7 Summits Flamenca

THE 7 SUMMITS

If you are requested to make a mountains theme guitar... the challenge is kind of big. Let's look at it like climbing a mountain, if you agree with the analogy. Luckily this is the type of customer that makes life easier and provides all the information needed to develop the theme and get a good inspiration. So we just fit all those huge mountains within the very few milimeters of the rosette. Impossible to be captured on photo all the colour changes and iridiscence of the pearl, but I couldn't help myself to take a picture without the strings on to fully reveal it

EVEREST - ACONCAGUA - DENALI

The 7 summits are made using pieces of 7 different spieces of solid pearl, all of them cut, selected, fitted and glued by hand one by one over a black maple base, hand painted to get an effect of ice crystals suspended on air when strong winds hit the mountain tops

KILIMANJARO - ELBRUS - VINSON - JAYA

We are so used to see mountains over blue skies, but their silhouettes are even more impressive against the dark night skies. Snow details and shadows are hand painted using perloid paint, but it is not possible to capture the sparkles with a static photo. The entire rosette shines with its own light and colours vary with the looking angle. There is a tiny detail on every mountain to give us a clue about wich mountain we are climbing... did you already find them all?

HASELFICHTE

The amount and position of the bearclaw in this top really stands out. Like the scars on the sides of a mountain, this variations in the tree log longitudinal growth are responsible of this reflection of light variations. This feature represent no pro or con regarding the sound but is is normally found together with the grain silk or medular rays that are a true indicator of a super piece of soundboard

PYRAMIDAL BRIDGE

It makes full sense to have this type of bridge in this project. You have seen it before on previous projects in my website, but in this guitar it really matches the summits theme. It is made out of Rosewood with a beautiful and irregular veins. For the tie block decoration, I represented a prayer flags scene with the Himalaya mountains as a background

PRAYER FLAGS

When I was told about the offering ritual before climbing and the prayer flags, typical in Tibet, all of that caught my attention inmediatly. Indeed, it became the decoration for the bridge. When we listen to guitar player, then can give us ideas that we would have never imagine. Since it is impossible to show you the effects in a picture, here you have a video. The technique used is really rarely used on guitars: the interference dying.

IRONWOOD

Here, like in the wild, mother nature always catch us with its impressive creations. No matters which tools or techniques, or how luxurious materials are... nothing compares to nature. Unpar. Insurmountable.

TUNERS

Custom made, roller screws caps and buttons made out of black mother of pearl. Brushed plates with a vintage look. Rollers include sealed bearings and anti friction sleeves. A piece of art to be admired by Thomas Rubner

FROSTY EBONY

Fretboard, although a fundamental part, is usually overlooked. There are many eye-catching elements in this project, but I like to mention that this is of parts that makes me happier to see in this guitar and I like to make a personal take on this portion of the story. A frosty looking ebony from Crelicam, the ecofriendly project by Madinter. It is a true success to see such a piece, an ebony with white specs and small knots that, due the lack of knowledge and wrong preconceptions in the past, has been strongy reviled. The preference for pitch black ebony resulted in many cut trees fallen and abandoned on the jungle floor that were discarded for this variations in colour. Unwarranted waste. But thanks to ideas like Madinter's one and the continuous efforts to educate both the luthiers and players is given some results. Every day we see more and more guitars with really stunning and original fretboards. We are leaving behind those times where, without a theorical or empirical foundation, we wrongly thought some things were just better because of its colour or its appearance. Human errors, we have seen so many times in history. Time is proving that the artisan craft and work is what determines the final results when quality woods are used. And quality has nothing to do with colour, grains, names or marketing... but with the careful selection of the pieces themselves.

So I can feel proud to show a guitar featuring a fretboard like this, full os white specs giving a frosty look, perfect for this project theme. It is a wonderful piece, considered firewood not so long ago, but that today beats in price any black regular ebony. But not only because of its unique look, but also for its great quality