April 19th 2021

I am not totally sure I know what a Flamenco Negra is. I luckily got my hands on a couple and was disabused of the notion that the Flamenco players were just jealous of the Classical guitar players, and the they were more like classical guitars. The best one I heard while having rosewood back and sides was very light relative to a classical. The top resonance was down a bit from a classical and the back resonance was much closer to the top's resonance. With that in mind I will voice the top like I have been voicing my blancas but have a very thin Honduran Rosewood back. Right around 2 mm. The negras often have slot head tuners so I will make a spanish cedar slot head neck.

I just started today. I was really happy with the Carpathian Spruce I bought a few years back from the stash of a seattle classical builder. It has Adi like stiffness with Engelmann density. It tap would ring loud for a full 5 seconds. I almost put it away to save for a classical but in the end I decided to use it. The Honduran Rosewood has a glass like tap. It is rather dense compared to Brazilian or East Indian but it is quit a bit stiffer. I might go a bit below 2 mm thickness. It is amazing that my plate tested to almost exactly to the values in the wood database.







After tap testing the plates I jointed both of the plates













While the plates were curing I worked on the neck as well. I used a 15° angle for the scarf joint. I do this so often I finally built a jig that makes this quick and clean.







I use a plane to clean the gluing face.



No fancy glue up jig, I just do it on the bench





I used a plane to clean up the face of the headstock I draw a line to help stay even when I plane.



I draw out the rough head stock and the neck thickness including the taper of the neck. I make sure that the profile allows me to put the scarf joint glue line just under the head stock angle break. I mostly plane the headstock face and the fretboard side of the neck. Planing the headstock or the fretboard face moves the break angle up and down the neck. I prioritize getting the scarf glue joint positioned. If necessary I will thin the neck and headstock a bit from the back side. In this case it all worked out.



I draw a line where I want the break angle, also in this case it leaves the head stock at the thickness I want now. I also draw the thickness line all around the head stock so I can watch it while I plane.









I finished by starting the stack for the heel.

April 20th 2021

Another day working on the neck. I did get it to the point that I can move forward with the rest of the build. With a Spanish heel the neck has to be roughed out early as it is part of the rims. The more done at this time the better. I will rough out the classical heel tomorrow.

The night before I glued the heel stack to the neck so I was ready to go with the neck blank in the morning.





I used my handy heel slot jig to cut out the slots on my table saw. I have it down where a put a brad right above the 12 fret and in the center of the neck as a index for the jig. The fence is square so to use the jig I set the blade height set at a 3° angle. I cut with the fretboard face on one side of the fence and then the other.







With the slots cut I drew out the heel slipper and the heel profile and cut it out on the bandsaw. I cleaned up bottom of





Note the alternating grain direction of the heel stack (the mark of a true craftsman (or so I'm told)



I marked out and used a combination of my fancy plane and/or a chisel and banged out the slipper profile. Note the backer board on the fret board face on the cut line to stop chip out.











I laid out the the fretboard taper and the head stock shape and roughed out the neck.







I really should of had put on the head stock veneer but not too late.

I put a 15° angle on a BRW headstock blank. Clamped a parallel right on the veneer/nut line and used it as a reference for the veneer.





I glued on the veneer and finalized the thickness (20 mm) of the head stock with my safeT plane.



I got to use my new version of the Luthier tool company slot head jig