Posted on December 4, 2022June 27, 2023 by johNy corazÓn — 6 Comments

Mark Speer of Khruangbin: the best guitarist you’ve never heard of.

The guitarist of Khruangbin is too humble for the accolades I’m about to give him. Sorry, dude.

Mark Speer of Khruangbin is the best guitarist you’ve never heard of.! He is a musical magician living and playing in our own time. He has a sound and style all his own. No guitarist in the world is doing what he is doing. There are surely some incorporating multiple styles of playing into their overall sound. But, not like this guy! Is there a guitarist you know who incorporates Vietnamese opera vocal stylings or Ethiopian folk instrument technique into their sound. No, you don’t because there is nobody.

If you surf the Tube at all discovering new music, you will have undoubtedly come across at least one Khruangbin thumbnail, even if it flew under the radar of your fleeting attention. If you haven’t, trust me when I proclaim that someone in your circle has. These guys are simply one of the best bands in the world right now. Oh, so you’ve heard of them? What’s the guitarists’ name? Hmm?

Hart’s Guitars hereby announces its first annual Unheard of, Uncanny, Unearthly Guitarist of the year award! The winner is Mark Speer of Khruangbin. I make custom, out of the ordinary nylon string guitars. But maybe some day soon I will get into building electric guitars. If I do, I will most certainly, as a matter of first order, design and make a custom Mark Speer tribute model from my premium collection of Brazilian Rosewood (and maybe a little birds-eye maple).

My favourite guitarist (which, of course, makes him the best guitarist in the world).

If you’ve somehow never heard of Khruangbin, you have a treasure trove of discovery awaiting you! That’s not just for guitarists, mind you. The music they create is a pastiche of so much that is good in music. Musical traditions from around the globe come out in their sound. Mark Speer on guitar, Laura Lee on bass, and DJ Johnson on drums are Khruangbin.

How can one describe Mark Speer’s guitar playing style? At times, there’s a hint of disco guitar drenched with soupy wet pentatonic goodness. But in a flash, it will dry up a bit into an ethereal jazzy chord melody accompaniment for their sparse yet perfect vocals. The thing about this band is that they never try to do too much.

They have finesse. Their sound conjures up so many different musical styles without ever going completely into any particular one. They make it seem so effortless, as if they were born to do exactly what they do. Like an autonomic process requiring no thought, Khruangbin seems to stir their melodious melting pot as easily as the rest of us breathe.

Mark Speer’s musical influences

I was first drawn to Khruangbin when I would often feel the African guitar influence in Mark Speer’s style. There is not simply one African guitar style by any means. But, the first time I began listening to African music, such as Ali Farka Toure or Fela Kuti, I heard the distinct approach to a guitar’s role and function in the wider context of a band. But I also heard other things in Khruangbin’s sound I did not recognize. Let’s take a quick peek at some of the musicians and world music traditions which Mark Speer brings to Khruangbin’s sound.

Vọng cổ

At times, Mark Speer recreates sounds he finds in folkloric music you’ll never hear in your lifetime without actively searching for it. One of those is vọng cổ. I personally had a high opinion of my own world music knowledge and tastes. Mark Speer has introduced me to so many new sounds. The guitar of the vọng cổ style has very deep scalloped frets, enabling the musician to bend the notes, creating a sound that would otherwise require a tremolo for any musician to even approximate.

Franco Luambo

African guitar players are the world’s best guitarists. Period. Go ahead, say something! You don’t want to fight me on this, brah. I could never be a journalist because when I really love something I cannot be objective. This IS an opinion piece, remind you. But seriously, if you have not explored African music, there is another treasure trove awaiting you. One of my favs is Orchestre Baobab. Make a Pandora station based on them and let your mind be blown by all the related bands you’ll hear and all the guitar playing will leave you dumbstruck. This guy, Franco Luambo, is no exception and a big influence named by Mark Speer.

Selam Seyoum

The krar: an Ethiopan musical instrument

How I cheated to write this article….

