Paul Aguilera Luthier
FE17
This guitar was the first of three owned by Francisco Tárrega, the guitar was Torres's personal instrument made using the finest material he had available, birdseye maple and ebony with fine marquetry work throughout.
It is a small bodied instrument somewhere between the FE18 and the SE83.
The original was with a 7 fan strut top but I produce both 7 and 5 strut arrangements. There is a little confusion with the exact scale length of this instrument, Romanillos gives it at 645mm and Guitar Salon have it at 650mm. I use 644 as it seams to work both acoustically and aesthetically.
Despite its size this guitar has a rich sound, with plenty of bass end and a lovely sweet treble as well as lots of harmonics. The guitar is lightly built and that gives its distinctive 'Torres' sound.
The 5 fan strut arrangement gives you a slightly faster attack than the original 7 strut arrangement, both giving different qualities to the sound.
I can make this guitar in a range of woods for the back and sides as well as make exact copies including a tornavoz as in the original Torres guitar.
The guitar in the images is one made for a customer, I used Spruce for the top and Brazilian Rosewood for the back and sides. The binding and purfling have Jacaranda (Caroba)from the North of Argentina.
