Official Luthiers Forum!

   No! This isn't something that should be in Serge's Apology thread in the Off-Color section.

   My neighbor Bob "Coach" Fraley stopped me today an asked me if I had ever heard of Furch Guitars ! He was really impressed.

     Even though the guitar was only about $500.00 filthy American dollars he said it compared quite well to $2000.00 guitars. So well he's going to buy one. So I went and looked up their website.

    They're a company in the Czech Republic and have been building for a while after the collapse of Comma-nism.

    What I was struck by was the bracing pattern that they call square bracing. It's a crosshatch of small braces around the bridge plate. I was wondering if any of you guy know anything about it.





    The store is about 30 klicks from here so I guess I'll have to di-di-mou.

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

They had a lot of Furch's in Walton's in Dublin when I worked there 3 or 4 years ago. They reminded me a lot of early Lakewoods - nice woods with few frills. For their price they were well made and great sounding guitars. Bet they have more than a few "Carpathian" tops on them.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Furch guitars go by the name "Stonebridge" or "Stanford" here in N.A. Awesome bang for the buck...

Very similar to "Lattice" bracing. Fylde also has a similar bracing pattern
but with less cross-bracing.

Interesting!!!

It's just your standard "sextuple-X" pattern.

Stonebridge, huh? They've been advertising in Acoustic Guitar magazine for some time now. The guitar in their ad, which says, "by Frantisek Furch since 1981," looks quite nice.

One of my clinets has a ten year old or so Furch dread - nice guitar, never looked inside though .. the script Furch logo on the headstock leaves little to the imagination though (see Pierre Elliot Trudeau, fuddle duddle) .. dont go there. Made me laugh.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Hesh,
Please remove the picture of Ervin's bracing from your post. Whgat is in Ervin's shop should stay there as he is very protective of his bracing patterns and he should be. He would NOT apprecitae this nor would I. Thank you in advance if you do decide to pull the picture. I know Ervin would appreciate it.
Thanks,
tim...

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Tim,
The edit feature is gone....

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Does Ervin allow photographs to be taken in his shop?

Should we ask the Furch people if a reproduction of their bracing pattern is appropriate?

Just curious....

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

Hesh:
I was not trying to be a jerk or trying to jump on you, so please accept my humble apology. Ervin has spent his life developing his unique style of voicing and bracing patterns. Yes, there are a few pictures floating around of his work but I think we should honor his privacy and allow him to post pics of his work if he so chooses.

Ervin does allow his students to take photos in his shop but they are for their OWN use and are not to be published. He will share his knowledge but it comes at a cost along with an honor system to be respected and upheld.

_________________
tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Hesh,
Were I in your shoes, I probably would have done the same thing. Thank you for making it right.

_________________
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

     The bracing looks thin and low making up for that with numbers. They also are without intersection stiffeners, might be a place for improvement. My buddy Bob say's he's going to buy one so he'll probably let me try it out!

   I was wondering has anybody tried one before at the NAMM or otherwise?

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Looks like the guys on that site are having way too much fun! I hope I get
the chance to pay them a visit some time.

What a cool "factory", too!

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

that is sort of similar to the Somogyi bracing, except Ervin's is an x-brace
with the cross hatches further spaced out and overlap onto the bridge plate.
Ervin's fingerbraces are splayed out as well. And just from looking at an old
picture that was posted in Ervin's discussion in the old voicing forum Ervin's
x-brace seems to be a different angle than "norm" as well..possibly a little
tighter than normal. Seems like an interesting approach. Not one that I'm
really interested in at this time, but interesting combo of classical guitar
meets steel string guitar, and Ervin's guitars sound great so it's gotta work.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

[quote]x-brace seems to be a different angle than "norm" as well..possibly a little
tighter than normal. Seems like an interesting approach.[/quote]

   Most guys on the forum have their own pattern of working and are interested in "keeping up" probably, but it is interesting and gives one something to think about.

    I've never seen it before and was interested in it for it's characteristics. Looks like not a lot of people know much about it! It's giving me ideas!

    I admire their lateral thinking.

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Apparently not all Furch models have this multi-X bracing- I noticed on the website 'factory tour' slide show that there were some standard Martin lookalike tops.

Interesting, though.

John

I for one was fascinated by the Smogyi photo, and by the time I finished reading the thread, it had vanished.

It seems suprising that Ervin allows pictures to be taken at all, given his concern for privacy.

I am so glad Charles Fox did not take the same approach with his creative invention

JMHO

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

[QUOTE=JNixon] I for one was fascinated by the Smogyi photo, and by
the time I finished reading the thread, it had vanished.

It seems suprising that Ervin allows pictures to be taken at all, given his
concern for privacy.

I am so glad Charles Fox did not take the same approach with his creative
invention

JMHO[/QUOTE]

you can go take a look at the archives in the voicing thread where ervin
was posting. there is a shot there of his bracing pattern, and Ervin never
said anything about it. Maybe he was just too nice to say anything, or
maybe he just did not care.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

[QUOTE=JNixon] I am so glad Charles Fox did not take the same approach with his creative invention
[/QUOTE]

Here, here. And folks like Larrivee, de Jonge, Laskin, Manzer, et.al. Hmmm, I sense a pattern...

[QUOTE=CarltonM] Stonebridge, huh? They've been advertising in Acoustic Guitar magazine for some time now. The guitar in their ad, which says, "by Frantisek Furch since 1981," looks quite nice.[/QUOTE]

Here's how good they can sound:

Antoine Dufour and his Stonebridge

[QUOTE=JNixon] I for one was fascinated by the Smogyi photo, and by the time I finished reading the thread, it had vanished.

It seems suprising that Ervin allows pictures to be taken at all, given his concern for privacy.

I am so glad Charles Fox did not take the same approach with his creative invention

JMHO[/QUOTE]

Unfortunately, some who have benefited from the open exchange of information in the past don't feel any obligation to continue the tradition unless their palms are crossed with cash.

It's a sad situation, and I'd like to publicly thank the many skilled artisans/artists who still share their techniques so openly here at the OLF and in other venues. There's a lot more to creating great instruments than a particular bracing pattern, so nobody should be afraid to share.

We left behind more than bell-bottom pants when many of us discarded the ethos of the 60s-70s in favor of the 'new market-driven paradigm'.

John