Lutherie

I came about building instruments from seeing a Flying V body in the wood discard shop class in my high school days. That was when I became aware that these things could be built. I naively grabbed some pine 2x4s from the garage, measured other instruments, and build an electric guitar body, bought a neck, EMG Active pickups, a Floyd Rose teremolo bridge and put it all together. I hit a hitch or two but for the most part my ignorance was bliss. In the end I ended up with an electric guitar, a spray paint can finish and a guitar only a mother could love. But it worked and sounded great. Yes you can build a guitar out of PINE!

The spark reignited again years later when I read about dredged wood coming out of the great lakes and being sold to instrument makers. As it turns out my neighbor at the time had a dad who built acoustic guitars and I was fascinated. I had so many questions. I was not able to talk to her dad but I got to work. This was pre-internet days and I found a copy of Guitarmaking: Tradition & Technology which has been a solid go to resource. Many consider it the bible of guitarmaking.

I have been pursuing instrument building slowly since around the turn of the century. I have completed a about 5 acoustic guitars and about 5 other instruments. A short scale mountain dulcimer, a dobro, a flamenco guitar, a Ukulele and a few cigar box Ukuleles. All in all it is around 10 instruments. I say around because there are always half finished projects lying around and things I've completed building but perhaps not put a finish on. Are those "instruments" to you?

Besides doing my research for "many moons" I have taken classes with some very qualified builders. I took a 2 week course with 1-on-1 training with William Cumpiano It was an amazing experience and I highly recommend it. He is one of the authors of that book Guitarmaking: Tradition & Technology written along with Jon Natelson..

I also took a few courses at Woodcraft and got to work with Mike Mears of Windy Hill String Works now out of Floyd Virginia. I built two guitars with Mike at Woodcraft.

I also got to work with an amazing Luthier called Jim Warwick out of Reston Virginia at the time. Jim has since passed on but I will forever be grateful of his help and friendship. Jim leaned his trade from other prominent luthiers who shared knowledge with him and he shared it with me. He was patient and answered my constant barrage of questions and even indulged my learning paths to explore things like custom designing elements and making jigs. He walked me through how to touch and bend and and feel and listen to the wood. He showed me how two adjacently cut pieces of spruce had very different sound profiles, reinforcing that every piece of wood is different. Jim really went above and beyond showing and explaining the entire build and thought process he used and I will forever be grateful. While his passing is a loss there are a lot of great instruments out there in with his name bringing joy to the world.

All of these builders had over 250 instruments to their name by the time I worked with them. They say it takes about 100 instruments to get a feel for building. They agreed that was true but also said learning directly from experts helps tremendously. I am thankful to these builders for their time in passing along the craft to me.

The journey has been off and on again for me but it has remained always in the background over many years. I am just now starting to refocus again in 2024 on a new Ukulele tenor build. Key an eye out, maybe I'll post some progress soon. Some projects never get completed and mistakes are a part of the trade. We try to work around them as best we can.