Parlour, guitar, baritone uke and a mandolin!

Parlour guitar videos

I’ve just put the next instalment of the parlour guitar videos on YouTube. This one talks you through making the rosette-

I’m very happy with the finished result- particularly the ebony edge to sound hole.

Martin’s uke

As you can see Martin’s uke is coming along; the purfling and bindings are now on. I’ve used a limited number of woods and visually they all work well together.

I had been waiting ages for some uke tuners, which has delayed work on the neck, they’ve finally turned up and are a real disappointment! I can’t use them so I’ve decided to use Gotoh mini guitar tuners instead- far better quality!

Richard’s mandolin

Richard’s mandolin is still being polished and there is quite a few more sessions needed on it. But it gets shinier by the day!

I just bought one of these “carpenter’s screw” clamps, they caught my eye in the Axminster catalogue. As you can see they work well for clamping non-parallel surfaces- recommended!

A number of things going on!

El Corazon is currently being French polished or rather the body and head is; the neck is going to have an oil finish.

Those who have followed my blog for awhile, will have noticed that the subject of finishing comes up quite a bit. I decided, when I moved to the new workshop, that I would no longer spray lacquer due to a whole host of health and safety issues. So, French polish or an oil-based finish are now the only types of finish that I offer. They may not be as robust as thicker synthetic lacquers, but I figure if someone is going to go the trouble of having a hand made guitar, they are also going to look after it! Also, I do believe that they superior both aesthetically and acoustically. I’ve been keeping a check on things and I think that I use 75% less material when French polishing compared to using lacquer. It’s got to sound better!

Whilst the polishing is going on there are a number of other projects also on the go. You may remember Andy’s carved top that I started a long time ago? Well for various reasons that has been on the back burner but now work has resumed. One of the last tasks that I did to it was to drill loads of holes in the soundboard!

These holes all stop 8mm from the outer surface and give a rough guide for carving the inner surface. I say carving, but the vast majority of waste has been removed with special curved sole planes.

This Canadian made plane from Axminster was great for roughing out most of the waste: well worth having in your armoury!

Most of the waste has now been removed and I’m now down to some finer work with scrapers and abrasives.

I’ve also started another twin-point mandolin this one is for Richard and will have beautiful English walnut back and sides. Here are a few photos of the work done so far.

Early next year I’ll be making a baritone ukulele for Martin and I’ve been doing some preparation. This is the head overlay: it’s book-matched Thuya Burl which is from the root of tree which grows in Morocco. Pretty eh?

African Blackwood Guitar and Ukulele

We made it safely to our new home, a converted Methodist Chapel in the Norfolk countryside. It took 2 trucks, one for the house and the other for the workshop! One of the most stressful parts of the move has been trying to get, without much luck, a telephone line and broadband so I shall only be on-line intermittently until mid-August, thanks to the local internet cafe.
As promised a bit about the two Blackwood instruments: they were completed just before we moved. The soundboards were French polished and the rest of the instruments were finished with Tru-Oil. The combination of the two types of finish worked really well. The oil allowed the natural beauty of the African Blackwood to show through and it also gives a nice feel to the neck, lacquer can feel sticky.

Morgan had very definite ideas on how he wanted the instruments to look and the finish gives them the “aged” look that he was after.
Morgan set me quite a few challenges throughout this build, the final being the bridges. He wanted a curved shape bridge, a tie-block that blended in and was doubled drilled for tying the strings; this involved a fair bit of discussion over their design, but I think that we were both pleased with the results. Probably the best bridges that I’ve made!

Below are a variety of photos of the instruments:



African Blackwood backs, sides, fingerboards head overlays and bridges
Sinker redwood soundboards
Pink ivory (sacred wood of the Zulu) binding and rosettes
20,000 year old fossilised walrus tusk nuts and saddles.
Doesn’t get much more exotic!







How do they sound? Well, I’ve made another one of my videos which I’ll upload once I’m properly back on line; however it does not do them justice. The Matt Bellamy’s classical guitar sounds very promising; already the trebles are sounding out loud and sweet and there are also some nice rich bass tones. It will need to be played in for a few months to reach its full potential, but I think that it’s going to be rather special. Morgan’s baritone ukulele was a revelation! I was pleased that it had a good tone and volume when I played it and that it didn’t sound plinkity plonkity like some ukes do. But when he came over and played it! The volume was outstanding for such a small instrument.

Hopefully Morgan and Matt will be pleased with these instruments: I certainly am. It was a good experience working with Morgan, he pushed the envelope and I feel that I’m a better luthier for it.

"Caring more and more about less and less"

My wife gave me a copy of “The Violin Maker” for Christmas. It’s a beautifully produced book which tells to story of a violin commissioned from luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz by the violinist Eugene Drucker. Although there is not much to learn about the construction of a violin for a luthier, its description of the angst that I luthier can feel whist trying to fulfil a commission confirms the feelings that I often get and that I’m not entirely insane! There are other people in the world who endeavour to produce beautiful, hand crafted work. One phrase that has particular resonance (if you pardon the pun) with me at the moment is, “caring more and more about less and less.” I had hoped that by this stage of my career that I would be making instruments far quicker than I do. In fact, sometimes, I almost seem to be going slower; making sure ever minute detail, inside and out is as good as it can be; caring more and more about less and less. Talking of which........

Above you can see the Red Mandolin; it’s going through its “first fix”. One of the things that I like about building an instrument with a floating bridge and tailpiece is that you can get it set-up and playing before you finish it. Once it’s set-up, it can be stripped back down and the finish (French polish in this case) can be applied. That way you greatly reduce any chance of damaging the finishing whilst setting up. I’m really getting excited about applying the polish; I’ve done a few test pieces and the cocobolo is going to look stunning.

One of the other instruments currently on the bench is the African Blackwood ukulele and here you can see it complete with Pink Ivory bindings looking very pretty.

Still Life

As I was doing a bit of research about 10 string and alto classical guitars the other day, I came across this YouTube channel, Solo Guitarist Net; some fantastic stuff here!