Dear Fellow Lute Makers
In my previous post about flamenco guitars, I should perhaps have been a little more explicit. My daughter has started taking flamenco dance lessons, and I thought that I wanted to accompany her on the guitar. It so happens that I have an old flamenco guitar stored away in a cubbord. It is one of my first guitars that I used 20 years ago to practise french polishing. I stripped the instrument and turned it into a classical guitar (higher action and no golpeador). I will now convert it back into a flamenco guitar, but I can not bring myself to put a plastic golpeador back on! The only information that I have currently is from the website of Ramirez guitars, the great dynasty of Madrid guitar makers. They offer a replica of a 1912 guitar, and there is a picture of it on their website. They call it a Guitarra de Tablao. It has a rosewood golpeador, which appears to be slabcut and unvarnished, though the front itself is french polished. Now I also know that early flamenco guitars often had maple golpeadores. Thank you very much! I want to strip my old guitar again and french polish it again (my very first french polish job is rather embarrasing). Also I will re fret it, convert the head to have wooden pegs and I want to put on a wooden golpeador. I believe that it can be glued directly to the unvarnished top of the instrument, and that it can be carefully removed again when it needs to be replaced. However it may be better to glue it onto the varnish. This I do not know. What I want to know is how this was done in ca. 1900-1930. And if it is glued onto the varnish, which glue would have been used to glue wood to varnish? Kind regards Njaal Bendixen -- Njål Bendixen nj...@operamail.com On Fri, 10 Apr 2015, at 04:22 AM, Richard Lees wrote: > hello all > > a flamenco question!!!!!!!!!!!! > > OLE... > > It so happens that as some of you know, I lived in Spain for years and > knew personally some of the most historically significant builders of > classical and flamenco guitars of the 20th c. Arcangel Fernandez, > Marcelino Lopez Nieto, Manolo Contreras to name a few. I am most happy > to offer what information I might have to help you with your very > interesting questions. > With respect to "historical" flamenco instruments, I have both studied > aspects of the construction of several such instruments as well as > having played them. The builder having been in those cases Santos > Hernandez, and with Feliz Manzanero (who has the most astonishing > collection of 19c guitars I have ever seen) in discussing the first > great instrument he ever purchased and really the jewel of his > collection, a flamenco guitar by Arcangel's great master Marcelo Barbero. > Although I never discussed the golpeador specifically with my friends > back then, I can offer a few ideas to you based on principles I saw > employed in the construction of those instruments. > First, as far as materials are concerned, I don't remember ever seeing a > golpeador made of rosewood myself, but I do remember seeing a number of > them made from figured arce (fiddle back sycamore). > As far as the glue up is concerned, we have to remember that the > golpeador will take during its life a lot of punishment and will require > replacement from time to time. Even granting the fact that prior to > removal, the golpeador will have been thinned down to the thickness of > paper with a very sharp chisel in order to reduce the trauma to the top > during the removal process and where the glue employed in attaching the > golpeador ought to have been at half strength at most, we must still > soften the glue in the removal as the golpeador is in essence peeled off > the top. To accomplish this we must employ heat and moisture. In the > case of golpeador having been glued to an unvarnished top in the first > place, it is near unavoidable for the top not to have absorbed some glue > into its surface grain to begin with. This is why gluing to a white top > is a disaster in the making . Due to the presence of the absorbed glue > (and at any strength) in the surface of the top, pulling up strips of > the top during the removal process is unavoidable. > It is with this in mind that I feel that for the flamenco guitar, we > must adhere the golpeador onto a varnished top to begin with. Much like > a body fret on a lute the golpeador not being a structural element, only > needs to be fixed onto the surface of the top where the glue can't > penetrate the top during the glue up and this will go a long way to > ensuring a clean removal. > > On 4/9/2015 1:49 PM, Njål Bendixen wrote: > > Dear Lute Makers > > > > > > Does anyone know the answer to this: > > > > Modern flamenco guitars have a golpeador attached to the front of the > > instrument. It is a piece of self adheasive plactic glued on to the > > varish of the front, wich is of course french polished. > > > > Traditional flamenco guitars have a rosewood golpeador, which is > > unvarnished. The front is french polised. My question is, is the front > > varnished under the golpeador, or is the golpeador glued on to the bare > > wood of the front? > > > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Njaal Bendixen > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > NjÃ¥l Bendixen nj...@operamail.com > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- http://www.fastmail.com - Choose from over 50 domains or use your own