There’s a great Youtube video in which the cool cats of Khruangbin describe their musical influences. I watched it at least three times. Because I love this band so much, I thought it would be cool to give a bit of elaboration on some of the influences Mark Speer mentions. I’d be simply a thief to not point the reader to this video because it’s where I got all my pertinent information. They speak to their music much more eloquently than I ever could. Here you go, kids! Drink it in.

The video that inspired this article.

Guitarists who give me goosebumps

Mark Speer’s guitar has given me goosebumps more than once. Back in the day…….the first musician who seriously put a spell on me was The Edge. He made colossal soundscapes on U2’s amazing Live Under A Blood Red Sky. It’s still my favourite live album…. of all time! It affected my musical taste and playing style for life. It was the cassette tape soundtrack of my 1971 sky blue Volkswagen Bug all through high school, my 1970 4-speed Camaro in Freshman year of college, in my beautiful FIAT Spyder convertible the rest of the way through college, and in my old, rustic, cool Dodge Dart in grad school. I went through so many changes, became a new person and morphed into new political, intellectual, and social identities. But I never outgrew Live Under A Blood Red Sky.

It never failed to give me goosebumps. As soon as I could afford it with my new fellowship stipend, I got an effects pedal with chorus, distortion, and (most importantly) delay to create my own sound. Much like what Mark Speer does now, I added a dash of everything else I’d heard that grabbed me by the soul: Jimi Hendrix and Robert Smith (The Cure) most notably but among many others.

The timelessness of Mark Speer’s guitar playing.

Khruangbin’s music has some serious staying power. There’s nothing cliché or gimmicky about them and I can see how their entire discography will have a long shelf-life. In fact, there will be a whole generation of guitarists that points back to this guy, Mark Speer, as the one musician who put a spell on them, who had the biggest influence on their sound, and who encouraged them to explore world music. It’s been a long time since I had a genuine guitar hero, one that captured my imagination the way Mark Speer does. Thanks, man! Let me make a guitar for you some day!?!

Johnny Hart

Public school teacher dropout turned luthier and artist. I want to make guitars I’ve never seen or heard anywhere, ever before, for the curator of the uncommon! I could never find my dream guitar, so I decided to make it and now I want to make yours.

https://hartsguitars.com/

Who is Mark Speer?!
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Hart’s Guitars

Some previous articles from Hart’s Guitars

Fluteholes

by johNy corazÓn April 3, 2023

The best guitar strings for you and your instrument.

by johNy corazÓn January 2, 2023

015 All mahogany nylon string, one-of-a-kind guitar.

by johNy corazÓn December 9, 2021

Guitar 014: a Brazilian rosewood Madame de Goni style guitar – 1840s C.F. Martin tribute.

by johNy corazÓn December 7, 2021

Wade Lowe, Atlanta luthier, was an inspiration for many wanting to learn the art.

by johNy corazÓn February 26, 2021

011. The Classikulele.

by johNy corazÓn July 17, 2020

Guitar 001

by johNy corazÓn July 16, 2020

Guitar 010. The Bird.

by johNy corazÓn June 6, 2020

Billy’s finished 1869 Francisco Gonzalez classical guitar.

by johNy corazÓn March 31, 2020

A classical and acoustic guitar setup guide.

by johNy corazÓn March 27, 2020

Jeffrey’s finished classical guitar.

by johNy corazÓn March 21, 2020

Hart’s Guitars to skip weekend markets until further notice.

by johNy corazÓn March 12, 2020

009. Billy builds an 1869 Francisco Gonzalez classical at Hart’s Guitars. Pt. 1

by johNy corazÓn February 20, 2020

Join the waiting list to have your own custom nylon string guitar built by me!*

Prices start at $3500 and vary depending on wood selection.*

*Currently a 4-month waiting period for your guitar’s delivery.

I can make your guitar at standard scale or shorter for smaller hands/easier playability.

