Flamenco Guitar after Marcelo Barbero, 1951, ex. Sabicas
This is a wonderful sounding guitar. I am working from a plan of a 1951 Marcelo Barbero (Madrid) drawn by Richard Brune.
He describes the sound sound as the quintessential 20th century flamenco guitar.
Mine sounds loud and even. The slurs are wonderful mostly because
of the very low action. The control of tone color is great:
you can make is rattle and shout or sing soft and sweet, depending on your attack. The playing action is wonderful and the guitar
is light as a feather, since it contains no metal except the frets. Cypress is light in both appearance and weight.
Although they are very much in the tradition of flamenco I would steer
you away from the tuning pegs: they make tuning more
difficult and take some getting used to. I recommend machines. The slotted headstock, to accommodate the machines would
be a bit wider than the peg head stock.
I can also build this guitar with a cutaway (given the right sides wood) and do traditional tuning pegs if you prefer those.
This one is made with bearclaw Sitka spruce top and Osage orange back and sides.
Basic specification of this guitar:
| Scale Length: | 660 mm |
| Frets clear of the Body: | 12 |
| Total Frets: | 19 |
| Width at Lower Bouts: | 14.375 |
| Width at Upper Bouts: | 11.125 |
| Body Depth at Tail: | 3.5 |
| Body Depth at Neck: | 3.375 |
| Overall Length: | 39.5 |