Santa Cruz FS

una chitarra progettata da un team di liutai tra i quali Jeff Traugott
(che a quel tempo 1987 era in forza alla SCGC: la paletta e lo shape sono ancora un tratto inconfondibile della sua produzione). Una chitarra pensata per il fingerstyle, FS, appunto. l'ho provata ieri e ci ho lasciato il cuore.



David Grisman in un'intervista sul Fretboard Journal ne racconta la storia (sorry for the english..):

By 1987, Hoover and Ross hired two new employees to help them catch up with the backlog of orders. The first to sign on was a sheet-metal worker named Michael Hornick, followed a few months later by Jeff Traugott. Both men were clear that they wanted to work at SCGC so they could learn to build guitars and eventually move out on their own. “I remembered how Bruce McGuire and Jim Patterson had helped me get started,” Hoover says. “I thought I should continue that tradition, so I hired Michael and Jeff.”

“When I started building in the early 1970s, there was almost no information on steel-string guitar making. But there were lots of builders across the country in a similar situation, and we started to network and share information. Bob Taylor down in San Diego, Jean Larrivee in Canada, Michael Gurian in New York – all were generous with their knowledge, and I think that’s why we all progressed so rapidly. When one of us found a new tool or technique we let everyone else know, which helped elevate the level of work from all the builders and helped give all of us more credibility in the marketplace.”

Hornick and Traugott quickly proved their worth when they helped design a new model called the FS. It was introduced in late 1987 and was a variation of the F, designed specifically for playing fingerstyle. The new model featured a lightly braced cedar top, Indian rosewood sides and back and a very austere appearance, which set it apart from just about every other acoustic guitar on the market at the time.

“The Tony Rice sort of happened to us, as it were, but the FS was our first attempt to come up with a guitar designed for a specific style from the ground up,” Hoover says. “The FS was also the first guitar we designed collectively. We all got together and talked about the modern fingerstyle playing that was going on at the time and we brainstormed on what we thought the market would want. We thought the F body shape was a perfect place to start, and since New Age guitar was so popular, we tried to minimize the amount of metal and plastic on the instrument to give it a more organic feel.”

The FS had rosewood binding with cobalt blue purfling, no fretboard inlays, a cutaway and a pointed headstock inspired by the innovative guitars of Steve Klein. “We found that the pointed headstock kept the strings in a straighter line than our other headstock shapes,” Hoover says. “This style helped keep the strings from binding in the nut when going into the altered tunings that so many players were experimenting with.” The FS was a modest but steady seller, but its spartan appointments and elegant shape had a major influence on many luthiers. These days so many builders are offering small jumbos with wood binding and a cutaway that it’s becoming cliché. As Hoover says about their early use of koa, “first isn’t always the best place to be.”

ma è usata?

...per un attimo ho pensato che FS stesse per Franco Signore"

...prendiamola, no?

azz ci avresti già le iniziali prestampate! io ho subito pensato alle vecchie ferrovie FS.
(domani se tutto va bene torna a casa con papà)

Jo ha scritto:

azz ci avresti già le iniziali prestampate! io ho subito pensato alle vecchie ferrovie FS.
(domani se tutto va bene torna a casa con papà)

Jo ha scritto:

azz ci avresti già le iniziali prestampate! io ho subito pensato alle vecchie ferrovie FS.
(domani se tutto va bene torna a casa con papà)

...nel senso che la prendi?

se riesco a venderne un apio delle mie, ma de 'sti tempi la vedo dura

Jo ha scritto:

se riesco a venderne un apio delle mie, ma de 'sti tempi la vedo dura

Già!