*Current wood choices include:

Backs and sides: Brazilian Rosewood, Mahogany, Bird’s Eye Maple, Black Walnut, Padauk, and more

Soundboards: European Spruce, Western Red Cedar both dried for minimum 50 years. Mahogany! (We’ve made many Mahogany top guitars and Love-Love-Love them! They have a deeper, punchy low end, mellow sound. Great for finding an unheard of sound in the studio).

Fretboards: Brazilian Rosewood, Ebony, Macassar Ebony, Maple, Bird’s Eye Maple, Indian Rosewood, Padauk, Black Walnut, Bolivian Rosewood, Canary Wood

Posted on December 9, 2021January 1, 2023 by johNy corazÓn — Leave a comment

015 All mahogany nylon string, one-of-a-kind guitar.

An all-mahogany guitar!?… Really?… Why?

All-mahogany guitars have an incomparable sound. Mahogany has been used in instruments for quite some time. Normally, it is used for backs, sides, and necks on guitars. I’ve only seen five or six all-mahogany guitars in my life and four of them are ones that I’ve made right here, at Hart’s Guitars. I love the tone of mahogany and the bass-y well-roundedness of those instruments. I have three guitars I cherish and adore….. and every single one of them is an all-mahogany guitar.

All-mahogany guitars, distinctiveness, and more.

We can’t produce entry-level, budget guitars.

I really never plan to make guitars anyone can buy in a big box music store. Factories churn out instruments so easily that there are literally millions of guitars in stores right now that are: pretty, decently playable, and cheap. So, if you’re shopping for a first time guitar but somehow landed on my website, I’m sorry to say the economical cards are stacked against me. I just won’t have anything to offer you.

If you need a first-timer guitar, just Google search or go to any Guitar Center with $300 and you’ll find one to be satisfied with. Most likely that price is including a case or a gig bag. You might even go home with some change in your pocket! I cannot compete with that. Indeed I would lose myself on a fool’s errand quickly if I even try to make a budget factory guitar clone. I have none of the tooling, infrastructure, or skilled labor they have. I’m stuck with making hand-made, single-edition artisan instruments with old-fashioned hand tools.

Hart’s Guitars sells artstruments.

What sort of guitars do I make? The only kind of guitar I will ever make is the one that has no equal anywhere else in the world. My passion is making single-production, 100% unique, inimitable art-struments. This is not meant to come across as high-brow, cocky exceptionalism even though I can see how it could if read out of context from my entire blog writing content. There’s a simple explanation for why I created this term to describe Hart’s Guitars products.

When it’s not being payed, this guitar will be, I hope, of the most elegant conversational pieces hanging in your home.
John hart

My ideal client is the discriminating buyer seeking something undeniably special to add to their most cherished possessions. If you’re looking for a truly unique guitar for yourself, a special someone, or to add to your impeccable collection, then I may have something available for you. If I don’t currently have something you want but you can tell my style is right for you, I am open to doing custom builds specifically for your needs (as long as your needs don’t include replicating a factory guitar that’s already been done).

artisan classical guitars by Hart's Guitars — **a few examples of my building style**

On to the topic at hand

This particular guitar (number 015) is perhaps the pure embodiment of my building philosophy. It is the intersection of art and science. Under the hood, traditional building techniques are the strong motor and chasis of this machine. The exterior form is shaped asymmetrically using the Golden ratio as much/wherever as possible. It’s a design I’ve created myself using straight edge, compass, and french curve templates. I’m obviously a fan of Victorian voluptuous design. This guitar will cuddle with you.

all-mahogany guitar by Hart's Guitars — Classical guitar under the hood, sumptuous lap-companion nylon string beauty on the outside.

Back, top, sides: Mahogany
Binding: flaming Maple
- Fretboard: Padauk

The Sound

Not exactly a studio recording here, but it can paint a picture of the beautiful music you’ll make with this instrument.

This guitar has a clear, warm, and full tone. It’s malleable to many playing styles and thus suitable for singer-songwriters, couch to porch guitarists, jazz musicians, and classical players wanting a non-traditional classical (nylon string) guitar. Let’s dive in a little….

