Wilson Burnham Guitars

How's this for a workshop! The Rocky Mountain Mammoth Mine on the western edge of the Magnolia Mining District. The Rocky Mountain Mammoth Mine Shaft House, built circa 1900 Stove pipe on the cabin and aspens Looking north towards Sugarloaf

I handed over "Paquita" to Julia this afternoon. I met her on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder at the Imig Music Building were we able to find a room for Julia to try out her new guitar. That's Julia's daughter in the background in the chair. Here the first video: More videos and recordings of Julia and her guitar to come!

As promised, here are some color photos of Julia's new guitar A front view. The back. A close up of the top. A photo of her guitar compared to a guitar that is made on a Robert Bouchet plantilla . I suppose I should call this Julia's 1929 Santos Hernandez in that it is very similar in size to a guitar that Santos made in 1929. Her guitar is practically the same, the difference is only a few millimeters. Click here to go to Kent Guitar Classics to learn about a 1929 Santos Hernandez.

For me the guitar has always been a beautiful instrument as a medium of expression, and my attachment to it continues to increase with the years. Alexander Bellow, The Illustrated History of the Guitar , 1970 I got up at 5am like I usually do, fed the dogs and the cats, took the dogs for a 40 minute walk up the gulch and then I went to the studio and started working on Julia's guitar. I leveled, re-crowned and polished the frets; made and installed a label; made a nut and saddle from some pre-ban elephant ivory; installed the premium and, to me, luxurious Gotoh tuning machines; strung the guitar and then adjusted the action. All that work took me eight hours. The rewards for that time are truly outstanding, this is the loudest, most robust Spanish sounding guitar that I have made to date! Loud, with a sweet voice; a wonderful separation of strings, very uniform across the fret board. I have played a few truly responsive guitars as a player, in about six months of hard playi

Gold is where you find it, silver comes in ledges. An old Western mining saying. My latest project is to preserve and restore the cabin on the Rocky Mountain Mammoth mine. The original cabin, built in 1898 is to the right of the photo, the porch is attached to it. The "L" in the background was added on in the early 1930's. The Rocky Mountain Mammoth Mine was worked in the late 1890's during a mining boom in Colorado, it was never a large producer and the ore that came out was of a low grade. Around 1905 the mining boom petered out and the mine was silent until the 1930's when gold prices were standardized in the Great Depression. The mine was worked for a couple of years during the Depression and then no more work was done. The cabin became a summer residence for the owners of the mine. The shaft house is still standing, it will get some preservation work done on it next year. The building is very simply constructed: sill plate was placed on dry lai