This great Blanca has found a new home, Bruce is building a new Blanca that I hope to have soon, call me for details...

This guitar recently arrived and is Bruce's brand new model based on a 1933 Santos that he studied, and it combines his own bracing pattern with the Santos plantilla and body dimensions with great effect.

All of us who love Flamenco know a Bruce Wood. These are the likeable guys that somehow manage to build a life around Flamenco and get away with it! Bruce has been a fixture here in Santa Barbara for decades and spends most of his time surfing and building guitars. Having worked in the boat building as well as commercial fishing industries in another life, he was bitten by the Flamenco bug early and has been at the heart of the Flamenco Scene here in Santa Barbara ever since.

A while back, an amazing Santos Hernandez found its way into one of the local guitar shops here, and Bruce was able, as only Bruce could do, to get his hands on it for a few weeks. He studied it extensively, and being a good Flamenco guitar player himself, he recognized an essence in this fine old lady of a guitar that he fell in love with. He became obsessed with trying to recreate the haunting qualities of this Santos and set out to impart that character in his own interpretation of a fine Santos. Although he had been building Flamenco guitars for years, this was a new direction in his art.

Last year he felt he had accomplished his goal and he brought the guitar over for me to play. I was amazed at how he had captured the essence of the Santos, and yet it had a recognizable 'Bruce Wood' quality to it also. It was a fine guitar. I agreed to accept it for the shop and to photograph it for my site. Then, before I could get to the photographer two clients came by who own multiple guitars and really know what they are looking for. They both immediately fell in love with Bruce's guitar and then followed the normal discourse between two friends who want the same guitar " you buy it" "no YOU buy it" and so it went until one of them did buy it! So I never did get to photograph it, it only lasted about two hours in the shop!

This guitar is the result of the ongoing evolution of Bruce's work using some aspects of Santos, and some of his own experience and design ideas to create an end result that is Santos inspired in the sense that it has a sweet musicality to it, and yet has some of the attributes that modern players are looking for as well. It has a woody/vintage sound to it that is very Flamenco, but yet sweet and musical. The action, a Bruce Wood specialty, is like butter, soooo easy to play, bar chords any where any time are effortless, just so easy. In fact I am going to see if Bruce can get my own personal Reyes to play like this! Finish is my favorite combination, lacquer back and sides with a top French polished in shellac. This is a great hand crafted Blanca and very reasonably priced. I recommend Bruce's guitars to anybody looking for a great guitar in this price range.