Featured Classical guitar

I found this on my travels today. The label inside says Ricardo Sanchis and it has a beautiful tone. Nice and mellow but with some bite when plucked for good expression. The neck seems true although action is slightly high further up the neck. Not sure if classical guitars have or need truss rods to correct this. The down side is the finish. It looks as if someone has sploshed it with varnish with gay abandon. It's even on the fret board which us breaking up from abrasion from the strings. I was tempted to try and clean it from the fret board as this is where it looks the worse. I've attempted to respray guitars myself historically and know that it's something best left to experts with the correct equipment. I've researched if nitromors is safe and it seems so. Still I'd like to try something less aggressive if possible.

 

Never realised it was banned. A tenant at work was using it around five years ago to strip furniture down to bare wood. He went through a shabby chic phase. I have now inherited a can from him as he was throwing it out. It's nasty stuff for sure and smells very potent. I know it stings when you get it on your skin and dread to know what it would feel like if you got a bit in your eye. Still, plenty of things are carcinogens in modern life. Even saw dust, leather and alcohol are.

 

Nice guitar!

 

Okay thanks for the heads up.

 

It is. It seems a bit odd and doesn't quite add up. It feels like someone has done some restoration project but I can't quite put my finger on it. The frets look a bit unfinished and the varnish around the nut, fret board and neck joint looks a bit messy. Maybe a new fret board has been fitted. Still, it plays and sounds good which is the main thing..

 

@all_fakes

 

Here in the US, While all the world knew of tobacco's dangers, our government was subsidizing the industry! Go figure!!

 

J & J's knowledge of asbestos in baby powder says it all. And this is the blurb from their website "We're building a world where complex diseases are prevented and cured, treatments are smarter and less invasive—and solutions are personal."

 

Yah...Shure!!

 

They shouldn't do. When I learned to play classical guitar I was told that a truss rod is a no no. If you don't play a classical guitar for a long time, you just loosen the strings.

 

I did a little research and the tension from nylon strings isn't enough to nessitate a truss rod. However some modern ones have carbon fibre truss rods. Presumably to get optimum action.

 

As said, traditionally classical guitars do not have truss rods. If the action is too high, unfortunately, a decent luthier would have to take the neck off and do some major work, and on all but high-end guitars that would cost more than the guitar was worth.
I'm not familiar with this maker, but it does not look to me to be a guitar that would be justify investing in a neck-job. Not that it is a bad guitar, just not in the range where most people would want to invest hundreds of dollars in reworking the neck joint.
( A good luthier could give you an opinion on quality of the guitar versus cost of the work).
I'd think it would be fine to do some work on the finish, but don't do any sanding on the body of the guitar, and only very lightly if at all on the fretboard.

 

Hello and thanks for the advice. I decided to take the plunge yesterday and try and smarten the fret board up because it looked terrible. I found the coating to slightly dissolve in alcohol so I think it is shellac. I think the whole guitar had been covered in it. The back and table are in reasonable condition but the side panels, neck and headstock are poor. I'm tempted to look at these in the future but nor sure yet. I won't be touching the table as I don't want to go anywhere near the work around the sound hole.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with the fret board finish. I stripped it with nitromors, wiped all the stuff off and then sanded it with p600 then p2000 when dry. I applied bees wax and furniture polish and it has come up good.

Oh and I found this info regarding Ricardo Sanchis guitars. Some higher end models go for crazy amounts but I think this is a lower end one. The label in it seems generic and there is no serial number on it.

"I believe it's a workshop guitar made under Ricardo Sanchis Carpio's supervision. Sanchis Carpio is primarily a flamenco builder who used to build for the Conde workshop (a number of '90s Condes were actually built by him).

Headstock crown matches Sanchis Carpio, but I believe he had two lines: his own luthier built ones with his full name; and then more inexpensive models with labels that have varied over the years ("Ricardo Sanchis" or "Sanchis Lopez"), which were built by his sons or other workers in the shop.

I'm not 100% an expert on this, but I can say that's legit though I think it's more of a "student" guitar. "

 

Excellent. My flamenco guitarist friend swore by Conde guitars.