10 things you should know about my guitars
1. It was built by one person – me.
Every guitar I make is the object of the care and attention of just one person, whose only goal was to create an amazing instrument. No teams, no market research, no trendy features. Just the best guitar I can build.
2. The top is very thin.
Even the most expensive factory guitars have tops that are thicker than they need to be, primarily because the manufacturers don’t want any warranty problems. Good for them, bad for you. A thin top is the single greatest factor in creating a lively, beautiful sounding instrument. Too thick and you lose sound; too thin and the guitar implodes. My guitars are all deflection-tested at various points in the build process to get as close to that goal as possible.
3. The finish is also very thin.
On factory guitars the finish can add a lot of mass to the top. That means that on top of that thick piece of wood they’ve slathered even more plastic (or nitrocellulose) finish to protect it from whatever may come its way. But they’ve also killed the sound and hidden the beauty of the wood. The same rule for the tops applies here: just enough and not an ooch more.
4. The bracing – both back and top – is very light.
Both the top and back plate are braced with spruce to make them stronger. Factory guitars carve these to predetermined dimensions that are well within the safe range, but in so doing they overbuild these braces, preventing the plates from resonating fully. I’ve hand carved and tested the back and top bracing to let their full potential shine.
5. It’s not 100% perfect.
I like small imperfections in my guitars because we are all imperfect and yet we still deserve love and care. None of these imperfections have any impact on the longevity, sound, or playability of the instrument, they just remind us that both it and we are living beings, subject to decay and death. I personally find absolutely perfect objects boring and dead.
I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect, nor is this guitar.
6. The shape is as beautiful as I can make it
Take a closer look at most guitars and you’ll find they look either like misshapen jelly beans or unshapely derrières. There are long straight bits, bad curves, unbalanced upper and lower bouts, waists that are too tight or too shallow for the rest of the shape, etc. The shape of every guitar I make takes a long time to develop, testing a few millimeters here and a slight change of a curve there. For me the shape of the guitar is very important and I only build using shapes that I find pleasing.
7. It’s made of natural materials
Modern factory guitars are made of a surprising amount of plastic. Plastic binding, plastic bridge pins, plastic nut, thick plastic finish, etc. This guitar is made of wood, cow bone, metal, insect secretion (shellac), maybe some linseed oil, and glue in roughly that order. That matters to me because I don’t want my guitars to add to the environmental catastrophes this world is already witnessing.
8. It’s made of ethical materials
Perhaps more important to me than the use of natural materials is the sourcing of ethical woods. The tropical timbers that have come to dominate the guitar-building world – rosewoods, mahoganies, ebony, etc. – are all remnants of the West’s exploitative, colonial past; remnants which continue to participate in destroying vital ecosystems, supporting government corruption, and funding international crime organizations. With very, very few exceptions, efforts to control the supply chain for these highly desirable and expensive woods has failed. The only choice I see is to use domestic woods and vet every single tropical source for the few that are worthy of support (eg Crelicam ebony in Cameroon, Fijian plantation mahogany, and generally East Indian rosewood exported by the Indian government).
8. This is a sacred object
The wood that makes up this guitar, the history that led to its development, the individual attention that went into its creation are all gifts of time and gifts of the Earth. They connect us with other places, other people, and other eras.
The spruce that made the top could easily be 300 years old. The development of the guitar leads us back through the music making practices of centuries. The processes of building the guitar connect us with workmen long dead.
A guitar is a sacred object bringing all these connections together for the space of decades – more if we’re lucky – that we get to enjoy and then give back.
9. It’s super comfortable to play
I’m not sure why, but many builders large and small seem to pay insufficient attention to the very direct experience of holding a guitar, of placing your hands on the neck, of how the tuners work, etc. In short, everything about the haptic experience of the guitar. What I want is for each of my guitars to feel like a favorite sweater: cozy, soft, familiar. This is one main reason I build so many smaller bodied guitars, because I find they’re much more comfortable to hold. But it also plays a large role in how I shape my necks, how the neck rolls over into the fingerboard, how the finish on the neck feels, etc. Comfort is just as important to me as any other aspect of the build.
10. It’s meant to be played
I understand the mindset of collectors or people who like to have museum-like objects in their lives. But those are not the guitars I try to build. I try to build guitars that call you to pick them up, cradle them in your lap, play music, entertain friends, and so on. I want to build very beautiful, highly functional tools: tools that are meant to be used, not babied or put behind a pane of glass.