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Edge guitar services

Eltham Jones, guitar repair and technical services :Bristol : Cardiff : Bridgend : Tel. 07971 240296

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My first guitar

I built my first Flamenco guitar in 1976. It wasn't very good. It did have some innovative features though, such as a double drilled tie block. This overcomes the problem of the string tie lifting the string behind the saddle and causing a buzz at low flamenco action heights. The follow up to this was even worse; I experimented with a "compensated" fingerboard based on a scaling factor slightly different to the standard one of 12√2. It took me a while to accept that this didn't work and was a really bad idea. I was always quite pleased with the shape of the heel though; the lines always flowed whatever angle you looked at it from. When I first strung it up it sounded like it was stuffed with cotton wool so I used it as a varnish

test bed. Then when I gave up guitar making in 1980-ish I hung it on the wall and didn't touch it for three years. At some point one of the back bars sprung and I've never fixed it. In 1983 I found myself in posession of a set of nylon strings and thought I'd treat it to a new set. Out came this beautiful Flamenco tone. I still think it's a piece of shit but others obviously don't agree as i've been offered 500 quid for it. It isn't for sale but I have loaned it to people. My friend Frank had it for almost five years and I had a hell of a job getting it back. One recording artist client (whose name I won't mention) liked it enough to borrow it for use on one of his albums, so it's found its place in history. Go figure...

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