![]() And then there was the most important part – the soundboard. I also spent a lot of time thinking and working on the neck/body joint and the neck/head joint, both of which I have covered in my blog. No, most of the experimentation I did was technical stuff, to make the instruments more consistent, to eliminate building mistakes that often occurred early in the build that had to be compensated for later. A couple of years later I had a customer who didn’t have the money for Rio and was also concerned about its stability but still wanted a Rio sound, so I thought I would try mixing Rio with Indian, the results were great, and I have made many since – it is my commonest timber upgrade and rightly so. NF – No, I can’t claim that, In 2003, Stefan and I built a guitar for a chap called Maurice Condie which was a mix of Cocobolo and Rio, and it came out sounding much more like Rio (another term for Brazilian Rosewood) than Cocobolo. TT- Innovations like your 3 piece, mixed rosewood backs? As long as the standard improved, Stefan was happy to let me experiment. We had our own rooms with the machine shop in the middle, and in the last few years I had a pretty free hand to get on with things, to work on the design and develop my own ways of the building process. We made a Go-bar deck! By the time I left it was a pretty swish workshop. But at the same time I understand that most customers neither know nor care about this.Īs the years went by the instruments got better, the waiting list grew, prices rose and we got all modern – Stefan bought dust extraction, a belt linisher and eventually I bought my own table saw – my favourite machine for making. A balance between working efficiently and quietly should be sought. The current crop of luthiers and their apprentices do not work this way – so much of guitar making has been reduced to wood machining now, and my belief is that something of the human touch has been lost. It was Stefan who developed the method of joining tops and backs on a sheet of chipboard using bent nails for pressure – I have a video of me doing this on my YouTube site and people seem to find it hilarious – but this is how I have done it for 20 years, and it works for me.Īs I said, the instruments were not expensive, and the work was done by hand, so the idea was “Get it ready, and get it out” Doing things right the first time was very important, as having to redo things could mean the difference between making money on an instrument or not, so it is a good way to learn. ![]() ![]() Stefan was self taught and so developed many interesting and sometimes odd ways of making, and it was many years before I knew any different which was good. This is before guitar making was the big amateur business it is now so we were pretty isolated as far as building methods went. It was a very primitive workshop by modern standards. No table saw, no pillar drill, no extraction, nothing. And making the tea of course.Īs far as machines – we had an Inca bandsaw, an inaccurate planer thicknesser and a router we used for about 2 or three jobs and that was it. For the first couple of years most of my duties were based around making the bodies and doing the rough work for the necks and tops. My first duties were cleaning up, making tea and then I went on to sharpening tools and making backs. He worked 14 hour days, seven days a week for years. Stefan was often there before me and always there for a few hours after. I started at 7.30 and finished at 5.30, five days a week. When I started for Stefan in January 88, Stefan had a good reputation but his work did not command anything like the amount his work does today (a Model 1 guitar was £800!) and from the start the atmosphere was one of hard work. NF – Yes it was, I cannot think of any other maker I would have rather learnt from. apprenticing with Stefan must have been a wonderful experience, could you share with us what it was like?
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