Thank Boaz for your clear explanation, I did build my own Flamenco but the neck angle was off resulting in a high bridge. I corrected it with your third mentioned method (no other method possible anymore) by taking out the fret wire and reshape the fingerboard in the correct angle and the bridge hight is now 9 mm! great! Thank you again. Will use your mold tip on my next one!
hi. i want to ask a question. i want to make a flamenco guitar, i am buying some materials and i will be done soon. i didnt understand the angle feature perfectly. because when you lower the headstock side, the strings will give you a buzzy sound when you try to lower the bridge. but when you raise the headstock part, the strings will go up so it means you can lower the action at the bridge side. can you explain it clearly please?
I understand from another TH-cam video for a classical guitar the "tabla" just where the neck sits (when assembling the guitar face down) slopes down by 3mm. Hence when the guitar is on its back the neck slopes up by 3mm.
When using the board you can create any height for the bridge! All you need to do is put a spacer where the bridge is located! If the space will be 10 mm! Then your bridge height would be 10 mm It’s that simple! You got confused because I say 100 mm! Instead i should say 0.100 Which is 10 mm ( it is also 1 cm) Boaz
What is see here there is a negative neck angle built in the assembly board. I can't immagine how that would work out to geht the height of the bridge at 7 or 8mm. From what i know most flamenco guitars have a positive neck angle.
I have always seen and made soleras with a positive neck angle. Every luthier I have made a solera or work board for, they choose a positive neck angle.
@@circaSG07 so.... whats positive and whats negative... the neck leans backwords a few degrees. When strings are on tension it pulls the bridge slightly up. And the neck tilts forwards. This is not so much a problem for classical with 3 to 4 mm action. And as he states it is hard to get right. You need to put strings on and hope you got it exectly right.
Hi I am building my second flamenco guitar, made a tabla with an angle for the neck. Off course the neck is straight. To make the flat fit with the soundboard, should I shave the same angle in the wood block of the neck were I glue the soundboard on.? And how to correct this angle for the fretboard before gluing on the other side of the soundboard.
Over the years the saddle of my José Bellido 1980 Flamenco has had several sandings to maintain low action. But this can only be done so many times. So today I shawed 1,5 mm of the bridge and will stem out the trench for the saddle to go lower yet another 1 mm. Why this is nessesary I never understood? I´ve been told this critical aging problem i common with flamenco-guitars. So if only builders would give a little more room for ajustment. Almost wish I had bought a regular - almost - bridge-sanding has become part of the flamenco experience:)
I am an amateur in this field but i think Getting the action lower by shaving the bridge increases tention on the neck further. Last resort seems to me the third option given. to shave the fingerboard and refret.
The only thing Boaz did not explain was that for both classical and flamenco neck angles there is a grey area of angle that must be met to achieve both best action and tone. Too much angle will require a much thicker bridge, bad for tone, and top leverage will pull the guitar apart in time. A thinner bridge will require a rather tall saddle, great for tone, but will also most likely break due to too much tension. Repaired a Conde Hermanos for a old client not too long ago. Strings too high to be a proper flamenco action and not enough saddle to correct it, less than 1mm. The first thing I did was heat press the neck to remove any neck bow. This is a very old repair procedure where the fingerboard gets heated and clamped into a slight back bow until set. You'll get a little up bow back when under string tension. This proved to work as I had to make a new saddle to bring the action back up to proper level. Now the action was perfect but the saddle still too low for proper break angle, 2mm. I like to see at least 3mm of saddle to get the string break angle correct. So the next step was to convert the bridge to a 12 hole. Without looping a string under itself behind the saddle and allowing it to leave the tie block and go directly to the saddle you get a tad more break angle. Some players use string beads to do the same thing. If this had not worked the next step would be to remove the frets and plane the board to a new angle. This works quite well, I've done it many times, but there is a trade off. This will thin the neck a bit and a lot of the strength in the neck is in the ebony fingerboard not the cedar. Cedar is light and strong for it's weight but not without help. Cedar is used because it helps balance the guitar. Maple would make a rock solid neck but the guitar would be terribly neck heavy.