Volume.

The loudest guitars are steel-string dreadnoughts with spruce tops and those are the best if you’re going down to the campfire kegger hootenanny to play with 17 other pickers (who also have loud spruce-top dreadnoughts or banjos which are even louder). This guitar has been adorned with all mahogany and nylon strings, giving the instrument a completely unique tone and use case, well-suited for use by solo players/singers or with smaller numbers of more finessed playing. Of course, you can have a pickup installed later and then it could be suitable for playing loudly at your first MerleFest or Bonaroo performance.

Sustain.

This guitar has lovely, balanced sustain, meaning that the decay time for a given note or chord held is lengthy. I attribute this to the thicker than normal mahogany top plate and taller bracing underneath.

Evenness.

Sometimes instruments will produce more volume at different fret ranges on the neck or sometimes one or two open strings might produce louder volumes even when these notes are given the same force when played. This guitar has a decidedly even output all up and down the fretboard and with all open notes as well. This is because of the thick top and tall bracing that also produce the sustain mentioned above.

Balance.

Does an instrument produce more output in the bass, in the treble, the bass and treble, midrange only, or is there a broad tonal balance? Some of my favorite guitars that I’ve made have a lot of emphasis in the bass range. That’s because, personally, I do love a heavy bass tone because I like to play jazz chords while using my thumb to mimic walking notes a bass player might play. While this guitar does produce a very nice bass range, it is not stronger than the other ranges. This one has a demonstrably even distribution making it great for singing strummers and finger-pick blues and jazz players alike: appropriate lows, even mids, and crisp highs.

The Wood

I acquired this wood from Carlton McClendon’s Rare Woods and Veneers right here in Atlanta. If you’ve never been, you owe it to yourself to check them out if you have any need for top-shelf wood for your home or woodworking projects. Plan on staying a couple of hours! You will.

Kasha-style bracing? what the…..?

Underneath the soundboard, I have used a bracing style invented by Dr. Michael Kasha in the 1970s. Here is a link to this unusual approach at soundboard bracing. There are very, very few guitars around with this style of bracing because it adds a lot of extra time to the process. But, it produces an evenness in the soundboard and an overall unique quality, adding one more detail to this instrument which makes it rare. I’ve attached a “deep dive” .pdf at the end of this article for anyone wanting more info on classical guitar bracing styles.

Kasha-style bracing by Hart's Guitars — *The Guild of American Luthiers has lots of instrument plans, including this one I used for making the pieces for the Kasha bracing.*

It almost looks like a city in there

If you seek an out of the ordinary instrument that has no equal anywhere in the world, a one-off artisan guitar sculpted and refined by a single pair of hands over 9 months using only top-shelf tonewood, then please add this one to your list of things to see on your quest of curating the uncommon.
$3600

A Deep dive into classical guitar bracing styles

classicalsoundboardsbracing Download

Other items for sale

Madame de Goni Brailian Rosewood classical guitar. $9125

Art pieces for sale

When I’m not gluing together pieces of wood into a guitar, I like to paint and make things with wood. I have a few items for sale.

Sold

Paintings $130 – $420 some with and some without frames. If interested please e-mail me.

Posted on December 7, 2021August 3, 2022 by johNy corazÓn — 1 Comment

Guitar 014: a Brazilian rosewood Madame de Goni style guitar – 1840s C.F. Martin tribute.

For this instrument, I decided to make a guitar in the style of an 1840s Martin. In those days, there was a lady named Madame de Goni who toured around the United States playing music on a guitar that would have been the size and shape of the instrument I present very proudly to the world today. Thus, I’ve developed a tendency to refer to it as the DeGoni guitar (or the Madame de Goni guitar).

Soundboard – Western red cedar drying for over 50 years.
Fretboard – Brazilian rosewood drying for over 100 years..
Sides – Brazilian rosewood from the same stock.
Back – Brazilian rosewood ” ” ” “.
Binding – flaming maple
Rosette – traditional Spanish rosette encircled by numerous rings of various species.

