Wilson Burnham Guitars

Top thickness is, along with bracing, the most debated and tinkered-with area of guitar making. Ervin Somogyi, Guitar maker, 2013 How thick to make a classical guitar's top is a subject of heated debate. I know, other makers, and amateur classical guitarists, have argued at me about top thickness. I see no point in arguing about top thicknesses, either you like my guitars or you don't. You are suppose to buy the guitar you love. I found the following tidbit of information in Ervin Somogyi's Specific Top Thickness in the Guitar : ...Mr. Tatay motioned the young Newberry over to his workbench and, using hand gestures and some coins, indicated to him that the secret to his lutherie was to make the guitar top about the thickness of a nickel in the middle, and the thickness of a dime at the edges. These two coins have been in my jean's pocket for the last two weeks, so I can pull them out throughout the day and feel how thick they are between my thumb and for

The United States is the world's largest producer and consumer of wood products harvesting about 350 million tons of round wood annually. Forest Products Laboratory, USDA Forest Service When I dismantled the old workshop I made sure that I inspected every stick of wood that came out of the building to see if it could be used in making a guitar. There wasn't much, most of the Douglas fir 2x4's were too knotty or had amazing amounts of runout to be used, all of that went into constructing the new tool shed. I did find a couple of 2x4's that were white fir, abies concolor , that showed some promise. I cut out the parts that looked good and split them, the failure rate was pretty high, lots of run out. One piece that is suitable has the old sawmill stamp on it, I believe it is a West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau stamp. I went to their website, click here , and found that Mill 74 is no longer in operation. This piece of wood is definitely white fir! The old wo

I am slowly dragging myself into the 21st century, I just reactivated my Instagram account. Look for highcountrylutherie on Instagram for daily updates on what I am working on in my shop, mostly guitars, though I may post about something else. I would put a "link to button" for Instagram on this blog, but the directions I found this morning on Blogger Help didn't work, and the websites that were suggested for add-ons, well, their platforms were for everything else but Blogger. Sigh. I need to hire a web designer. I have a Facebook page, too, Wilson Burnham Guitars, but that really isn't much different than Instagram or this blog. You won't find me on Twitter, I can't limit myself to just 140 characters because in college I studied creative writing with Bill Kittredge , Sandra Alcosser , Paul Zarsyski , William Pitt Root and the late Patricia Goedicke . Now, back to work!

A snowflake is one of God's most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together! Author Unknown Cold weather and snow delayed me in getting down the corrugate tin roofing on the new workshop. January 3rd proved to be a day of snow flurries and sunshine which at least allowed me to install the roofing. Then it snowed six inches. The temperature fell to -5 degrees Fahrenheit and it kept snowing... ...until there was 22 inches of snow on the ground. And the temperature fell some more to register -14 degrees Fahrenheit on the thermometer. Yesterday, the temps warmed up to 36 degrees Fahrenheit with the wind gusting up to 50 mph and we lost power for about two hours. This morning we woke up to rain and warmer weather. I am very glad that I got the new workshop "dried in" before all this snow fell. The high reached 40 degrees today with rain and snow flurries, there is a good six inches of slush underneath all the snow. No wind to spe

Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in infering that he is an inexact man. Every careful measurement in science is always given with the probable error ... every observer admits that he is likely wrong, and knows about how much wrong he is likely to be. Bertrand Russell, in The Scientific Outlook , 1931 When I first started making guitars, Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology , by Cumpiano and Natelson, was my best guide. One problem I ran into with this book is that the authors recommend using a machinist's ruler graduated in tenths of an inch to use in making a guitar. At the time, I had a hard time finding an affordable machinist's ruler that was longer than 24 inches, I ended up buying a double sided ruler, both imperial and metric, from Bridge City Tools. As I did more research into classical guitar construction I discovered most