I'm not understanding how the neck can be anything other than flat with the upper bout since the fingerboard is. I have always thought the slight decline in the lower bout, below the sound hole, exists to allow the strings to be tightened without causing the fretboard to bow up over time. Otherwise, why not adjust this all with the nut and saddle? (I am a novice & asking this seriously.)
I loved the instruction in this video! Todah rabah. A follow-up question: Does the underside of the portion of the fretboard which rests on the soundboard (frets 12-19) need to be shaped into a wedge to compensate for the neck angle, in order to maintain uniform contact with the soundboard?
I understood the question on the construction between the neck and the peghead. Not the angle of the neck to body.....At my guitars that i build it is about 17°.
He doesn't know the actual angle, because its a Spanish heal, not a dovetail where you have to cut the angle in. He could measure the angel on his solera, to know the exact degrees for both styles. As he said, he guessed at what the angle would be on his first builds and adjusted the wedges he placed on his solera with neck extension to get the measurement he wanted in front of the bridge. It would be very nice if he could actually measure the angle on the solera. Not every classical guitar has a Spanish heal. Your question should have been more specific about the Actual angle, it exist in his Solera.
Let me get this straight: "if the bridge is low, you lower it, if the bridge is high you higher it". Personally I suspect this is backwards and I'm leaving this comment for my own future reference. Maybe the plywood neck portion of his solera is warped so it has to be compensated.
He's nuts. The neck angle is the same on both types, the lower string height/action that's required by the flamenco style is simply achieved with a thinner bridge, not by angling the neck back....
Watch more guitar builds. Yes the bridge is actually lower very true. Neck angle is not the same. 2 or 3 defrees difference is hard to spot. With strings on you wont notice at all.
Thank Boaz for your clear explanation, I did build my own Flamenco but the neck angle was off resulting in a high bridge. I corrected it with your third mentioned method (no other method possible anymore) by taking out the fret wire and reshape the fingerboard in the correct angle and the bridge hight is now 9 mm! great! Thank you again. Will use your mold tip on my next one!
hi. i want to ask a question. i want to make a flamenco guitar, i am buying some materials and i will be done soon. i didnt understand the angle feature perfectly. because when you lower the headstock side, the strings will give you a buzzy sound when you try to lower the bridge. but when you raise the headstock part, the strings will go up so it means you can lower the action at the bridge side. can you explain it clearly please?
Excellent thank you
Best 15mins of my life. Tx for this.
Thank you for your explanation. Very thorough and to the point.
Fantastic I've been wanting to know this for a long time thanks
I understand from another TH-cam video for a classical guitar the "tabla" just where the neck sits (when assembling the guitar face down) slopes down by 3mm.
Hence when the guitar is on its back the neck slopes up by 3mm.
Excellent description! Thanks. Is a tabla the same as Solera?
Great information but confused about how “the board” works (9:14) , ie 100 mm for classical and 50-100 mm for flamenco. Can anyone explain please?
When using the board you can create any height for the bridge!
All you need to do is put a spacer where the bridge is located!
If the space will be 10 mm! Then your bridge height would be 10 mm
It’s that simple!
You got confused because I say 100 mm! Instead i should say 0.100
Which is 10 mm ( it is also 1 cm)
Boaz
Boaz Elkayam
Thank you for your reply Boaz. That makes things clear, I thought I had missed something. Best Wishes, Pat
@@boazelkayam5671 thanks!
What is see here there is a negative neck angle built in the assembly board. I can't immagine how that would work out to geht the height of the bridge at 7 or 8mm. From what i know most flamenco guitars have a positive neck angle.
I have always seen and made soleras with a positive neck angle. Every luthier I have made a solera or work board for, they choose a positive neck angle.
@@circaSG07 so.... whats positive and whats negative... the neck leans backwords a few degrees. When strings are on tension it pulls the bridge slightly up. And the neck tilts forwards. This is not so much a problem for classical with 3 to 4 mm action. And as he states it is hard to get right. You need to put strings on and hope you got it exectly right.
Hi I am building my second flamenco guitar, made a tabla with an angle for the neck. Off course the neck is straight. To make the flat fit with the soundboard, should I shave the same angle in the wood block of the neck were I glue the soundboard on.? And how to correct this angle for the fretboard before gluing on the other side of the soundboard.