Even if you’re not a luthier or guitar player, this coffee table book is a page-turner for anyone who appreciates nice things.

The vision of this guitar began forming back in the spring of this year (2021). I purchased a beautiful book, Inventing the American Guitar, to add to my ever-growing library of luthier and woodworking related reference materials. I’m particularly fond of the craftsmanship of earlier times and this book has a plethora of images demonstrating instruments that are nothing less than works of art and what some might justifiably call lutherie porn. Nearly two-thirds of the way into the chronological display of how the modern guitar evolved from the romantic era Spanish-American guitar, there is an entire chapter dedicated to the story of Madame DeGoni. I fell in love immediately and months later I’m happy to present the guitar I might have made for the touring charmer if I had be asked to do so.

A status update sort of pic I took back in September is the best shot I have because the light in the room was perfect.

Flaming maple/Brazilian rosewood outer rings with small blocks of canary wood, chakte viga and maple.

C.F. Martin made a special guitar for Madame De Goni and it was not the typical Spanish fan-bracing soundboard but a prototype for what would turn into the famous (and some say revolutionary) x-bracing soundboard reinforcement which was codified by the 1850s and is used to this very day!

María Delores Asturias y Navarres de Goni (1813-1892)

The famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow attended a house concert in Boston, Massachusettes in 1842. In two different letters he wrote days later it is obvious that the lady from Spain charmed his auditory as well as his visual tickle spots:

There is a sweet Spanish woman here, playing the guitar, La Señora de Gony,-delicious.” –La Señora de Gony, whose guitar delights me more, perhaps because it awakens sweet remembrances of early youth and Spain;-perhaps because a woman plays it, and the devil is in it.

Which one would Madame de Goni pick if she had been given the choice? Discuss.

I really made the best attempt I could to make this guitar feel and look like it was snatched up during a time travel drive by of the 1840s. I went so far as to give the finish the appearance of an antique guitar that had been retouched and refinished through the years. I really had a lot of fun with this one.

This De Goni tribute is made by simply the best wood possible. I’m pretty sure I could not be any more fortunate than I currently am with the wood I have at my disposal. For the soundboard, classical guitars are overwhelmingly made using either spruce or western red cedar. In the spring of this year, I acquired a collection of wood that has me set up with the finest tonewood which I can use to make guitars for the rest of my life, most likely. A local luthier named Wade Lowe passed away earlier in the year and I was indeed a fortunate soul, one of the few chosen to view his immaculate collection of wood his family was selling that he built for himself as a luthier and woodworker.

All of those darker pieces are Brazilian rosewood, an endangered species of wood cherished for the life it brings to stringed musical instruments.

for a little more on the topic: https://sheshreds.com/martin-guitars/

For sale now at Village Music in downtown Avondale Estates in Decatur, Georgia.
Village Music

If you seek an out of the ordinary instrument that has no equal anywhere in the world, a one-off artisan guitar sculpted and refined by a single pair of hands over 6 months using top-shelf tonewood, then please add this one to your list of things to see on your quest of curating the uncommon.
$9125

Posted on June 6, 2020December 31, 2022 by johNy corazÓn — Leave a comment

Guitar 010. The Bird.

I began this making this guitar alongside a student building his in February. Then a pandemic came. We focused on finishing his. To say the least, it has been a very strange gap between my last post and what I have to share today, which is a small gigantic milestone. I want to celebrate the fact that I’ve made 10 guitars.

But, aside from this being a trivial matter considering the moment we find ourselves in, there just really isn’t any reason why the number ten should be any more meaningful than 9. In fact, in some regards, the number 9 is a sacred number (in the Bible and also in other major religious texts and traditions). But, I digress. Let’s get to the pics, shall we.

Hart’s Guitars Ltd Co is back in full swing. Don from Brunswick is coming next week to stay here at The Bamboozle and build a guitar using plans based on an 1864 model of Antonio de Torres, an unrivaled and revolutionary figure in the world of 19th century classical guitar luthiers.

