I tend to be a very soft spoken individual, but oddly, put me behind a keyboard and look out!
My father had a workshop. It was tiny and damp and windowless and dark. A “man cave” in the truest sense. And the crazy thing is, it was never supposed to exist. My mother—so the story goes—was looking over the blueprints my parents had drawn for my future childhood home, and knowing my father well, asked, “Where is the shop going to be?” As an afterthought, during construction, they excavated an area under the outdoor covered porch and sealed it in with concrete to create a work space. This, of course, became known as “The Shop.”
The Shop was an amazing place. As cold, dark and cramped as it was.
There were hundreds of small drawers filled with nuts and bolts and other odds and ends; it was a rare occasion you couldn’t find the small part you were looking for. There were beautifully built wooden boxes containing every size of nail known to man. A sturdy workbench spanned the full length of one wall. Most of the walls had peg-board, from which hung hand tools organized neatly and within arm’s reach. Hammers and wrenches, screwdrivers and chisels, hand planes and saws—many of which I still use to this day.
It wasn’t a wood-shop per-se, although many wooden toys sprang to life in there. It was a place where things got done. A place where things were taken apart and put back together. A place where things got fixed and projects were created. A place where my dad taught me how to think, and to do things for myself. A place where young minds were shown how it was done and molded into engineers. And above all else, it was the place that some fifty odd years ago spawned my love affair with wood, and using my hands to craft it into beautiful and useful art.
A love affair with wood. How can you not adore this wondrous material? How it feels in your hands. Its look. Its texture. Its warmth. Each species has its own character and how it responds to the tools you shape it with. Some types yield to your desires with little complaint, while others require a bit more finesse and understanding. By the time I reached the age of 18, I had grown to love wood, and how it allowed me to express myself. So much so, I chose a path of industrial arts education that allowed me to feed and grow this passion. In the expanse of years between that wide-eyed kid and this wizened grown man, wood has continued to offer me surprise after surprise and never failed to inspire me:
- Early on I learned about chatoyance (sha-toy-ance). What a great word. It refers to a certain visual characteristic of the grain, or figure, found in some wood. Chatoyant wood has a 3-dimensional look to it, like you can reach right into the surface of the board. It glows like a jewel and dances around when viewed from different angles. Good examples include quilted and fiddleback maple, but almost all species of wood have the potential of being chatoyant. It’s much more rare than common, so when I find wood with this characteristic shimmer, I snatch it up.
- My design sensibilities have always been drawn to free-flowing, organically curved shapes. Imagine my delight at learning how to bend wood into permanent curves with little more than steam and a form. Steam is a vehicle that drives heat into wood. Heat causes the lignin (glue) that bonds wood cells together to loosen, so the cells can slide past one another instead of breaking while bending. When the wood cools, it holds the new shape.
- I’ve been adding marquetry (mar-keh-tree) to my projects for many, many years. It’s an age old technique of using thin veneers of differing species of wood to create pictures, designs and patterns. By cutting and fitting individual pieces together like a jig saw puzzle, the design slowly emerges. It takes a lot of patience, but when added to my instruments, it elevates the piece to a higher level.
- I’m amazed at the sense of touch; the power of how something feels. Even more amazing is how your sense of touch gives better feedback than your sense of sight. Wood can be shaped into a limitless number of forms and I enjoy taking a flat board from the lumber store and turning it into something organic; finding a fluid and sinuous shape buried within the rectangular, uninspired piece of wood. I can look at a surface I’ve been shaping and be satisfied with my work. Drawing my hands along it, however, reveals that I have more to do before it’s finished. By touch, I can feel if the curves are fair or not and whether one area flows smoothly into another. I will often close my eyes as I work a piece of wood and once it feels the way it should, I know it will also look good.
- While building my first stringed instrument—a mountain dulcimer—I had an epiphany. I had just glued the back, top and sides together to form the body of the instrument, and out of curiosity I tapped the back of it with my finger. It rang out like a drum and vibrated with a resonance I could feel in my chest. Wow! Wood took on a whole new meaning that day. Not only does it look good. Not only does it feel good. I learned that day, wood also sounds good. That first instrument included woodworking elements that stretched my skill level and introduced me to the world of lutherie (looth-er-ree). Since then, my woodworking endeavors have been consumed by making stringed instruments and diving deep into learning the acoustic principles that deliver great sound.
Woodworking has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. For a good number of years now, I have focused my attention as a stringed instrument maker, a luthier. Many woodworkers consider this to be the pinnacle of the craft. The refinement, understanding of acoustic principles, complex construction processes and attention to detail combine to make building them an exciting challenge. When all these elements come together properly, it results in an art form that is beautiful to both the eye and the ear. I am thrilled to be a part of a community that creates these works of art, and facilitates my desire to continually push the boundaries of what is possible while working with wood.
I am honored that you have made it this far in my ramblings. Thank you so much for your time and interest. If this website has piqued your desire for more information about my process, please visit the PHILOSOPHY page. I would love to speak directly with you about my instruments, and the possibility of designing and building you a custom guitar. We’ll talk about your playing style, wood choices and the many options available to create the guitar of your dreams. See the ORDERING page for more details and contact information.