Over the years the saddle of my José Bellido 1980 Flamenco has had several sandings to maintain low action. But this can only be done so many times. So today I shawed 1,5 mm of the bridge and will stem out the trench for the saddle to go lower yet another 1 mm. Why this is nessesary I never understood? I´ve been told this critical aging problem i common with flamenco-guitars. So if only builders would give a little more room for ajustment. Almost wish I had bought a regular - almost - bridge-sanding has become part of the flamenco experience:)
I am an amateur in this field but i think Getting the action lower by shaving the bridge increases tention on the neck further. Last resort seems to me the third option given. to shave the fingerboard and refret.
@@humbuccaneer84 Not gonna happen - lowering the saddle has proved to work out fine, at least for now:)
Fit a truss rod. Use that to bend the neck into shape.
The only thing Boaz did not explain was that for both classical and flamenco neck angles there is a grey area of angle that must be met to achieve both best action and tone. Too much angle will require a much thicker bridge, bad for tone, and top leverage will pull the guitar apart in time. A thinner bridge will require a rather tall saddle, great for tone, but will also most likely break due to too much tension. Repaired a Conde Hermanos for a old client not too long ago. Strings too high to be a proper flamenco action and not enough saddle to correct it, less than 1mm. The first thing I did was heat press the neck to remove any neck bow. This is a very old repair procedure where the fingerboard gets heated and clamped into a slight back bow until set. You'll get a little up bow back when under string tension. This proved to work as I had to make a new saddle to bring the action back up to proper level. Now the action was perfect but the saddle still too low for proper break angle, 2mm. I like to see at least 3mm of saddle to get the string break angle correct. So the next step was to convert the bridge to a 12 hole. Without looping a string under itself behind the saddle and allowing it to leave the tie block and go directly to the saddle you get a tad more break angle. Some players use string beads to do the same thing. If this had not worked the next step would be to remove the frets and plane the board to a new angle. This works quite well, I've done it many times, but there is a trade off. This will thin the neck a bit and a lot of the strength in the neck is in the ebony fingerboard not the cedar. Cedar is light and strong for it's weight but not without help. Cedar is used because it helps balance the guitar. Maple would make a rock solid neck but the guitar would be terribly neck heavy.
I'm not understanding how the neck can be anything other than flat with the upper bout since the fingerboard is. I have always thought the slight decline in the lower bout, below the sound hole, exists to allow the strings to be tightened without causing the fretboard to bow up over time. Otherwise, why not adjust this all with the nut and saddle? (I am a novice & asking this seriously.)
I loved the instruction in this video! Todah rabah.
A follow-up question: Does the underside of the portion of the fretboard which rests on the soundboard (frets 12-19) need to be shaped into a wedge to compensate for the neck angle, in order to maintain uniform contact with the soundboard?
I understood the question on the construction between the neck and the peghead. Not the angle of the neck to body.....At my guitars that i build it is about 17°.
David Schramm has an excellent TH-cam video on how to set a neck angle. There are a number of different ways to do this.
He doesn't know the actual angle, because its a Spanish heal, not a dovetail where you have to cut the angle in. He could measure the angel on his solera, to know the exact degrees for both styles. As he said, he guessed at what the angle would be on his first builds and adjusted the wedges he placed on his solera with neck extension to get the measurement he wanted in front of the bridge. It would be very nice if he could actually measure the angle on the solera. Not every classical guitar has a Spanish heal. Your question should have been more specific about the Actual angle, it exist in his Solera.
Why would you make a guitar with a neck angle?
Let me get this straight: "if the bridge is low, you lower it, if the bridge is high you higher it". Personally I suspect this is backwards and I'm leaving this comment for my own future reference. Maybe the plywood neck portion of his solera is warped so it has to be compensated.
He's nuts. The neck angle is the same on both types, the lower string height/action that's required by the flamenco style is simply achieved with a thinner bridge, not by angling the neck back....
Watch more guitar builds. Yes the bridge is actually lower very true. Neck angle is not the same. 2 or 3 defrees difference is hard to spot. With strings on you wont notice at all.
that tabla part makes 0 sense to me. way to primitive
Maybe your brain is too primitive to understand !