Construction styles
I build guitars in a traditional style. This means using traditional materials( namely wood!) and adopting a principle of combined lightness and strength in construction. I prefer the sound obtained when following these principles, finding an optimum for the sound quality without compromising the longevity of the guitar.
- I use basically three different styles of bracing for the top – fan bracing, X bracing, and Long bar bracing.
- Fan bracing is the traditional Spanish way, epitomised in the work of Antonio de Torres ( 1817 -1892 ). The number of struts in the fan can vary – I use 5, 6 or 7 depending on the model. The amount of doming of the top, likewise, varies.
- X-bracing. Most guitarists are familiar with this style of pattern as it has been much used in the production of steel string guitars. However, it was also used for classical guitars back in the 1840 s by D and A Roudhloff. It was after seeing a photograph of one of their guitars that I decided to experiment with the design myself. The Roudhloff brothers learned their craft from their father Francois Roudhloff in Mirecourt in the early 19th century before setting up their own business in London.
- Long bar bracing. I felt inspired to design this pattern after seeing a guitar by Etienne Laprevotte, which uses two longitudinal braces running almost the entire length of the soundboard and an elliptical soundhole, in contrast to the usual French designs using heavy transverse braces ( AKA ladder bracing ) to support the top. In utilising a greater area of the soundboard, its benefits are similar to those of X- bracing. Laprevotte, who originally came from Marseilles, made violins as well as guitars, although he was more famous for his guitars. He worked in Paris in the 1820s -1850s.
These three basic patterns are flexible and can be adapted to suit different shapes and sizes of guitar. For example, Model 08 can be both fan and X-braced, while Model 12 can be braced using any of these patterns. The Roudhloff Model 18 can be built with X bracing or a variant of the Long-bar design or the more commonly used ladder bracing. The remaining Hauser and Santos-Hernandez models, being copies, are always fan-braced. The choice depends on the type of sound and response desired by the player. The bulk of my work has employed fan-braced patterns, either my own asymmetric 6-fan pattern ( see photo below), or symmetrical 7 and 5 fan patterns, which follow closely the original historical guitars being copied.