When I get a new set of plans…I trace all the parts, transfer the trace paper to the pieces of wood, cut and sand to shape.

Then I need to make a monstrosity of a jig to bend the sides.

I spend about an entire day building this “side bending machine” for each different guitar.

The guitar is from a set of plans for an 1867 Francisco Gonzalez and he had a much more flamboyant rosette and binding style than most guitars we see today. My intent to make this one in his style really got off to a slow, then ugly start. I almost threw the soundboard away.

I was not even close to happy with the way this was developing. I screwed up. The outer ring is made up of three slices of different species of wood bent to circles. From the outer layer goin in: Brazilian Rosewood, Spanish Cedar, Cocobolo Rosewood. You can see that some of the pieces were damaged especially in the 3 o’clock range. I’ve read that the secret to becoming a better luthier is to become better at covering your mistakes. So, I stayed with it and I’m surely glad I did because I am so proud to say that I turned it into this….

The big slightly raised outer ring is mahogany with a thing edge of Brazilian Rosewood.

The soundboard is Alaskan Yellow Cedar. The binding that flows along its perimeter is made up of three thin strips of different species of wood that I spent forever and a day cutting, sanding and re-sanding, throwing away, re-cutting and sanding (Cocobolo Rosewood, Maple, & Chakte Viga). They meet up at the corner with with a beautifully made vintage strip of binding I found at a local exotic-wood shop, Carlton’s Rare Woods and Veneers.. The sides of the guitar is bird’s eye maple. I’m beyond satisfied with how this all turned out aesthetically. It added a week to the job of building this instrument, but in my attempt to balance the art and the science of being a luthier, I’ll always have my scales tipped to the art side.

A while back I asked people to vote for the fingerboard to be used. It was a very contested result, split down the middle between choices B and D. So, I threw the results out the window and went with the canary wood, E.

The headstock just stands out better with this fingerboard, Choice E.

ALong the way, I had to get a new bandsaw blade, one of the costs of doing business..It was my first foray into Covid-19 land adventuring that was anything more complicated than a grocery store run.

This has been a fun one to play and it sounds really distinct. I’m still letting it “settle in” which is a phenomenon that takes place over a few weeks and longer wherein the instrument plays and sounds a little better with every passing day as you make micro adjustments. It will be available for sale with all of the others, except 001 of course, in the coming days on a newly designed store page, with prices and photo montage videos with audio of the instrument being played.

This instrument sounds amazing. I am ready to sell it with no hesitation for $1795. This is quite a bargain for anyone who knows what hand-crafted guitars go for usually or have seen websites that sell independent-luthier handcrafted classicals. I will personally deliver within a 2 hr radius of Atlanta, GA for gas money and lunch. Honestly, I hate the thought of my instrument sitting in a place where it’s not cherished. If you have buyer’s remorse, there’s a no questions asked 30-day 100% money back guarantee. After that, a lifetime guarantee on anything other than normal wear and tear.

Posted on March 31, 2020August 3, 2022 by johNy corazÓn — 1 Comment

Billy’s finished 1869 Francisco Gonzalez classical guitar.

Only days after we began our journey together, it became clear that Corvid-19 was no longer a warning but a guarantee. Billy and I decided we’d continue to do the class. I had some hand sanitizer and we kept our 1 Joey Ramone distance 90% of the time. Last night he took this beautiful instrument to show to his wife and kids: a Spruce top with Limba back and sides and a Brazilian Rosewood fretboard. The guitar was built from plans from the Guild of American Luthiers of an 1869 Francisco Gonzalez classic.

The Guild of American Luthiers has some nice plans to pick from.

I can’t believe we made this. Thank you so much for this amazing experience.
Billy H.

Billy tunes his guitar for the first time.

