Juan Estruch "Concierto Uno" plm. 1965 / Juan Estruch "Lady Guitar" / Taurus Guitars

This is a yellow label Concierto I from 1972 as the label 

states. It suffered from some humidity problems but 

luckily only concerning the lacquer. A lot of time

consuming work but the guitar is in a like new condition

 now. You can take a look here what has happened during

this process of restauration. SOLD

The multi coloured inlays are typical for the Concierto

series guitars, also on the back here. As the moisture came 

under the poly urethane lacquer which was original it

caused some nasty spots so removing the old lacquer

was a must.

New frets and shaving off the fingerboard towards the head

was a must as the angle neck / body wasn't good anymore.

Of course a new topnut and cleaning of the tuners. This 

neck / body angle issue can be found on a lot of older 

classical guitars, even Jose Ramirez concert guitars!

The head itself was in fact in a good condition.

And no damages on the edges of the back of the head as well.

Even the booklet is still present with this guitar: 

Guaranteed and signed by Juan Estruch himself.

The sides were ugly as well and the top collected dirt

in the cracks. These cracks were only in the thick layer

of lacquer so after having removed this layer I was

able to start all over again and colour the guitar with a 

water based stain and finish it afterwards.

Good Fustero tuners that belong on a guitar like this.

Removing the lacquer from the top is a simpler process

with the bridge off. It came off already so I figured it to

be the best to provide it with a 12 hole bridge.

Nice materials are used for these higher grade guitars.

Juan Estruch: Lady guitar (appr. 1920 / 1930)

With a scale of only 615 mm we can call it a "ladies guitar".

These smaller guitars were built by several companies and

can be found with different labels. More about that later.

Having worked on this guitar I presume it to be quite a bit

older, most likely around 1920 / 1930 when this Estruch 

label was used for the first time. A lot of workers from the

Salvador Ibanez company started for themselves but keep

building a bit in the Ibanez tradition. Therefore it remains

difficult where exactly these guitars were produced. I can

mention several names here though mostly from Valencia:

Jose Parres, Juan Ponce, Andres Marin and others, not

always workers for the Salvador Ibanez company. I have

3 guitars that in fact are a bit look-a-likes, very simple

in building structure but they all sound surprisingly well.

In fact these guitars are simply built in all aspects as you 

can see on the rosette around the soundhole here. No fan

bracing present in these ones, only the so called ladder 

bracing. Aș this sounbndboard needed to be sanded and

thus was "ending" thinner, I figured it the best to give it

a 3 piece fan bracing. To bring down the string height 

together with shaving off the fingerboard towards the 

head, I made a twelve hole bridge as can be seen here.

Some other changes have been added, sometimes for

constructional reasons. For example, the center inlay

wasn't there but when you remove a back, the plantilla

of a guitar changes and besides that it is an opportunity 

to built in a neck reset. The upper and lower bout then

are widening a bit so you are in need of some extra

back material or a new back but the wood of this back 

is so specially figured I've kept that of course.

Besides sanding the whole guitar and do some regluing

of the several parts, I've tried to make the neck as clean

as possible but several paint traces simply were too deep.

Then it is better to repaint the neck as a whole. The rest

of this guitar has been French polished.

The front of the head has been sanded as well a bit but

polishing it further did the job. Cleaning the tuners was

a next step as was making a new knob. A bit strange on

this guitar are the individual machine heads that are 

marked as well. In fact they were a bit sloppy mounted

as you ca see on the uneven holes for the metal rollers

left and right. They still work very smoothly.

Of course new frets and a new topnut as well. The 

fingerboard has been stained to a dark brown colour.

I always use Clou powder to make these stains on

a water base and I add a bit of grey to get that

old look these guitars need to be equipped with.

Resoldering the axe holder for the G string was needed

and I was simply surprised by the material of the other 

knobs that still are like new though the holes in the

head of this guitar are proving that these tuners were

there from the beginning.

Slightly bowed here and there but being that old

it is better not to try to remodel that as the axe

holders were already vulnerable.

Taurus Guitars:

 

This guitar is not a part of my collection but feel free to

inform around its' price because it it for sale. I will forward 

you directly to the owner. The Taurus guitars are well 

known but their origin is quite "foggy " so to say. Taurus 

was a distributor but possibly built guitars themselves. 

They even exported their products internationally and 

they resided in Barcelona. One thing is always directly 

recognizable and that is the golden Taurus logo inside

on one of the transverse bars directly next to the sound

hole. As several luthiers were responsible for the supply 

of guitars and maybe other stringed instruments it is 

possible that the "Taurus bar" is there but no additional 

label has been sticked.

This guitar came to me for repair and I'm always curious to 

find out more around these "distributors" in Spain. The bridge-

bone was already that low that the strings hardly made an angle 

over it. Therefore the bridge has been lowered and I've deepened

the sleeve for the bridgebone. The bridge was quite high so that 

was no problem at all. As an extra I provided this guitar with 

a twelve hole string tie block.

The twelve hole string tie block always works in these

situations so why not add it as a useful "tool".

   

This can't be a coincidence: Exactly the same rosette!

On the left a picture taken from a 1965 Manuel Condal guitar.

On the right a picture from this "no label" guitar.

One of the remarkable additions on these guitars is the

multi coloured edge inlay the way they were doing that 

at the Juan Estruch company, also situated in Barcelona. 

It is one of the oldest guitar making factory and a some 

of the builders for Taurus learned their craft there.

When the strings are off it is easier to do some extra

work to a guitar. The lower frets were heavily used

and therefore 3 new frets have been installed and 

together with that the fret ends have been filed as

they were protruding from the neck edges.

To narrow the search it is always advisable to compare head 

forms. As Ignacio Fleta was the most famous builder from 

Barcelona, a lot of luthiers copied his headform. It is proof

at the same time that your Taurus marked guitar has been

built in Barcelona as well as Valencia was another source 

for ordering the cheaper student guitars.

Apart from the superior internal construction details such as 

individual glue blocks on back an soundboard and the side 

reinforcements, these tuners are superior ones, and possibly 

from the Fustero company but I have to find out yet.

A beautiful back that reminds me of the Madagascar used 

rosewood on a premium Amalio Burguet AB I have in my

collection. This could as well be the case here.

By clicking on this picture you can study the wood and 

its' particular grain. No cracks on this guitar but two spots

on the neck that in fact could be cured as it is a concert

worthy instrument. Besides Antonio Picado, others were

building guitars for Taurus such as Antigua Casa Gol,

Manuel Condal,  José Grau and José Farré. 

Who actually made this guitar will make its' price in the 

end. Watch the inlay on the string tie block to narrow 

these possibilities! My guess would be Manuel Condal. 

As together with the string tie block inlay, the edge inlay 

around the soundboard is in the Estruch tradition and

is present on this guitar as well. Antonio Picado has a 

workforce of around 20 workers just outside Barcelona. 

He is building guitars for Otto Vowinkel among others.

As Manuel Condal is the luthier possibly responsible for

this guitar, I've included a label here. A lot of the guitars

constructed by the names I mentioned here can be found

for sale on the Reverb site. Often there is some extra

information provided around these people in the 

description of the instruments. And his rosettes seems

to be immediately recognizable.: We can confirm this

instrument has been built by Manuel Condal.

A respected luthier in his own but most likely not the 

luthier of the guitar presented here.