When the sides have been bowed to the right shape in their respective moulds, it's time to start putting together the pieces. The sides are joined with the neck, the back is closed off, the soundboard is put in position and the parts are all joined in a mould. It's crucial at this stage that everything's perfectly aligned, because if the measurements don't fit together just right, the pieces shift and the guitar's equilibrium is unbalanced. Once everything's perfectly in place, thin malleable strips are used to cramp everything in place, until the natural adhesives used to fix the pieces together has dried. The sides of the guitar, normally made from laminated wood, are previously bowed or are moulded in a special machine, where a red-hot iron plate subjects the wood to extremely high temperatures for a few minutes. The process is delicate because some of the wood is very brittle, like the cypress; some wood even has to be dampened, above all the Indian lignum vitae, to stop it splintering. In some cases the sides are bowed by hand, but this is an exception.

The fabrication of the soundboard holds much of the secret to how the future instrument sounds. The internal fan bracing of the flamenco guitar is positioned parallel to the guitar's axis, with less spacing than a classical guitar in between its fanned layout, following the nineteenth century tradition of Antonio de Torres, from Almería. In the flamenco guitar this usually consists of seven struts, reinforced on the underside. The sloping of the struts, on which the deep and high notes depend, can vary according to how the musician works.

The soundboard is put together entirely by hand, including the preparation of these wooden struts, which should be perfectly smooth and straight, as the sound must find as few obstacles as possible as it enters and leaves. A craftsman at the workshop compares the soundboard with the strings stretched over it to the hide stretched over a drum. And the more criss-crossed wood, the lower the volume of the guitar. The belly of a flamenco guitar has a narrow waist, giving it the characteristic high-pitched sound, and good volume, obtained by crossing the fan-bracing parallel to the grain of the wood. This element, although originally used as a strengthening measure, gives an overall balance to the guitar.

The frame should all be in place before work is started on veneering the soundboard and back. This is a delicate task because some types of wood are prone to splintering. Then it's time to sand everything down ready to inlay the decoration: the purfling is prepared and put in place by hand and left to dry. Once that's done, work starts on preparing the fingerboard, always made from charcoal ebony, a wood imported from Africa and which, due to governmental restrictions in the countries of origin, is always pre-cut. These pieces are sorted into various grades, depending on the age of the wood, and the drying process once it arrives at the workshop can take up to forty days. Giving the neck its exact shape, sanding down the overlaps, giving the sound hole its rounded shape, making the fret grooves, cutting the frets themselves, mounting them with a hammer and levelling them with an aluminium tool are some of the tasks of this phase.

Before moving on to the varnishing, the bridge has to be put in place, a piece normally made from lignum vitae from India or Rio, which holds the strings at their correct height. The piece is bought in from a supplier and is finished according to the model, but always includes a piece of methacrylate, and to match it, purfling with black, white and lignum vitae strips. All the finishes have to be sanded down by hand, using different grades of sandpaper, and the neck has to be given its distinctive curvature.

A sealed room is the venue for the varnishing phase, where groups of four work on each model. The assembled guitar has previously received a coat of primer, the thickness of which depends on the porosity of the wood. Once dry, it's sanded again to leave an optimum layer and the varnish is applied, with or without stain. The guitar will stay in the same room, sealed off from even the tiniest speck of dust, for around a week; more in winter due to the lower temperature. One precaution has to be taken: the ebony of the fingerboard is masked, as varnish mustn't be allowed to come into contact with it.

Once the guitar comes out from this necessary period of confinement, it's time to mount the strings and the bridge bone, the height of which makes it play. On a flamenco guitar the cordage is closer and is adjusted to a standard measurement - for a flamenco guitar the 6/60 scale. All that remains to be done are finishing touches like the peg-box, the tailpiece, the bridge saddle... not forgetting the elaborate quality control process all instruments have to pass through before they leave the workshop.

Thirty working days have passed, maybe two months of work if we're dealing with a special order... and the guitar's ready to be tuned. And in the hands of the guitarist it'll live on, remembering the tree it once was and which gave it its personality - for in the same way that no two trees are alike, no two guitars are alike... less still from the moment it starts to sing its high falseta notes, oozing that true 'jondo' flamenco sound.

Translation: Gary Cook

revista@flamenco-world.com