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Chinook Guitars
Essence From Wood
What is
Meant by Essence from Wood?
I believe my primary responsibility
is to the essence contained within
each instrument or each piece of wood.
I feel my role is to stay
out of the way, to facilitate, and allow this essential voice
to speak.
What does this individual guitar need? What is it trying to say?
Does this piece of wood want to be a guitar and does it want me to build it?
While remaining mindful of the need to
understand the physics behind
the guitar and the engineering required to
successfully build one;
I believe it most important to respect and
understand
the tree that gave its life for us to play.
What is
Meant by Hand-Made?
Around here most things are done by CNCNC;
that's chiseled 'n' carved 'n' cut.
I fear with the onset of CNC machines, duplicators and the madness of
North American marketing we may be on the verge of losing the
most important aspects of this craft. I work for the most part
with hand tools,
some of them very old, some new, many I have made myself. This, I
believe,
leads to an intimacy with the wood that cannot be found otherwise.
It takes time, effort and dedication to truly understand a piece of wood
and to draw from it the best it has to offer; its essence if you will.
It is this deep understanding that leads to the maximizing of tone,
responsiveness and playability. How this can be done when
production,
speed and the almighty cost-benefit analysis become paramount
I just don't know. I guess it's like a good friend of mine says,
"even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then".
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A little recording of my own guitar
"Dragonfly" a model 15 with an Engelmann Spruce top
and Palo Escrito Rosewood back and sides.
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News
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Healdsburg Guitar Festival
The festival of guitar building held every two years
just north of San Francisco.
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The site is, and will always be, under
construction. It's my intention to add numerous papers
to the site on guitar building and maintenance. These
will take a little while to put together, (some exist only
in my mind as of now) so for now, please excuse the gaps and
spares.
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Guitar
Building Gallery
A highlight reel of the process of building a guitar by hand.
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Restorations and
Building
A friend recently
commented that I don't say enough about what the experience of
all the vintage restoration work I've done has had on my own
guitars. The more I think about it, the more I think he's
right. I've had the pleasure of restoring and playing
many vintage guitars from old parlours to very expensive
Martins, Gibsons and the like. I've seen what works over
time and what doesn't work. I've been able, sometimes by
purposeful thought and sometimes by osmosis, to add their
experience to my own guitars, I believe with excellent result.
I hope someone feels the same way about my guitars in a few
decades when they need to be restored. |
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