Serial Number 016

Fretless Classical

Started on September 21, 2023: completed on October 10, 2023

*edited on October 10, 2023

S/N 016 is the first classical guitar of Generation 2. As of right now, S/N 001 is the only one I have sitting around besides the Proto guitar. I figured it would be good to have a new classical guitar to compare to the older one. I have made a few classical guitars for customers so there isn’t anything here for inventory.

I know I can rework S/N 001 more if I wanted to but it would be good to see the improvement in my work between the two guitars. Maybe I will rework it again some time down the road.

S/N 016 is the first guitar I will be trying Red Spruce. I have mainly stayed with Sitka Spruce because of its versatility for the different playing styles. As always, with trying out different woods, I can learn the nuances with working with the different woods and there are different tonal qualities to each wood. So the more I try out and use to build, the more there are for customers to try out for themselves.

The back and sides set is Chechen Caribbean Rosewood: a newer set of Rosewood that I have brought in recently. The sides have a marbled kind of look to them which isn’t on the back boards.

Two new things I am trying on this guitar is 1) sealing the wood on the inside of the guitar – only back and sides on this guitar and 2) doing a fretless fingerboard. I was considering going fretless on S/N 015 but thought it made more sense to give a classical guitar a fretless fingerboard. I guess the idea is coming from the violin family of stringed instruments. It would seem more “natural” that a classical guitar is fretless – to me, at least. I did scallop the braces as well to have that “upgrade” from the G1 guitar.

With the head stock thickness being about 3/4 inch, there would have been a lot of risks to try to route the logo all the way through. It would require for the logo to be routed out on both sides as the bit is only 1/2 inch long. A two sided logo route has been tried before and the wood just explodes in the middle because there is little material holding that area together. I will have to think of something other way to route the logos with the classical guitars.

As for this head stock, the logo was routed only a 1/4 inch deep. It is also a little smaller than the “normal” 1 inch size because of concerns of how much space we had to work with. I turned out well, I’m not sure if going the full 1 inch would have been visually better.

I went with Ebony for the fingerboard and bridge: I didn’t really feel like going with anything else would have made sense. Spanish Cedar was used for the neck. A stronger wood like Mahogany is not necessarily needed for a classical guitar as the string tension is less.

I decided to make the bridge with shorter “wings” on each side – just to change it up. I also implemented something I read in one of the Guild of American Luthiers issues: an extra set of holes to make the tying of the strings easier. My concern is the strength of the block with the extra holes but I guess time will tell.

I think if I do another one of these guitars in the future, I will use Ebony for the back and sides set.

SPECS

Body Classical Ramirez

Scale 660mm

Top Red Spruce

Back Chechen Caribbean Rosewood

Sides Chechen Caribbean Rosewood

Neck Spanish Cedar

Fingerboard Ebony

Bridge Ebony

Tuning Machines Gotoh G350N

Strings D’Addario Classic