What's a good flamenco plan for a newbie?

[Matthew Lau]

I'm interested in learning flamenco guitar this year.

What plans do you recommend for building my first flamenco guitar?
Also, why?

-Matthew

[Waddy Thomson]

The Barbero plan at GAL is one that I see recommended most often. I have not built one, but know some builders who swear by it.

[Matthew Lau]

I forgot to mention that FWIW, I have the Blackshear/Reyes plans.

[Waddy Thomson]

Nothing wrong with that one, unless you think there is some challenge there that you don't feel comfortable with.

[Jacob Porter]

I've been using the santos Hernandez plans and have liked them. He was the precursor to Barbero and Reyes. Though Barbero is probably the closer sound to the Hernandez. All are great. Blackshear is still around and could likely answer questions if you have them.

Edit: forgot to add that I'm a newbie too.

[Wayne Brown]

I had heard that The Santos Hernandez plan was a good plan for beginners. I'm in the process of building my first flamenco (not my first guitar). The plans by Roy Courtnall, are well drawn. But, Barbero and Reyes are great guitars also. Go with whichever plan you would comfortable with.

[Peter Tsiorba]

Santos Hernandez plan is straight-forward, and a great place to start. That would be my vote, for the 1st guitar.

[Matthew Lau]

Thanks for all the input.

I guess that I'm over-complicating things as usual.
I should really make a resolution not to post until I've built more stuff and posted something of value.

I have the Reyes/Blacksheer plan.
However, if the Santos Hernandez plan is that great--I may just get it and build it.

Is it that much superior? Why? Should I just get off my duff and build the Reyes, or get the Santos?

[Michael Lewis]

Matthew, superior guitar will come from good execution of the design, good materials, and good luck! You are not going to get a Reyes or Hernandez, you will get a Lau! I know you will do a good job and I think you will be surprised with the final outcome.

By the way, an old flamenco instructor I used to know prized his Fleta over most other flamenco guitars. Does that mean you should get a Fleta plan and make a copy? No! It's just a personal preference of one person, much like the others. Just start somewhere so you have a point of reference. Eventually you will have your own preference based on your experience, not someone else's suggestion.

[Simon Magennis]

As Michael Lewis said, what you end up with will be a Lau guitar and nothing wrong with that. Unless you have some particular reason not to use the plan you have I would stick with that one. I haven't used it myelf.

The only HS plan I know of is the one in the Courtnall book which is in fact the main plan I have been using for classicals. His plans come in for some criticism because they may be somewhat generic (I can't judge as I don't have experience of the real thing). The GAL plans are very good but if you want to critize them it would be for the opposite reason - too much detail. In each case it depends on what you want and how much experience you have. At a certain point you reach a stage where you realise, you would like to know a bit more about detail "x" in one design or that a bunch of details in another design are amusing to know about but don't actually make any real difference. However, arguments about which plan is better or worse is really totally academic until you have made a bunch of instruments. A plan is in any case a snapshot of what the builder did on one particular instrument at a particular point in time with particular timber. Builders change their designs over time for any number of reasons.

If you haven't got it and a new builder then I would strongly recommended getting the Courtnall book - well worth the money even if you don't want to use his plans. It is often available used at close to half the original price. Spend the money on the book rather than more plans.

For what its worth, I choose the HS plan simply because it looked to be the easiest in the book and listening to sound samples on the Zaveletas web site, I figured that if I could eventually get a sound that was remotely like what the original HS sounded like, I would be doing pretty damn good.

[Matthew Lau]

Dear Simon and Michael,

Thank you for the constructive input.
I'll be probably driving to Luthiers Merchantile on Tuesday.
It may be worth my while to pick up some extra plans.

It probably won't be a pure Lau, as I'll have the counsel of Randy Angella.

-Matthew

[Michael Lewis]

Good luck with this project, Matthew. Time to get your hands 'dirty'.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Hi Matthew,
If you are working with Randy Angella , see if you can build to an Angella plan.
I played one of his guitars back in the late 70's - early 80's. It blew the socks off the Kohno's and Ramerez guitars I played that day. Mr Angella is certainly a fine guitar maker, and if you enjoy the advantage of his counsel, take it.

[Matthew Lau]

Just as an update, I brought guitar #2 (the drunken Spaniard) over.
While it was a mess, he was impressed that 4 days of angst would create a halfway decent guitar.
When I told him about my idea, he said something along the lines of "not here, kid."

We're first going to finish building an Angella style classical guitar.
I'll post pictures when I'm done.
It may be the first instrument that I'm proud enough to put my label on.

-Matt

ps. He's a great builder, but his instruments are criminally underpriced and undermarketed.
I played one of his new guitars the other day: a standard 9-fan, spruce and braz rosewood guitar.
It was freshly strung, and it blew away the best guitar at guitar solo (a 2003 Greg Byers lattice top).

[Matthew Lau]

I'll probably end up with the Courtnall book, the Santos Plan and the Barbero plan before long.

First, I have to get settled and finish some instruments that are on the way!