We hang out with luthier Stephen Hill as he tells us everything you’d want to know about setting up a flamenco guitar. In addition to the basics, like how high the action should be at the 12th fret (and how luthiers actually achieve this), Stephen covers things most of us didn’t know were also important - like how to check if frets are even, crowning frets, cleaning the frets and fretboard, adjusting the nut and lots more. He even shows us ho to properly apply a golpeador. It’s not all stuff we can do at home without some tools and experience, but it’s stuff that’s super useful to know when you’re trying to figure out what work your guitar may need. It’s also useful to know if you’re in the market for a guitar, as you’ll have a much better understanding of what’s fixable on a guitar with less-than-ideal action.
Stephen Hill made me my first handmade guitar in 1989, and currently builds and teaches guitar building in La Herradura, in the South of Spain. If you’re interested in learning to make a guitar, you should definitely check out his European Institute of Guitar Making http://eigm.eu which holds month-long courses a couple of times a year. Tara just finished her guitar in September of 2021 and had a blast making her first guitar!