Flamenco Guitar

´The Bishop´ - 2006 - Cypress, Spruce, Purpleheart

In designing this guitar, I have tried to capture as best I can, the essence, tradition and flavour of  Flamenco. I  have used fragrant Spanish cypress wood for the back and sides, cedar for the neck and spruce for the soundboard. The fingerboard and bridge are rosewood. The bindings and rosette are all made from purple heart wood which gives an unusual contrast to the light spruce, cypress and quilted maple of the head. This colour scheme, along with the carved head shape is why I call this guitar, ´The Bishop`.   

In keeping with tradition, I have used wooden (ebony) tuning pegs instead of mechanical tuners. Whether this is, in fact tradition or whether wooden pegs were simply used on cheaper ´folk´ instruments in the past is another question. Nevertheless, I believe the wooden pegs give the guitar an excellent ´woody´ tone and are probably more tonally effective than mechanical heads, being in complete contact with the head and being made of wood. 

The soundboard is thinner at the centre around the bridge than at the edges, compared to my classical guitars which are usually thicker at the centre. This gives a more percussive sound and feel, almost as if the soundboard was a taught skin of a drum. The action is very low all along the fretboard and the neck is unvarnished and oiled, making playing almost effortless at any speed!

12 hole ebony faced tie-block, rosewood bridge, bone saddle.