John's guitar - not the end, but the beginning

I have been featuring a guitar on this blog that I was making for John Mills, the Australian composer. It is now time for the end of my part of the story as the guitar is finally finished, and a few weeks ago John picked the guitar up from the workshop in person. I have really enjoyed building this guitar and the internet has provide a fantastic way of involving John with that building process.
Commissioning a guitar is an act of faith, but then so is building it. As a maker you do your best to build the finest instrument you can and the best you have ever made; there is no point in doing anything else. What you can't always anticipate is the players expectations; the sound they have in their head. Detailed email exchanges with John helped to pin down the sort of instrument that he was after, and there were practical things to be considered such as fingerboard width and neck profiles. John already had his much loved David Rubio guitar, a maker I very much admire, so that provided a good reference point for us both.
Stringing up a new guitar is a moment that still excites me as much as it did when I strung my first guitar many years ago. With this guitar I was immediately pleased and I enjoyed playing it in the weeks before Johns visit. However the first opportunity I had to stand back and hear it was when John played it for the first time. The picture above captures those moments.
John is an accomplished musician and the first thing that struck me when he began to play was the quality of tone he produced; something I always like. To my relief John quickly pronounced that the instrument was to his liking, and we were both relived! Just before John and Pam were due at the workshop, I realised I didn't have any pictures of the finished guitar and although the light was poor, I took a few quick shots for my own records.
A few days ago John called to say that they were all back in Australia and that he was really enjoying the guitar. I hope that continues for many years; thats the beginning of another story.

Linings and tentelones

I have just returned from a few days away in the West Country with Caroline and the children, and so I am feeling refreshed and pleased to be back in the workshop. I have just joined up a set of satinwood and another set of Malaysian blackwood for a couple of future orders. I mustn't get too distracted by them yet however as I have other guitars to finish first and Julio's guitar is one of them. The picture above shows the inside of the guitar just after the tentelones have been fitted. This is the traditional Spanish method of holding the soundboard onto the ribs. You can see from this picture that I do not use a form for assembling the guitar. I find that a form gets in the way so I would rather not use one. The small blocks around the outside of the top are enough to locate the sides, and using this method obliges the maker to be very accurate with his rib bending and assembly.


Once the tentelones are installed I move onto the linings that join the back onto the ribs. As this is my traditional model I am using a single mahogany strip, but I will very often double this to add stiffness to the bent rib. I have to be absolutely honest here and say that preparing back linings is perhaps my least favorite job on the guitar; I really have to grit my teeth and get on with it. The picture above shows the lining fresh out of the bending machine. The dark residue visible on some of them is rosewood oil from the steel slats of the side bender. The mahogany that I use for linings came from a parcel of boards I picked up from a craftsman who had been using the material for some restoration work that he had undertaken in the historic Brighton Royal Pavilion. I enjoy using timber that has a story attached to it, and I have along personal association with Brighton having grown up there.
So, finally the back linings are in and clamped in place. I love using these little G clamps. The work beautifully and are lovely to hold and work with. With all the internal details complete I can now turn my attention to the back...

Friday evening and I'm shattered. This week has been something of a watershed; various restorations finished, all the timber picked out of the stacks for Adams guitar, paperwork done, dusted and forgotten about and guitars placed in the hands of their new owners.
Finally word came through that Ryan's guitar has arrived safely in South Korea; that's a picture of it above. Ryan had been pipped at the post to a second hand guitar of mine but I was able to provide him with this one from 1987. It was one of the first guitars I made professionally and I used it for exhibitions and demonstrations..... I then lent it to a professional player for concert work, at the end of which it was in a used condition, so I kept it for myself. Intending to have it as my own playing guitar was a fine sentiment but within months I had used the tuners on another guitar and so it has remained unstrung for over 20 years. I'm pleased that it will now be played and enjoyed.
This week I actually heard some live guitar music. Genaro gave me a ticket to hear his friend Edoardo Catemario play in the Brighton festival at St Nicholas Church, the oldest church in Brighton. Edoardo has a fine collection of guitars and on a previous occasion I heard him play on a Simplicio. On this occasion he was playing on a new guitar imported by Paul Gregory. I loved hearing the Suite Espanola by Gaspar Sanz and it was nice to be reacquainted with the Castelnuovo Tedesco Capriccio diabolico which I hadn't heard for years.
Walking through the darkening streets of Brighton after the concert I marvelled at the exotic place that Brighton has become. I have known it all my life, but sometimes it seems like a foreign country, which I think is a good thing.

