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Sample Music

• Martin Byatt
  
• Gerard Cousins
  
• Philippe Refig
  
• David Caswell
  
• Mike Tildesley
  
• Neal Bradley
  
• Donovan Raitt
  
• Jon Pickard
  

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• Guitar on an outside bench where I sometimes play them in
  
• Heels are shaped in the traditional Spanish style
  
• For Brazilian Rosewood to attain this colour the tree would have to have been about 200 years old and rotting from the centre when it was harvested. The carpenter I bought it from had had it since the 1960s but believes it was shipped in the 1930s.
  
• Top in European Spruce
  
• European Spruce top
  
• Brazilian rosewood
  
• Out of powerful sunlight this wood appears almost black.
  
• The shape is based on a Santos Hernandez guitar
  
• Brazilian Rosewood
  
• Highly figured Brazilian rosewood
  
• Sitka top
  
• I've used this shape for the head since 1972
  
• A 'V' join used by Hauser, Romanillas and others
  
• Back in Honduras Rosewood
  
• Laminated struts which increases strength and reduces weight
  
• Cedar topped classical with pegs
  
• Brazilian sides
  
• Brazilian 4-piece back
  
• Walnut back
  
• English Walnut sides
  
• Rosewood and box bindings on Walnut sides
  
• Walnut facia
  
• Snakewood with Sloane tuners
  
• Black Brazilian sides
  
• Cedar top classical guitar
  
• Brazilian rosewood sides
  
• Rosewood back. The wood was shipped in the 1930s
  
• Blake Robson tuners with ebony buttons
  
• Spruce top guitar
  
• Four piece back
  
• Rosewood Side
  
• Machines made by Northumbria Tuning Machines to match head facia
  
• Snakewood head
  
• Rosette and label
  
• Brazilian rosewood back
  
• Spruce top and rosewood sides
  
• Rosewood side
  
• Brazilian rosewood back with the makers reflection
  
• Back made of several pieces to create double white lines
  
• Rosewood side
  
• Cedar top guitar
  
  

• Although this guitar is a classical guitar in sound and action it has an under-saddle pickup for amplification. (The person who commissioned it does a lot of gigging in large venues)
  
• Back and sides in Kingwood
  
• Kingwood (slightly denser than Brazilian Rosewood) rarely comes in pieces large enough to make a back or sides
  
• The maple insert is the same thickness as the sides
  
• Olivewood and Brazilian rosewood back
  
• Olivewood side
  
• Cutaway side
  
• Detail of rosette and label
  
• Front of new cutaway classical
  
• Because of the figure in the olivewood the sides were difficult to bend and had to be lined with boxwood to prevent future splitting
  
• Rosewood head
  
• Sycamore inlay around part of the cutaway
  
• Although I had enough olive to make a complete back I decided to cut out some of the knotty, cracked wood and replace it with a billet of rosewood
  
  

• Detail of Flamenco with snakewood bindings
  
• Cocobola back of flamenco peghead. My flamenco uses the shape of Jeronimo de la Pena
  
• Matching snakewood pegs to head facia
  
• Reaming hole for peg fit
  
• Finished pegs in holes
  
• Cutting a flamenco peg to shape
  
• Pegs with silver crowns
  
• Lining holes to prevent varnish leak
  
• Finished pegs with mother of pearl inserts
  
• My flamencos have cross struts 11mm wide and 1.6mm high
  
• Straight struts are curved to the shape of the top and fitted over cross struts
  
• French polishing
  
• Very old Brazilian Rosewood
  
• Turned Pegs
  
• Snakewood facia and pegs, mother of pearl buttons
  
• Pegs are deep set so guitar will fit in standard case
  
• Pearl dots
  
• A flamenco bought by a Jazz musician for gigging
  
• Recently made flamenco guitar - the one you hear when you click 'Solea'
  
• Rosewood facia on head with ebony pegs
  
• Cypress back and sides
  
• Flamenco peghead with cypress back and sides
  
• 650 string length accommodating 20th fret
  
• Arched back in cypress
  
• Back of head with dark rosewood pegs
  
• Head facia in Brazilian rosewood with rosewood pegs
  
• Three side views of flamenco guitar in cypress
  
  

• Turning boxwood pegs
  
• Basic peg shape
  
• All pegs turned
  
• Cutting pegs in a jig
  
• Head and neck ready for joining
  
• Glued veneers
  
• Veneers glued to maple headstock
  
• Chiselling out inlay lines
  
• Ebony fingerboard and white inlay glued to neck before the head or heel is put on
  
• Flattening the fingerboard
  
• Cutting bone inlay diamonds for decoration around sound hole; 5 pence piece shows scale
  
• Each piece of bone is about 3.5 mm wide and .9 mm deep
  
• Making jig to bend sides
  
• A workboard is needed to build a dome into the top. The original Stradivari is flat but slight some may prevent is cracking in extreme conditions
  
