Modifying body size for a shorter scale classical guitar

[Stanley Wolf]

Unfortunately, I have short stubby fingers. So, I want to build myself a 630mm scale classical guitar. All my previous guitars and molds (4) have been built based on plans for a 1967 Ramirez with 650mm scale length. Should I change the body dimensions (38cm lower bout, 29cm upper bout, 24cm waist, 9.7cm depth at waist) or just move the sound hole and bridge positions?

[Alain Bieber]

Stanley,
I had exactly the same problem some years ago. Without changing my outside mold, I could reduce the body dimensions to what I needed just using two sheets (ribs like) of flexible cardboard or plastic on which I had glued each 3cm a vertical stripe of wood. They were sort of ugly but it represented a very little work. You can , If you want, easily play with the thickness of each wood stripe to replicate precisely the desired shape of you reduced guitar.
The Ramirez III instruments of that period were very big, I think a reduced box would be more handsome. It would work but.. for me the look is in the proportions. I am becoming more and more admirative of what some Madrid luthiers did before WW I with boxes around 34/35 cm width. Sometimes, they called them Senoritas, which I think was not brilliant marketing in a macho town.
Bigger boxes are much often more difficult to bring to real quality than such small ones. My feeling. Or "my two cents" as you say. <g>

[Stanley Wolf]

Alain, Thanks for the input. What do you think about changing the depth of the box?

[Alain Bieber]

If you take a reference plan for a guitar of moderate size, such as some Torres or Manuel Ramirez that are available at GAL, you will feel better with the proportions for a 630 mm string length. You will likely find and consider OK a small reduction of the depth compared with the big Ramirez III of the sixties you have. Reducing the average depth from the near 100 mm you quote to a more adapted 92/ 95 mm,would, I think, be natural adaptation both for the sound and the look of the guitar. If your outside mold becomes an obstacle to this limited reduction, you can keep the depth of your Ramirez III without going against any absolute "law of lutherie".
Following a very good historical plan is a pretty good basic idea in all kind of lutherie.

[Brad Heinzen]

I'd go with a smaller plantilla, and just rearrange the top bracing. I've done this with the smaller S-H body shapes, and it worked out really well. I don't think I'd go all the way down to 630, though, and I wouldn't let the body get much shallower. Another way to go is to build a nice Early Romantic. If you do just shrink things sort of arbitrarily, you run the risk of building a smaller guitar that has odd weaknesses, and lacks a distinctive voice.

[Matthew Lau]

Thanks!