Bergen. While we were in Spain a documentary filmmaker and an assistant came to film why a Norwegian Classical guitarist would go to Spain to build a Spanish guitar. When the video is finished it will be used by the school to show why to study in Bergen and will also be shown on TV in Norway. I had a great time speaking Norwegian with my new Norwegian friends.

As to the all by hand method, it was a great experience and from what I was able to accomplish, probably half of my tools and machinery I can do without, so at least from my wife's perspective, the course was a big success.

All tools and machinery have their place but it is too easy to rely on the tool rather than develop the skill by hand so it is a balance of what tool is really needed that could not be as easily done by hand. Even in Spain too many of the builders have become so mechanized that they are producing what some would call "fine furniture" instead of hand built, hand voiced instruments. I am trying to reconnect to that part of my guitarmaking.

There were builders from many countries in the class...Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Bosnia, Taiwan, Norway, Wales, 2 from Italy (1 from the north, 1 from the west central), Sicily, 3 from England (1 from South London, 1 from West London, 1 from the midlands), a father and son from Canada, 2 from California, and me from the Washington, DC area.

Information about the Romanillos course can be found at
http://www.guitarmakingcourses.com/Guitarmaking2.html

The MadInter people are really great...while I had difficulties, it was not with the quality of their wood. One other builder from Taiwan had lost his luggage and also needed wood and they helped him. All of this was while MadInter was officially closed for holiday! As a result Jose and Liam Romanillos allowed MadInter to bring some of their wood and tools to Siguenza to exhibit and sell one morning.

One more thing...one of the most intriguing things about how Romanillos builds his guitars is that the solera is dished toward the bridge area as one would expect but the dished portion of the solera is raised from the rest of the workboard so that the top gets trimmed to final shape, let on the solera and then the sides are clamped around the top, not on top of the top as other Spanish builders do. This helps to set the neck angle relative to the rise of the domed top and gives really consistent results.

The sides are attached to the top via individual glueblocks 8mm wide, alternating blocks that are 10 x 10 x 8mm wide and 8 x 8 x 8mm wide. This gives a clean look and a very flexible top compared to continuous linings. Brock Poling38949.7093055556

Shawn if you don't mind me asking do you remember the name of the builder from Wales ?

Wow, it sounds like an incredible experience! Thank you for sharing Shawn.

With so many people from so many different places, what was your common language (besides guitars)? Was communication ever a problem?

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Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

Thank you Shawn, for passing that on. Jose is a great inspiration to me, not only for his guitars and his work but just as much for his attitude and perseverence in life.     

I think I may stop by next year just for fun.

I'm really happy that you were able to have that experience. I agree with the others here and really enjoy all your posts. I'll be up your way one of these days, and beers are on me.

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

Shawn and anyone else who attended the course:

1) Would you say that the LMI plans are accurate re brace sizes and placements

2) In Roy Courtnall's Making Master Guitars, Romanillos states that he doesn't think the bridge patch does anything and that he planned on leaving it off subsequent guitars. He is still of this thinking?

3) Is he still scalloping the back braces and cross braces so that they are shorter in the middle than on the ends? This seems a bit counterintuitive to me, as I have tried this, weighed the shavings I took off, and found a miniscule weight difference from the unshaved braces. And we know strength drops by the cube of the height, so you lose a lot of stength for only very minor weight loss.

4) Does he inlay any stiffeners into the neck, such as carbon fiber or ebony? Is he using cedar or mahogany?

5) This is probably impossible to communicate on the forum, but how does he distinguish between a good and great top?

6) Generally speaking what top thicknesses is he building to?

7) Any/all dimensions for the bridge would be appreciated. What wood does he use, and what's the final weight?

8) does he pay attention to the tap tones of the top and back? I don't mean while building, but the assembled tones, a la Carruth, where he tries to get the back and top within a semitone of each other.

9) Did he talk about neck resonance and it's contribution to the sound at all?

