Now that the new year has arrived, my thoughts turn to what exhibitions I will be attending this year. Actually, I’ve been thinking about this for several months now, and in particular, what my exhibition guitar will be this year. In recent years there has been an increasing amount of interest in shorter scale length…

Some stuff about tonewoods… What is a tonewood? A tonewood is any timber that has appropriate acoustic properties for musical instrument making. In terms of tonewoods, by far the most critical part of a guitar is the top (soundboard). There are a number of properties that a good tonewood should have. It should be stable…

What are struts (braces)?   The struts are lengths of wood glued to the inside of the top (soundboard), which act to support the top against the tension of the strings, and to control the overall sound that the guitar produces. They are usually made of the same material as the top, although often cedar…

Just returned from the West Dean Guitar Festival. Had an enjoyable time as always, much of it spent chatting to other luthiers! Highlights were mostly provided by the great Pavel Steidl, who gave a wonderful performance on the Saturday evening, and then tried one of my guitars at the exhibition (a spruce/rosewood guitar), and was…

Travelling to Belgium for the Cordefactum Guitar Festival this weekend. I will have 2 guitars with me – one spruce/Indian rosewood, and the other is an all non-tropical woods guitar (walnut/spruce), photo below. I’m also happy to say that Marcin Dylla will be playing the spruce/maple guitar he has on loan in the Saturday evening concert. James

An increasingly popular feature on my guitars (and others) is the armrest. Armrests serve two functions – firstly they improve playing comfort for the player, by providing a smoothly curved surface for the right arm to rest on, rather than the edge of the guitar, which is usually only very slightly rounded or beveled. The…

Way back in February I did an interview for Classical Guitar Magazine, and had almost forgotten about it, but it has finally been published in the latest (Fall) issue, featuring Laura Snowden on the cover. So far I’ve been fairly impressed with the new incarnation of CG magazine. It’s nice to have more colour, and…

Off to the West Dean Guitar Festival this weekend. I will have just 2 guitars with me – the Romanillos model shown in the Galleries here, and the spruce/maple Torres model shown below. If you’re at West Dean on Sunday, come and say hello! James

Most of my guitars now use 12-hole tie-blocks, rather than the traditional 6-holes. There are a few advantages – they look neater, the basses are very simple to tie, and they give a more consistent and slightly larger break angle for the strings over the saddle. However, although the basses are very simple to tie,…