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I like carving Archtops, and like the sound, but the sound of a good classical is amazing too. I haven't done one. I bought wood to make one a few years ago, but it is mahogany back and sides, and I heard they usually use other woods?

Do they use a crisper wood, for a bright, clear sound?

What is a good plan? Sometimes I follow them. I like the little 1800's guitars, but a classical is a Spanish guitar, isn't it? I think I'll do a 7 course Vihuela next. The ElectroLess Paul is nearing the finish stage, where you need to have something else to do. The plan I have for the Vihuela is really simple. Try to get good sound out of it, and then try the classical.

I watched this video, and that guitar sounds fine.

https://youtu.be/wgm7rmWjNpo

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The guy has a baroque guitar that sounds good too!

Yes. It IS in the fingers.

https://youtu.be/jVl7TaAqb2A

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A lot of classical players and builders think that rosewoods are the only way to go for a classical, but I don't think RWs are essential for a good sounding classical. Whether there's a discernible difference in sound is one of the big debates. You could build a perfectly good guitar with just about any decent B&S set. With mahogany, it might be hard to sell if that's your intent.

I've only built from two plans (with some of my own modifications), the 1888 Torres SE114 plan by Jeff Elliott, and the 1937 Hauser plan by Richard Bruné both from GAL. They're both well done, full of detail and thorough. The guitars have different characters, according to my customers: the Torres a little sweeter and the Hauser more powerful. The Torres is a bit smaller, though it was one of Torres' larger guitars. They have similar historical significance in the classical world to what the OM and dreadnought are in the steel string world.I don't think you could go wrong with either plan.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I once visited a violin repair shop where the luthier was being commissioned to convert an old Aubert baroque guitar from 10 strings to 6. Seemed like a shame to me.
A baroque guitar would be fun to make, and would be somewhat unique. It would suffer less comparison from the wood snobs.
The Courtnall book might give you a good overview of some of the more famous traditional makers' designs.

Converting a 10 string to a 6 string? Heck, I can do that in 5 minutes, if you don’t mind the extra holes. And it’s reversible.

Brandon can make any guitar sound great

I have built about 10 classical guitars. One, well two but really one, came out absolutely fantastic. The rest are okay. I built one double top classical and it took a real long time for it to grow on me. I still don't like it a lot but it is loud. I built one flamenco guitar that sounds like a classical guitar so I failed on that one and am not sure what the deal is with that.

I mostly play classical guitar these days and I have a set of BRW that I plan on rewarding my self with some day and building a traditional Torres style guitar.

I have a 1950's Manual Contreras classical guitar that is all mahogany with a spruce top and it sounds fantastic. It's beautiful mahogany, probably Cuban. It is unusual for mahogany to be used in classical guitars but certainly not unheard of. If you want to sell it though then Mahogany is probably not the best choice as it is not traditional and classical guitar players are very steeped in their ways.

I did a restoration on a little Viennese guitar from the early 1800's a couple years back and it was truly a remarkable sounding guitar. All maple with a spruce top.

I have used mainly American Maple but have also used Walnut, and, after acquiring an ex builders stash have used Indian Rosewood. It was not my intention to contrast and compare but I can hear little difference and what there is could just be small differences in the builds.

By the way they may not look it but they are based on the Torres SE 114 plans. The lower bout is an almost exact fit and the bracing as close as I could get to identical. The bracing by the way is incredibly light - about 2.5 mm as I recall. I like to do cutaways and since I don't have to sell them I just do it!

I also use bolt on necks so a complete heathen!

Cheers Dave

Mahogany makes a nice Classical guitar, so go for it. As has been pointed out, the main issue is often selling them, but they sound good.

A few people make Classicals with the usual flat fan-braced top and a carved arched back (Buscarino 'Cabaret'). I've never done one like that (although I'm planning to at some point), but I have made a few with carved arched top and back plates. It seems to me that a carving the back is a way to make a softer, lower density wood act more like a rosewood: you end up with a heavier back with higher 'Q' resonances, like rosewood.

I made my first archtop steel string guitar with mahogany B&S. I had it on hand, and didn't want to use an expensive set of curly maple on what was, for me, an experiment. It turned out quite well. The owner has said that he hopes I remember what I did on that one, because if anything happens to it he'll be back for a copy. No pressure... So mahogany can work fine for an arched plate.

I guess it will be mahogany. Makes it easy, nothing to buy. I'll have to learn how to make slot heads, and buy tuners.

I'll go with the Torres plan. Does it ship in a tube? Or is it pdf, and you have it printed it out?

Dave, that is interesting that you don't notice much difference. I don't notice much difference in the sound of my violins. Different woods, different arching. One is very easy to play, but isn't as interesting sound wise. The 5 string with Helicore steel strings sounds "hummy" to me. Nice, but different. The rest sound the same. Even the main modes on Audacity are about the same.

My archtop sounds WAY different from my little Stauffer. But they are different animals.

If you curve the back vertically, like the Stauffer, does that add stiffness, and brightness?
Seal the inside of the mahogany?
I always have questions.

Someone said that he makes violas out of cedar and mahogany. I have stock cut for that.

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Ken, during the pandemic I did a little self challenge. I had built one classical years and years ago and had given it away, so I decided to build another. To make it a little more of a challenge I decided to build out of materials on hand - not to spend any new money on the guitar (I had to buy tuners). I decide to build with hand tools as much a possible, limiting myself to only tools used in Cumpanio/Natelson. I decide to use hide glue and French polish.

