This afternoon I had a chance to stop by the open exhibition at the 2006 Guild of American Luthiers Convention in Tacoma. There was lots of wood and inlay for sale and lots of great instruments on display.

The highlight for me was getting a chance to chat with David Hurd of Kawika Ukuleles. Not only is he one of the great minds in the science of guitar building, he’s a really nice guy too. He was showing some really innovative jigs for measuring the deflection of acoustic guitar tops under tension, which are detailed in his book Left-Brain Lutherie.

Below are a couple of the more wonderfully weird things at the show:

A matched pair of wood and metal headless acoustic guitars in a custom case built for two. You can’t see it in the picture, but at the end of the metal neck is a mouth holding a guitar pick.

Why would I make that up.

On a table next to some much larger creations including a bass dulcimer and a 1-string electric instrument made, in part, from a boat paddle, was this collection of tiny guitars, no bigger than your finger.

Luthierie/Guitar Building | 1 Comment »

Over the years of guitar building I’ve amassed quite a collection of composite materials. Some are from old projects, some are from projects yet to come.

Here’s a small sampling of what’s in my shop right now (from left to right, top to bottom in the picture above):

• Woven carbon fiber (CF) flex panel - This has that cool, shiny “graphite” look because it’s finished in gloss epoxy. I’ll probably use this as a peghead laminate, as I’ve seen done on some Peavey basses.
• Graphite/Balsa sandwich brace- This was a test beam for the braces in the Big Red acoustic bass guitar. The sandwich construction makes it very stiff, light, and stable. This makes for a louder, more durable instrument
• Thin (.030″) woven CF plate - This will make a good bridge plate reinforcement.
• Graphite neck reinforcements - The shiny thin ones (top two) are pultruded, which makes them very smooth and consistent but not as stiff. The dull skinny ones (middle two) are laid-up out of multiple layers of CF cloth, bonded together, then cut out with a water jet. This construction if stiffer but leaves a rougher surface with less consistent dimensions. The dull wide ones (bottom two), are thin strapping material - one was used in the sandwich brace above, and the other went under the fingerboard of the Three String Bass.
• High-pressure laminates - A composite sandwich of phenolic resin and paper, this is a very tough material used for countertops. But with the right bracing and constuction techniques, it also makes a great skin material for acoustic guitars.
• End-grain balsa sheet - This is the best grain orientation for balsa as a composite core material. With skins laminated to the top and bottom, it becomes an incredibly strong but light material. In the upcoming acoustic bass guitars this will be used as part of the bracing under the bridge where the strings anchor.

Luthierie/Guitar Building | 1 Comment »

Here’s a preview of the next ABG design in CAD showing the assymetric body profile and port tube. So far everything’s coming together for a run of three of these basses - one fretless 6-string for a customer and two 4-strings to keep for stock/marketing. The 6 will have an ebony fingerboard and bridge and the 4’s will both have maple fingerboards and bridges.

Stay tuned for more progress pictures to come!

Instruments, Acoustic Bass Guitars | 5 Comments »

Ok - here’s the backstory: Brian Ritchie and the Violent Femmes are the reason started playing bass, and later, got into guitar-making. When I heard the sound of Brian’s Earthwood Acoustic Bass Guitar (ABG) back in college I knew right away that that was the sound I wanted to make. I got a cheap Applause (budget Ovation) ABG and started learning as much as I could, mostly by playing along with Femmes records.

By the time I started to get good, I started to get frustrated with the puny sound of my instrument. I did some research and found that Ernie Ball had stopped making the Earthwood ABG years ago, and that there weren’t any good ones on the market any more. At the time, Martin and Guild made the best ones, and they still weren’t nearly as big or loud as I knew they could be. I even remember sending a snotty letter to C.F. Martin telling them how gutless their bass was… hopefully he’s forgotten by now.

So in ‘97 I enrolled in the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery in Phoenix to learn how to build guitars. Before I went, though, I did a few experiments with washtub basses, one of which I showed to Brian Ritchie after a show in Tempe. Go ahead and laugh, but it sounded pretty good!

I only stopped playing it when I graduated from RV and became a “serious” luthier. It was working at RV that I built my Big Red ABG.

Fast forward to last year. From Roberto-Venn I had gotten a job as in-house programmer/designer/luthier at Warmoth Guitar Products, and one day got an email at work from Brian Ritchie! He had just ordered a bass from us and saw a post of mine about him on Talkbass. He asked how his bass was coming along and if he could stop by the shop when the band was in Seattle. I offered to give him a tour, and he offered to let me play bass on “Gone Daddy Gone” at their show! So far, it has been the highlight of my career!

See all the pictures from my encounter with BR in the new photo album.

Now off to order material for the new run of ABG’s…

About Me, Luthierie/Guitar Building | No Comments »

OK, so it’s not a bass! I built this as a Christmas present for my wife a few years ago - she always wanted me to make something for her, but doesn’t play, so this seemed the perfect choice. You can’t play a wrong note!

The design is based on the Strumstick, though my tuner layout is a variation. The body and neck are koa, the fingerboard is ebony, and the nut, bridge, and neck reinforcement are all graphite.

Instruments | No Comments »