10) Kevin Aram's article in GAL about the Romanillos guitar he drew the plan from described some of the repairs done on the guitar. Foremost among them was replacing the 3 center fan braces with braces that were 1mm taller (6.5mm, whereas the originals were 5.5). I have been building with 6.5 to get that extra strengh. Has Romanillos beefed up his braces similarly, or is he still building with the shorter braces?

As you might tell, I'm pretty interested in his style of building. My last 3 guitars were all built off of the LMI Romanillos plans, and they are by far the most lively and beautiful guitars I have built.

rlabbe38950.4449074074

[QUOTE=rlabbe] Shawn and anyone else who attended the course:

1) Would you say that the LMI plans are accurate re brace sizes and placements

2) In Roy Courtnall's Making Master Guitars, Romanillos states that he doesn't think the bridge patch does anything and that he planned on leaving it off subsequent guitars. He is still of this thinking?

3) Is he still scalloping the back braces and cross braces so that they are shorter in the middle than on the ends? This seems a bit counterintuitive to me, as I have tried this, weighed the shavings I took off, and found a miniscule weight difference from the unshaved braces. And we know strength drops by the cube of the height, so you lose a lot of stength for only very minor weight loss.

4) Does he inlay any stiffeners into the neck, such as carbon fiber or ebony? Is he using cedar or mahogany?

5) This is probably impossible to communicate on the forum, but how does he distinguish between a good and great top?

6) Generally speaking what top thicknesses is he building to?

7) Any/all dimensions for the bridge would be appreciated. What wood does he use, and what's the final weight?

8) does he pay attention to the tap tones of the top and back? I don't mean while building, but the assembled tones, a la Carruth, where he tries to get the back and top within a semitone of each other.

9) Did he talk about neck resonance and it's contribution to the sound at all?

10) Kevin Aram's article in GAL about the Romanillos guitar he drew the plan from described some of the repairs done on the guitar. Foremost among them was replacing the 3 center fan braces with braces that were 1mm taller (6.5mm, whereas the originals were 5.5). I have been building with 6.5 to get that extra strengh. Has Romanillos beefed up his braces similarly, or is he still building with the shorter braces?

As you might tell, I'm pretty interested in his style of building. My last 3 guitars were all built off of the LMI Romanillos plans, and they are by far the most lively and beautiful guitars I have built.

[/QUOTE]

Hmmm.... thats a lot of questions! I'll do my best on this, one by one. But please forgive my answers, this was in 2001 and I've changed many things in my own guitars toward the direction of Torres...

1.) Never seen the LMI plans, so I'm not really sure. I just copied Jose's Templates.

2.) When I took the course we used the bridge patch. I've since abandoned it. I think it is unnecessary.

3.) Yes he scallops the middle of the back braces and the harmonic bars. It works fine, and holds up quite well. The effect of this is hard to describe, but it does seem to change things quite a bit. I only do this sometimes... I believe it helps the responsiveness of the basses.

4.) Spanish Cedar of the neck, no stiffeners needed. Jose doesn't take the approach of isolating the soundboard like some other builders. What I took away from the course was a desire to make all these things work together, rather than overkill certain aspects of guitar construction. I think Jose would appreciate or agree with that.

5.) In 2001 he said almost vebatim "You cannot make a Spanish guitar out of cedar. It is a different guitar." He stated the belief that European Spruce was superior to other spruces, and that starting with good Euro Spruce gave you more potential to make a great guitar (paraphrased). He also looked at some Engelmann sets and thought they were rubbery feeling.

Runout was an important issue, and he places some importance on the "flowering" (cross silking, medulary rays). He checked everyone's tops for runout. He suggested different thicknesses for each top, one person going as thin as 1.7mm at the edges before bracing etc.

The flowering, he suggested, was indicitive of a good quartersawn top with little runout but also noted that the absence of the flowering does not suggest it is bad.