I had been given some beautiful straight grained Douglas fir from the gym floor of a local school and used that for top, back and sides. Doug fir has engineering properties very similar to spruce. I used the classica '37 Hauser plans.

Bottom line, while I am not a classical player I know a couple who are and they have pronounced it a "decent little guitar". I plan to take it to the GAL conference next summer and submit to the classical listening session just for laughs.

Nice looking guitar there Freeman.

As for Dough Fir I just traded a couple pine tops that I cut with a guy for a couple Doug Fir tops that I just got in. I could not believe how stiff they were. Is that a trait of Doug Fir?

According to the table in Mark French's book it is stiffer than Sitka. I used Alain Lambert's spectrum analyzer while I was building mine and got some pretty interesting tap tones. Don't know what they mean but they did give me confidence that I was headed in the right direction.

Yeah it rings like a clear silver bell.

Doug fir tends to be denser than most spruces, and much denser than average WRC. In softwoods the Young's modulus along the grain (which determines stiffness at a given thickness) tends to track the density surprisingly well, for a natural material. You can make a dense top thinner and still maintain adequate stiffness (which is what's really important). However, since stiffness goes as the cube of thickness, while Young's modulus tracks density liniarely (in the range we see) a dense top will tend to end up a bit heavier if it's worked to the same stiffness as a less dense one. This can cost a bit of power and treble response, all else equal. In practice it's not a huge difference, but it's better to use low density tops on Classicals when possible. Steel strings sometimes work better with a somewhat denser top: you get more 'headroom', and there's plenty of treble in the strings anyway.

I bought a quartered piece of Doug fir a few months ago. I like the look; like a candy cane.



I just measured the density:
13.66cm wide X 1.28cm thick X 138.4cm long divided by 1698 grams. and invert.

.7 sg! Really? Yikes.

12 string?

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[img]1103[/img]classical back of Homingo

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Mike Collins

I was thinking what Alan so clearly articulated. Someone sent me a Doug fir top to try, and someday I hopefully will - on a large bodied steel string guitar. It looks very nice and is stiff, but heavy.
For a classical a low density, moderately stiff, paper white fine grained Engelmann spruce would be my choice. Alpine spruce and western red cedar are other good choices. I'm sure many other woods can be made to work, but why swim against the tide?

I watched another great performance on a classical. How do you move your fingers like that? I looked up the sheet music and it has a low D. The strings are Hannabach Goldin. Almost 100 pounds of tension. Pricey, but not anything like violin strings, and even ONE Cello string is more than a set. Interesting. Guts would be less tension, but about $44 for the trebles. Not terrible if they last. Basses are cheap. Regular sets are cheap. Just thinking.

Full gut strings for a baroque guitar; about $75. Nylgut about half that.

https://youtu.be/9bXAVm7NZs8

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That was beautiful….


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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If there's a Clapton of the classical guitar world, this might be him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlAzXWoQDlg

Then there's this young lady, up and coming. One of my favorite pieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8UXw36AN9E

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6i2KXR-gf4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTRhCeYb9kw
A couple pieces by the husband and wife duo Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya. Sadly, they only had 16 years together.
When I was a kid I aspired to play classical guitar, and learned a few pieces by Bach, Sor , and this one by Laurindo Almeida:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lsxFCYEWPA
My brother took it much further and learned the pieces that Pat linked to as well as Asturias (Leyenda) and the Bach Chaconne among others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY5y4Rp3tU8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W-SdpmUb5g
After getting married and having kids he put down the guitar and hasn't played it since.
In the video Pat linked to of Kyuhee Park playing the Sor study she is playing a Daniel Friederich guitar, a maker featured in the Courtnall book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNNbFkb0gBk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K9cTHT-LV4

The first link is performed on a lattice braced guitar, and the second, on a Nomex double-top instrument. (Just to add to the options.)

[img]1098.jpg[/img]
Side ports om Homigo guitar

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Mike Collins

Ken:
Sp/g at .7 is higher than any softwood sample I've ever tested. That type of grain, with the heavy latewood lines, is pretty characteristic of Doug fir. Latewood adds density out of proportion to the stiffness it imparts. If the ratio of latewood/earlywood was more 'normal' I'd expect that top to have a Young's modulus along the grain of around 24,000 megaPascals, but I'd be surprised if that's actually much over 19,000-20,000 mPa.

You might try it as B&S wood; it's in the rosewood class already for density, and Doug often has low damping.

According to Richardson, who's been behind a lot of the best research on guitar acoustics, the power output of a guitar is proportional to the ratio of vibrating Area/mass of the lower bout. The thickness of the top depends somewhat on the span of the lower bout. As with the floor in the house, as you make the span larger you have to beef up the structure to retain the necessary stiffness. In that situation, for a given structural design, mass goes up faster than area, suggesting that it's harder to make a powerful big guitar than a powerful small one. One implication of this is that there's less penalty for using a dense top on a smaller guitar.

I'd use some sort of stiffness test to determine how thick to make that top, and use in on a parlor guitar, or else on a whole raft of ukes...

Thanks for that Alan. It makes sense when you think about it. A cello, or upright bass SCREAMS for lighter wood. I was shocked, at the result myself. I measured, multiplied, and divided a few times.

Parlors would work. The board is only about 5.5" wide. With the smaller size you can find more back and side wood too.

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