buisness as usual

Having been without a usable computer for about a month I can honestly say that it has been a great pleasure not to have one, and I am slightly saddened by the fact that it is now fully serviceable again. Still, it is good to be able to post the odd blog again ( I have had many concerned enquiries about my health) and I have been dealing with a backlog of emails from all four corners.
The workshop has seen a lot of activity however and progress is being made an all fronts. The picture above is of Julio's guitar - the little blocks around the periphery are locating aids for fitting the ribs. I'll be honest and point out that this guitar is rather further on now, but I will save those pictures for a few days time. John's guitar is finished and strung and John is due to pick it up in the next few days; now that is exciting- I hope he is as pleased with the guitar as I am. Repairs have always been there in the background; an endless collection of neck resets and a really satisfying job on Rays hand built guitar. He has just started playing again (its never too late) and it was a pleasure to bring his guitar back to a usable condition.

Work in progress...

It's been a busy and productive week in the workshop and right at the close of play on Friday afternoon I completed the work on the headstock of Julio's guitar. I also received the tuners from Nicolo Alessi and dry fitted them for the picture. A good way to end the week. I have just checked my do do list that I made at the beginning of the week and found that I have done nothing on the list; now how can that be?
Here is the top of the same guitar in the go bar press. This is the typical Hauser/Torres 7 fan strut layout. Working on the soundboard totally absorbs me and requires full concentration. The struts that are being glued on here are all selected and split from some very old, dry blocks of European spruce. I normally spend a couple of days a year just making up sets of struts for future guitars. I like to do this as one gets really tuned into the differences in weight and stiffness of each block. I then select the set I want when I select and thickness the soundboard.

V joint

Here are the first pictures of Julio's guitar which is a Hauser type instrument in spruce and rosewood. With the top and back joined up, I thought I would complete the neck and for this I have chosen some rather striking figured mahogany. It was cut from some extra thick stock which I needed for the v-joint that had been requested.
As a sixteen year old, I was fascinated by the book 'Guitars-From the Renaissance to Rock' by Tom and Mary Evans. It included a photo essay on a youthful Jose Romanillos in his workshop. There were detailed pictures of Jose making a v-joint but it was some time before I attempted this technique for myself.
Once I was at the London Collage of Furniture I had no excuse for not making one of these head joints. My first v-joint took forever and probably wasn't the best in the world, but I was proud of it. At the time I was making it we had a visit to the workshop by the esteemed Spanish guitar maker Paulino Bernabe, who was brought along by that great figure of the English guitar scene, Ivor Mairants. Bernabe was communicating through a translator (Jeff Giddings, the workshop technician. Jeff was a keen fiddle player, instrument maker, Morris dancer and many other things.) Bernabe stopped at my bench and I could here him and Jeff deep in conversation about my work. Not speaking Spanish myself, I imagined the great Luthier to be commenting on my great skill, particularly for one so young. Perhaps he would even offer me a job in his workshop...
After the visitors had gone, I rushed up to Jeff and eagerly asked what Paulino Bernabe had been saying about my v-joint. Jeff laughed as he told me; 'he wondered why you were bothering!'
Bernabe had a point as the commoner scarf joint is so much quicker to accomplish and that's the head joint that I do as standard. Every so often it is nice to do the v-joint as it shows your technical skill as a chisel master, but in a restrained and subtle way. I like that - a quiet and gentle flourish. Today I am expecting to take delivery of a set of tuners from Nicolo in Italy and these are to be fitted to this head. This will be a striking guitar in many ways.

Ries (and Ries copy)

My copy of the Ries terz is coming on quite nicely. Making this guitar is an indulgence on my part and I only work on it late at night or when something in the workshop is gluing. I am enjoying doing something a little bit different; it makes you re-evaluate the main body of your work and you always learn something. The thing that has absorbed me so far with this guitar has been the considerable arching on the back. Even by 19th century standards this is quite considerable and makes fitting the back more problematic. The back on the original guitar is solid maple and not spruce veneered with a decorative timber, as was often the case. I need to push on with this as Jim is cracking on with the restoration of the original and it might not be in the workshop much longer. This picture really shows the difference in colour between the aged spruce and maple, and the new wood.
I have very much enjoyed doing the neck on this instrument. The figure of 8 peghead always pleases me and the v-join is always a challenge. The original neck is maple, but then ebonised with black French polish, which was used to mimic ebony veneer. In places the polish has worn through to a reveal a sumptuous golden maple underneath. I am itching to polish my reproduction neck black.
It's the weekend so I am out of the workshop. Disturbed and troubled by the scenes of devastation from Japan, I have gravitated towards a gentle and quite day with family; a 12 mile bike ride along the coast followed by cake baking with the children on my return. The spring-like weather is fabulous, but is not always conducive to getting things done in the workshop.