He had me cut a full inch off the joining edge of the soundboard because the grain was too tight.

I guess I answered 6 already. Depends on the stiffness, etc.

7.) Brazilian Rosewood is preferred, especially with 18 holes to the cordal block. 190mm long, 8-9mm tall, 28 or 29mm wide, wings at 4.5mm thickness. This is from memory... I remember the measurements in the Courtnall book being basically correct.

8.) He taps the top, but mainly because he likes the sound and does not try to draw many impressions from it. The guitars constructed in the Romanillos method seem to have a box frequency around E, which is lower than most. He did not seem to think much of tuning the top and back to certain notes (I don't think much of it either), and goes more by feel and intuition.

9.) I don't remember any discussion about neck resonance.

10.) I remember using 5.5mm tall braces. Its difficult to remember exactly, since my notes are not here at the moment and I've since moved to 7mm wide by 3mm tall braces. One thing of note that is absolutely important is that we "sprung in" the braces, and that adds strength when compared to braces already shaped to the dome of the soundboard.

The method of the raised solera is something I consider important. After assembly the sides are actually proud of the soundboard at the lower bout and must be planed down.

Hope this is helpful.

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

Shawn I am sure you will benifit for years, congratulations on completing the
course!

Joshua, you have some fine looking guitars! You should raise your prices I
think.

[QUOTE=KenMcKay]
Joshua, you have some fine looking guitars! You should raise your prices I
think. [/QUOTE]

I've been telling him that for years!

Colin

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

Joshua covered most of the questions but I would add a few other things...

First the GAL and Courtnall plans (which LMI sells) are based on older instruments, and in the case of the GAL plans, it is of the famous 1973 Romanillos that Bream played for years. In that guitar it did not use the wedged neck and the overall plantilla is slightly different overall shape.

For the top thickness, as Joshua said, Jose would assess each top and then tell the builder the thickness of the lower bout thickness just in front of the bridge area. In general the top bout is a uniform 2.5mm with the thickest part of the lower bout being between 2.5- 2.9 depending on the top in front of the bridge with the thickness tapering to 1.8- 2.0 around the perimeter from the waistline to the opposite waistline.

As far as the fan braces go, the center three are the thickest starting at 6.0- 6.5mm with the two outside of those being 5.5 and the two outside being 5mm. All fan braces are square and then shaped to a triangular profile and then tapered down to about 2mm in height from the bottom of the bridge to the end of the fan brace.

As far as the bridge plate is concerned, it is a matter of how stiff the top is across the grain. If the top is not stiff, the bridge plate is 2mm tapering down to .5mm at the ends of the bridge plate.

As far as tap tones are concerned, he did not attempt to get them to a particular pitch, at least not consciously. He did listen to the tap tone of the guitars once they were closed (sides installed around top, glueblocks installed in top, and back installed). Even there it was not about pitch as much as listening to hear if it was a higher pitch with a top that is stiff indicating that the top can be safely taken thinner (which will bring down the overall taptone as well as increase the vibrational response helping projection).

As far as what he considers a good top versus what he does not consider a good top...I will discuss that in a separate thread as it is a total discussion in and of itself.

Regarding the communications challenges with all of the various languages spoken, all but two people spoke some english and several of the people spoke several languages. I have a knack and interest in languages so the only language that was challenging was Serbian but he spoke enough english to express himself.

It was actually very cool having so many languages being spoken...at one point I was at a table eating with an Austrian, Swiss and German, all who spoke German but that each spoke such different dialects that they didnt always understand each other. Because I only knew German as a secondary language, I wasnt thrown by the dialects and was able to cross-explain things that otherwise would be lost in translation.

Thanks Ken and Colin. I need to update the page, since I'm not currently accepting any more orders - but be assured that once I am I'll be increasing prices (not to mention limiting the number I make).

Colin... Whats the latest? Haven't been around here much. What are you working on?

Shawn... looking forward to your post regarding tops.

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