I continue to show some older work, this time a flamenco from 2020, cedar with cypress, Rio fingerboard, aluminium tuners – quite light overall. Unfortunately the only sound sample is by yours truly and in raw wood. Big and rich sound, really loved it (especially for a cedar top)
Italian spruce soundboard flamenco negra with 7-strings, 650mm scale.
60 years old Brazilian rosewood body, fingerboard, bridge, neck spine and headplate. The back is made from 7 pieces and the sides from 6.
Spanish cedar neck, Baljak tuners.
Classical mode recording made with d’Addario normal tension strings. In flamenco mode unfortunately I only have a phone recording made on the bare wood guitar.
Flamenco blanca, Austrian spruce soundboard and Spanish cypress body.
Jose Romanillos inspired decoration, whom I greatly admire as both luthier and person
small Spanish plantilla, 650mm scale
Cedro neck, V-joint, head plated with Amazon rosewood and bird’s eye maple
“Bois de Rose” Madagascar rosewood fingerboard
rosette background is bois de rose, “the tree” mahogany and 100yo Cuban mahogany; arches side grain flamed maple
hand-made herringbone purfling, all natural colors from more than 10 different species of wood
Brazilian rosewood bridge.
A few soundclips recorded by a classical player not being able to get a flamenco player in a short notice are linked below the photos. Guitar is absolutely asleep being strung for just 1 hour. D’addario EXP46 strings.
My third flamenco guitar, made for El Grelo.
-Swiss spruce soundboard
-Spanish cypress back and sides
-Madagascar rosewood bridge, binding and headplate
-Spanish cedar neck with carbon fiber reinforcement
-African Blackwood fingerboard, 655mm scale.
I just realized more than five years have passed since I build guitars! My first guitar was a Torres-style made from Italian spruce and Spanish cypress. I recall I was gluing the fingerboard on 1 January 2008 🙂
I dusted it off and asked my friend flamenco player Tiberiu “El Grelo” to record a piece on it:
This is a sister of #18. Same tree soundboard, only very minor voicing modifications, but with a body of rare “red” Indian rosewood. Indian rosewood usually comes in the classic brown tones, while fewer sets are purplish. This one is very intensely purplish and under finish looks quite beautiful, as I have seen on a previous build. I remember reading this might be a subspecies and growing in northern India. The Chinese had a similar wood “Suan Zhi redwood” which has has been a staple of their luxury furniture. Some research has showed a lead towards dalbergia cochinensis rather than dalbergia latifolia but I’m not certain. In any case my Chinese wooden planes are made from exactly this sort of rosewood and they are labeled suan zhi but I don’t know where the wood is logged and if it’s simply the red variety of latifolia relabeled because of the classical (for them) color. Yes I am as confused as you are now.
Some (rushed and terrible) photos of #18, a Barbero inspired guitar made from very high quality European spruce and cypress; Spanish cedar neck with ebony insert and fingerboard, Indian rosewood headplate and bridge, Madagascar rosewood binding. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any proper flamenco recording yet, but I’m delighted to brag that it sounds very good. My friend Tiberiu “El Grelo” Gogoanta, a professional flamenco player from Spain said it is the most powerful blanca he ever played when capo’ed higher up the neck, which seems to be a tricky situation for many guitars. When set up with a taller saddle it makes an excellent classical guitar, with the typical sweet and delicate tonal color of cypress, plenty of harmonics and excellent sustain.
Alexandru Marian Spanish Guitars 