Antonio Torres "La Suprema" 1864 FE 19 style Classical Guitar: It's Completed and For Sale!

Torres assembled his guitars face down on the solera, having the plantilla of the guitar already cut to shape.

Jose L. Romanillos, Antonio de Torres, Guitar Maker, 1987

THIS GUITAR HAS SOLD!

I recently finished a guitar that is based upon Antonio Torres's guitar FE 19, aka "La Suprema", which he constructed in 1864. Click here to see the plans that I used to make this guitar.

It has an Engelmann spruce top, California laurel back and sides, Spanish cedar neck, an Macassar ebony fret board, ebony binding and is French polished.

The string length is 650mm, width of the neck at the nut is 51.5mm and 62mm at the 12th fret.

I did not use the standard Torres style of "fan" or "kite" bracing on the guitar's top, instead I used a parallel bracing that Santos Hernandez used on several of his guitars. This bracing helps give the guitar a very beautiful, singing voice that is quite loud, its volume is more than adequate for a concert guitar. Another change from the original guitar that I made was not to install a brass"tornavoz". Click here to learn more about this device.

Santos parallel bracing

The back and sides are California laurel that I re-sawed, by hand with a Disston No.8 rip saw, from a board that I purchased from a wood supplier in Orick, California. Many of the old time loggers and lumberman that I grew up with in northeastern California called laurel "pepperwood" because when you cut into it, it smells like pepper. Other people call it Oregon myrtle. Luthier John Calkin states:

"This is yet another wood that reminds me of maple in appearance and working properties, though its' texture is a bit coarser. Its basic straw color is often flavored with an amazing array of colors and figure, most frequently a maple-ish fiddleback. Myrtle has a reputation for instability that I have yet to experience. Tonewood suppliers occasionally stock sets of myrtle, but if you can resaw, the specialty lumber people like Lewis Judy can give you a better deal on this West Coast wood. This is first-class stuff, worthy of the best instruments."

(Click here for his article on alternative tone woods.)

This is not a flamenco blanca guitar, but a classical guitar.

I firmly believe that the laurel back and sides add much to the voice of this guitar. 

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at highcountrylutherie@gmail.com.

1860's Greek Revival House: Almost Done!

The great majority of people lived in rural areas where building was largely in the hands of carpenters and mechanics who relied on books. Thus it was through pattern books that the Greek Revival spread across the nation and became for nearly forty years the national style.

Leland M. Roth, A Concise History of American Architecture, 1979

Here's the house when I started working on it in late June...

This is what it looked like two weeks ago when I and my colleague, Mike, walked away to other projects.

We completed the siding repairs and I even found a door that matched the original door that you see on the right side of the building.

It was amazing that it took us 3 days with a skid steer loader to remove enough soil so water would drain away from the house.

We removed so much soil that we were able to fill in part of a washed out on the pasture that is next to the house, the hole we filled was over twelve feet deep, twelve feet wide and twelve feet long!

Yesterday, 9/26, I spent all day scraping paint, also had Jake, another seasonal, doing exactly the same thing.

There is a lot of prep work to be done, scraping paint, masking off windows, gutters, parts of the roof and parts of the stone house that is attached to the building.

If Mike and I can start applying the paint by next Thursday we will be lucky.

Once it is painted I will post a photo of how it looks!

New Tool Racks

Simple flat shelves for small tools ranged along the walls at random, fitted in between beams and windows. Saws and large tools hung from pegs in the wall over the bench.

Aldren A. Watson, Country Furniture, 1974



I glued the back bindings onto the Hernandez y Aguado guitar copy (click here to learn more about that guitar) last Friday afternoon with great success. Then I turned my attention to my studio.

My studio is about 9'x11', space is at a premium, and I was hanging saws, braces and other tools that I use on a regular basis on the wall in a rather un-artistic manner, umm, the tools were hanging on nails. Not that that is a bad thing, just not aesthetic.

Several months ago I bought several bags of small shaker pegs at my local Woodcraft store so I could make better racks. Funny how long it can take me to get around to doing something, like finishing my new cabinet work bench so I can chuck my tool chest onto the trash heap where it belongs and clear more floor space.

Don't these saws look pretty hanging from pegs!

This is such a great way to display my tools, I always feared that one of them would jump off a nail and fall to the floor. Tool suicide. Now I need to make new racks to hang all of my clamps. Yes, there are several tools that still hang on nails, but I have forgiven myself for doing that.