• Jig filled, smoothed and ready to bend sides
  
• Bending a side
  
• Assembling bent sides
  
• Gluing sides together with a wooden block
  
• Male joint at the end of the neck for joining to head
  
• Female joint on head
  
• Head and neck ready for joining
  
• Gluing head to neck
  
• Cutting heel out
  
• Bottom view before shaping heel
  
• Rounded heel cut to shape
  
• Gluing inlay lines in place
  
• Joining neck to sides
  
• During the drying process some of the epoxy resin leaked through pin holes and into the surrounding soundboard
  
• The stained spruce had to be cut out and replaced by new spruce
  
• The Strad in the Ashmolean has no bracing the the working part of the soundboard. I gave it some very light bracing to see if it would improve the volume of the finished guitar.
  
• Cut ebony inlays for the soundboard
  
• Cutting the inlay shape in the soundboard
  
• Checking the inlay for depth
  
• Inlays glued in place
  
• Ebony inlays where neck joins body
  
• Ivory edges added
  
• Marking bridge before cutting
  
• Making inlay for bridge
  
• Shaping front of bridge with fishtail chisel
  
• Finished guitar
  
• Sound box
  
• Detail of inlay
  
• Head from front
  
• Side
  
• Back
  
• Rosette by Elena del Cortivo
  
  

• Box, Padauk, Maple
  
• Rosette under construction
  
• Edge of rosette matches purfling. Both use pure white Holly
  
• Boxwood used in chevrons gives warm colour
  
• Rosette made from padauk, rosewood, maple and box
  
• A rosette on a cedar top
  
• White chevrons and interval lines
  
• Rosette
  
• Rosette in cedar top before any varnish has been applied
  
  

• An early copy of fleta without the transfer bar. Really nothing more than standard fan bracing with 9 struts
  
• Straight fan bracing with two cross struts which end under the bridge
  
• Taking the cross bracing a step further into broken fan bracing with a crosspiece under the bridge
  
• Testing to see if broken fan works as well with Cedar top
  
• Eliminating the broken fan by bending the struts
  
• Finished bent fan strutting
  
• Reducing the number of struts and including closing bars
  
  

• Head facia joined in centre and taken down to final thickness
  
• Shaping the heel
  
• A neck with a head and heel before joining to sides
  
• Rosette under construction
  
• Struts tapered to shape after gluing
  
• Individual laminates are cut from Swiss spruce violin blanks
  
• Bent struts held in place before laminating
  
• Part of Brazilian rosewood log shipped in the 1930s being sawn in 2003 by David Dyke
  
• Brazilian rosewood sides
  
• Cramped wood ready for kiln
  
• Inside kiln
  
• Solid, laminated linings improve sound quality
  
• Linings being added
  
• Guitar on work board
  
• The neck-to-side joint uses the Romanillos wedge technique
  
• Back being braced
  
• Back being joined to sides
  
• Purfling being built in
  
• A swivel jig means the guitar isn't handled during polishing
  
• Guitar can be turned anyway up during polishing
  
• French polishing
  
• Tape used to mark bridge placement while varnishing
  
• Bridge is glued after polishing
  
• A lip on the bridge is used to prevent the soundboard being damaged by string ends
  
• Cutting a compensated nut
  
• Bridge is shaped to curve of top
  
• Head rounded where it meets neck
  
• Work in Progress
  
  

• Purfling being built in
  
• Brazilian Rosewood with sapwood
  
• Brazilian Rosewood
  
• For Brazilian Rosewood to attain this colour the tree would have to have been about 200 years old and rotting from the centre when it was harvested. The carpenter I bought it from had had it since the 1960s but believes it was shipped in the 1930s.
  
• Brazilian Rosewood
  
• Classical guitar made with walnut back and sides
  
• The wood for this guitar comes from an English walnut blown down in the great hurricane of 1989
  
• Highly figured Brazilian rosewood
  
• Wood as figured as this is very difficult to work without damaging it
  
• Snakewood purfling inlaid into Bubinga
  
• Variation in end purfling to match back join above
  
• Brazilian Rosewood back and sides
  
• The shape of the head was designed in 1972
  
• Butterfly matched head facia
  
• Brazilian rosewood back and sides cut from same log
  
• Snakewood is heavier than Lignum
  
• Snakewood used as head facia
  
• Brazilian rosewood
  
• The heel plate is an integral part of the back
  
• Bubinga sides unvarnished.
  
• African Rosewood (Bubinga) before varnishing
  
• African Rosewood (Bubinga) after varnishing
  
• Bubinga sides
  
• Brazilian Rosewood
  
• Cocobola sides, cedar top
  
• A 4-piece back in Cocobola
  
• Cocobola back
  
• Sometimes very old wood throws up beautiful patterns
  
• Brazilian Rosewood with Sapwood