A bit of a recap on our work together

Over the course of the first week, Billy and I accomplished a TON of items on the list to make his guitar. Then, I had to go home to Greenville, SC to take my mom to the doctor and spend a couple of days up there. When I returned, I fell ill for several days (not with Covid-19) and only days before the Coronavirus became an inevitability. After some delay, we were able to get back to work. Seeing the near future clearly in front of us and the disruption to modern life that was shaping up, we decided to just be casual with our approach, in no hurry. I advertise my guitar building intensive as a 7-day course. That flew out the window and we added to our projects the process of French-polishing our instruments. So, this also added a but more time to the process.

As we worked, we realized there was a lot of common ground in our life experiences. Days flew by quickly. Billy said he’d picked up so many skills that would be useful in his daily life and other projects. That is such a gratifying thing to hear as it’s what has been my wish all along from the beginning, when this hole business was just a daydream.

Template for the guitar in the foreground, soundbars have been cut and roughly shaped.

With the soundboard voicing, we really took our time and did things right. Those tonebars are very important in determining the character of a guitar’s sound. Some have said they could listen to a classical guitar played while blindfolded and name the luthier who built it. Billy and I decided to take an online course together on guitar top voicing.

Then it was time to bend the sides. It was the first time I had ever worked with Limba. I made a form to bend our sides. Heat is applied to the thin piece of wood using a thermal blanket with a temp controller.

This took about a day to make.I could have bought one for several hundred$, but I’m poor, so…….

Using clamps to hold the sides in place and square to the soundboard, we installed the kerfing.

With the sides attached, and glue drying, Billy now has to carve more cross strut braces for the back. The back will be entirely domed in a 25′ radius dish. It’s a process of sanding which involves pushing and pulling the back all around the dish until it takes on the domed shape.

Back to doing one of his favorite tasks in guitar building using one of his favorite tools, Billy uses the finger plane and shapes the braces for the back of the guitar.

Attaching the back……

Attaching the back is always a nerve-wrecking endeavor, at least for me. This time I decided to make some new spool clamps to aid in the process. Normally, keeping the back tight to the body while the glue sets is done using a number of clamps. That number is every clamp you have available in the shop. Plus rope. And a cinderblock on top. Here’s how a made the new spool clamps.

Cut a 1 1/4″ dowel into 2x the number of clamps you’re making.

With the back in place, we move on to routing out the channels for binding, which is used to protect the edges of the top and back. Binding is also an area where some luthiers give a special touch, their own signature in the way they pick colours and textures.

This is actually the Goya G-10 Jeffrey built, but it shows the routing of the binding channels. It has to be precise or it will be an unpredictable outcome.

Making the fretboard

Making the fretboard is a task. First, usually the piece of wood you plan to use is in the form of a short and slim board, called a “billet.” This particular billet was locked away in a special closet at Carlton’s Rare Woods and Veneers. It has been sitting in that closet since the 1970s. It’s a special collection of Brazilian Rosewood, which is now prohibited from being imported. There are many legal issues surrounding this wood including travel restrictions. Here is a good article on the endangered wood, Dalbergia nigra.

Brazilian Rosewood has a nice fragrant aroma when cut, sanded, planed, scraped. In fact, the tree used to be harvested to make perfume and because it took massive amounts of the wood to extract a tiny bit of oil, the tree became endangered as it was already beloved by luthiers and furniture makers.

Early on in the process, Day 1 I’m sure, we planed this beauty down to be trued and squared in two adjoining sides. This way, it will be cut with precision by the bandsaw. Otherwise, it comes out ugly because the bandsaw will make it wavygravy. Not groovy!

Without taking any pics of the fret slot cutting and installation, we were able to get to this point nonetheless.

So the final stage was a lot of sanding, pore-filling, sanding, pore-filling, and. Billy was a great student, a sponge for valuable and pertinent lutherie information. He was eager to learn and do a French-Polish finish for his guitar, which is not normally a part of the guitar building intensive. But, with nothing but time on our hands, I was more than happy to learn it with him. He ended up being my teacher in some moments. Here’s a slideshow.

If you missed it, read part 1 of this story.

Posted on March 21, 2020March 23, 2020 by johNy corazÓn — 2 Comments

Jeffrey’s finished classical guitar.