The only electricity used to make these racks was that consumed by the over head lights, the boards were ripped by hand, finished with a Stanley No. 5 jack plane, the holes were drilled by bit and brace.

Now, turn off your computer or other electronic device and get out to the shop and make something!

On the Bench: A 1968 Hernandez y Aguado Classical Guitar Copy - Glueing on the Ebony Bindings

Manuel Hernandez and Victoriano Aguado originally worked together in a piano factory. In 1941 they set up as furniture and piano restorers, subsequently making guitars for their amusement, but then they invited Modesto Borreguero, who had worked for Manual Ramirez, into their workshop and learned from him. More than 400 guitars had been built by 1975, when Hernandez died. Aguado had retired in 1970.

Colin Cooper, The Classical Guitar Book, 2002

Between my day job, fly fishing with my wife on the weekends and trying to complete a "honey do" list, I don't get much time in my studio. I did get the Torres/Santos guitar completed, it sounds wonderful and is a joy to play, I will post about that guitar soon.

Preparing to glue on the binding strip


This afternoon, after running some errands and a little fly fishing, I did make some time to glue one more binding on the Hernandez y Aguado copy. I bent the binding stick, made sure that the binding ledge was uniform in depth and width, made sure the scarf joint at the butt end looked nice and the applied the glue and tape.

Tape, glue, doesn't look so pretty yet

Even this operation is a little nerve wracking - I want to make sure that the binding is tight in its rabbet, gaps are no good because they will have to be filled later, and some times my fingers slip off the tape and a finger nail makes a gouge in the top which will have to be steamed out and sanded.

The back bindings are next, I don't know if I will have enough time this afternoon to do that work, I need to take the dogs for a walk and think of something to make for dinner. The bindings are ready and so are the curly maple purfling strips, once this task is complete then I can install the fret board, carve the neck and start on the French polish. Oh, to have the time to get this guitar completed by mid October...


Enjoy the video!

Make a Mountain Man Green River Knife in an Afternoon...Well, Sort Of: Part 1

There is no doubt that the products of the Green River Works were of the best quality available. The reputation of the knife generated various sayings such as "Give it to em up to the Green River", meaning to stab a foe up to the handle where "Green River Works" was stamped, or "Done up to Green River" meaning to do something to the fullest extent possible.

However, the J.Russell & Co. did not start stamping their products with "Green River Works" until some time in 1837 and it is not likely that any were even available to be shipped to rendezvous until 1838 or later, if they were ever even shipped to rendezvous.


from the website, Mountain Men and Life in the Rocky Mountain West Malachite’s Big Hole


This winter I want to build a Lyman Great Plains Rifle, a muzzleloading rifle that is based upon the famous Hawken rifle. Building this rifle will be a great diversion for me, I will have quite a few guitars to make this winter.

So looking ahead to when the rifle is completed and the next muzzleloading rifle deer season, I thought it might be nice to make a Russell Green River knife to add to my "muzzleloading kit".

The piece of steel in the upper part of the photo was in a drawer of my grand father's work bench. I was always told that it was from an old crosscut saw, one that was used for felling large conifers, and that some of my older cousins had tried to make a knife out of it and never completed it.

I remember handling this piece of saw blade when I was eight years old, I will be fifty-two years old in a couple of weeks, I am pretty sure that this blank was roughed out before I was born! For the last twenty years I have wanted to finish the knife.

With an image of a Green River knife in my head I sketched out drawing and traced it onto the blank.

First thing I did was to grind off the old point so I wouldn't stick myself while I worked on the blank.

Then I took my side angle grinder which has a metal cutting blade on it and proceeded to grind away what didn't look like the knife I want.

The knife after the majority of the grinding was done with a side angle and a bench grinder.

I established the edge by draw filing.

Draw filing the knife while it is attached to a make shift knife board.

I spent about an hour this afternoon sharpening the edge on an old water stone, sharpening and sharpening and then I realized that the metal is too soft to hold an edge for long. I was afraid of that.

Nuts.

This weekend I will work on making a forge from a fire brick so I can heat treat the blade.

First I will have to anneal it, then harden it and then temper it.

I really didn't want to have to go to all this work.

If you are interested in making your own knife I highly recommend two books by Wayne Goddard. Click here for those books and this article by Wayne Goddard.

Stay tuned, I will post more photos of this as I can. I hope I can get the brick forge to work!