Just when I thought that I was done with the guitars I decided to get involved in the Musical Instrument Maker's Forum $100 Acoustic Challenge. The idea is to build a playable instrument for less than $100 expense. I've decided to build an exploration of the Torres FE17 guitar-Francisco Taregga's first and most famous guitar.

Start date is Christmas 2009, completion is March 14 2010. Not only is cost an issue, but so is expediency!

Step one is to gather the material. Don't worry, I'm not using the saw for this stage! It is just a convenient table.

Ash body, Pine top. There is some evidence that Torres may have used Pine on some of his guitars, so that is good enough for me. The Pine that I have on hand is nice and it was cheap-I bought it right from the sawyer.

Here is the drawing for the plantialla (body shape), and bracing. The drawing was prepared by Luca Waldner who performed the restoration work on the original. The drawing is sitting on the plantilla that is prepared for the high 5mm dome that FE17 has.


I will be using some of the rosette material that I had made up some time ago.


I was going to make up a rosette like I used on the SE117s, but ended up making one that uses three of the herringbone lines rather than just the one.


Detail