At 2:20 am this morning, Jeffrey and I made the last incision into the depth of his high E nut slot to bring the string’s action down at the lower frets 1-3. And…..we were “finished.” HAHAHAHA. If you’ve ever made anything with your hands where you’ve put a lot of time and energy, you know that no such project is every really “finished.” Here’s a shot from around 1:45 a.m., the moment we had been waiting for since we began the journey: bringing out the color of that granadillo and mahogany to its full richness and depth. It was late and the only way we could see it was under the shop lights, which aren’t bad but definitely don’t give the same hues the Sun will.

In South America, it is highly regarded as the best tonewood choice for marimba and xylophone bones and is often referenced as “La Madera Que Canta” (“wood that sings”).

In the shop, it was the beginning of guitar 008 but Jeff was student 001 at Hart’s Guitar’s School of Lutherie guitar building intensive. Along the way, I learned that the body style Jeff was building, a Goya G-10 (classical guitar made in Switzerland in the 1950s), is the same guitar, the very SAME! guitar, held by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Jeffrey selected wood that makes it look pretty distinct from that famous guitar. We love the shape and size. It feels so good in your hands. Also, the scale length is 630 mm instead of 650 (which is .78″ or about ¾”). That difference of ¾” is enough to make a world of difference when it comes to playing a guitar. The standard for classical guitars has always been 650 mm (25 ½” roughly). Quick fact: Not everyone’s hands are the same size. Countless people have probably not had success in learning to play guitar because this standard scale length made learning not pleasant for their hands. At Hart’s Guitars, we can build your guitar perfectly sized to fit you.

A very cool guitar. With a few questions and measurements using your thumb and pinky, I can determine the best scale length for your guitar and we can build it to fit **your** hands!

We worked mostly on the weekends and a few weeknights. We began in early January. Jeffrey was a great student with cabinetmaking woodworking experience. He picked some really nice wood on our trip to Carlton’s Rare Woods and Veneers.

There’s no such thing as too many clamps!
Tons of scraping and sanding to remove glue squeeze out and blemishes.
Jeffrey’s newfound love: card scrapers.
Filing, shaping, sculpting the neck.
Applying Mahoney’s Oil Wax Finish
Coming down to the finish line around 1:30 am.
Cocobolo binding with granadillo back and sides.
Mahogany neck and headstock veneers. Installing the tuners.
Playing the first chord.
Wowee! Look at that beautiful thing. Mahogany top. Granadillo back, sides, and fretboard..Mahogany gives a really special response in the bass range and has been my favorite tone wood.

My first student at Hart’s Guitar’s Co. Ltd has been a friend of mine for a long time. His wife bought him a spot in my guitar building intensive as what must be the coolest Christmas gift ever for anyone who plays guitar. We’ve had so much fun reliving the time we knew each other Athens, GA where we met. For a short while we were even roommates sometime around the year 1999 or so.

We decided on his first visit to the shop that we’d be building a Goya G-10. The Goya brand name was initially used by Hershman Musical Instrument Company of New York City in mid 1950’s for acoustic guitars made in Sweden by Levin, particularly known for its classical guitars. In the 1970s, CF Martin (Martin guitars) bought the company and kept producing guitars under the brand name until the 90s. The “Goya” name comes from Francisco Jose de Goya, the famous 18th century Spanish painter known as the father of modern art (Francisco drew a lot of Spanish guitar players too). There’s a Goya G-10, made in Sweden, hanging in my house that belongs to my lovely girlfriend and it’s a beautiful antique instrument that plays like a dream.

Jeffrey has woodworking experience so it’s been a joy to give him basic instruction and watch his mirror neurons replicate through his hands exactly what I’ve demonstrated. He’s putting together quite a fantastic instrument.

Jeffrey’s Goya G-10 will be made with Grenadillo back and sides. It’s a very hard wood.

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Posted on February 16, 2020March 23, 2020 by johNy corazÓn — 1 Comment