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On this page, I'll provide
you with information on my workshop, my way of building and
how I see the world of Spanish guitars.
I use very few power tools in
the building of a guitar and I do everything myself.
There's absolutely no preproduction by other people involved
in my guitar construction. When I say that my guitars are
hand build, this means that my hands and no one else’s build
them. The reason for using almost exclusively hand
tools is that I do not see any quality advance in power
tools and that I like a peacefull environment and to
listen to music while I work. Instead of having invested in
machinery, I have a nice little selection of high quality hand
tools: knives; Chinese and American planes; Japanese
saws, chisels and sharpening stones; deep throat
caliber. The few power tools I use are a sander, a
bench drill and a router that I use to make the channels for
the neck reinforcements.
The central point in my
guitar building is the instrument. The tool you use for making
music. I've played music since I was a kid, and it’s the music
that makes me build instruments. I use a lot of time doing the
setup of an instrument. Like giving the fingerboard the right
relief, the fretting, the polishing of the frets, the height
of the strings above the fingerboard and above the soundboard,
and this at the bridge and at the sound hole. I consider these
adjustments to be some of the most important factors in what
is a good guitar. The sound is of course another very
important factor, but this you can read more about on the
pages about the flamenco and classical guitar.
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One of the problems in the
guitar world is the use of words and terms to describe
the production of the instruments. The best example is the use
of the terms hand build. Everyone uses it. From the small
builder working alone, the small factory with some 3 - 10
employees, and finally the big factories with many workers and
a full setup of CNC machines to do most of the work.
This term is also being used in many of
the places where you can buy guitars. They also call
everything hand build.
I'm not going to start a
discussion of what is best or if the small factory build
guitar is a better quality/value option than the Luthier build
guitar. This I leave up to you. I don’t even compare my own
guitars to these different production instruments. Not because
I think mine are better, but simply because its another
product. Some people do not care about if it's a
luthier that has made their instrument especially to
their specifications and keeping alive an old traditional
culture. They just want an instrument that works, and maybe
these players will be better of with a production guitar.
What I do say is that my
guitars are true hand build instruments, where I'm the only
one involved in the production. And this from the wood
selection to the final polishing. I do believe that this is
the best way of controlling the whole process and hence the
best way to build a high quality instrument. I work every
little piece as an individual component. And it might be that
one soundboard needs to be 2,1mm at the center and 2,0mm at
the edge, while another needs to be 2,2mm at the center and
2,0mm at the edge. This control I believe is obtained the best
by using few or no power tools and instead of that, investing
the money and the energy in high quality instruments for
measuring
Some years ago, I had the luck that Simon Shearston, the
owner of www.foroflamenco.com asked me if he could make a
documentary of my work. I did of course say yes. The result you
can see here:
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