Wilson Burnham Guitars

. ..the graceful lines and the splendor of the guitar's body possessed my heart as swiftly as would the features of a heaven-sent woman suddenly appearing to become the loving companion of a lifetime. Andres Segovia, Andres Segovia, An Autobiography of the years 1893-1920 , 1976 I made this neck more than a few years back with the intent of building a nice guitar with a 640mm scale length. It languished in "the wood pile" until recently when I pulled it out and paired it with a back and side set of curly black walnut. The walnut bent like a dream and unlike some walnut that I have worked with in the past, it didn't spring back, a definite bonus! I thinned the sides down to 3/32" and the waist area down to a tad less that 1/16" to help with the bending process. I find with walnut that the bending iron temperature needs to be between 350-375 degrees Fahrenheit, any hotter and the wood gets too bitter and will fail. I have disco

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: "What do you seek?" "Enlightenment," replied Daiju. "You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?" Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house." Daiju was enlightened!  Ever after he urged his friends: "Open your own treasure house and use those treasures."  from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones , complied by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, 1957 "What maker did you study with? What was his name?" This was a question I often get when I attend guitar festivals as a vendor. "Myself," was my reply. "Really? How?" "I read a few books on guitar making, pulled out some old tools I inherited, bought some wood and went at it," I replied. "Wow! Really? How did you know how work the wood into a guitar? I don't think I could make anything like this

When I first started down the road of lutherie back in 1992, I had several spectacular finish failures. Some where I had read that you could use tung oil on a mountain dulcimer, and I found out that you can, but it killed the sound of that very first dulcimer. I hung it up on the wall. All the wood working books and catalogs of the era seemed to state that wipe-on finishes were the best, or that it was better to buy some fancy brush-on finish that self-leveled was best to use on guitars and dulcimers. I bought brush-on varnish from a big name wood finish supplier and smeared it all over a "custom" dulcimer I made for a friend. I level sanded with wet/dry sandpaper and mineral spirits, but no matter what I did, the white dust from sanding adhered itself to every little nook and corner of the dulcimer. No matter how hard I tried I could not get rid of the white dust specks. My friend like the instrument anyway and was very happy with it. After making several dulcimers I too

Among God's creatures two, the dog and the guitar, have taken all the sizes and all the shapes, in order not to be separated from the man. Andres Segovia, classical guitarist Early this year, a young composer/guitarist asked me if I would make him an eight string guitar, the so-called "Brahms", or cello, guitar. It has an extra treble string and bass string, this extends the musical range of the classical guitar in a tremendous way. This guitar was developed in 1994 by the luthier David Rubio for the guitarist Paul Galbraith, and if you wish to read more about how this guitar came into existence, please go to  Wikipedia  or Paul Galbraith's website to learn more. There are no plans, that I know of, for this guitar, I knew that the first Brahms guitar had a bass string length of 660mm and the treble string length of 630mm, and today most makers use 650/615mm string lengths. I chose a 650/620mm string combination and pulled out a roll of brown paper

The strength of a butt joint is merely that of the glue employed... Bernard Jones, The Complete Woodworker , 1980 edition I made this guitar neck about five years ago, and for some reason, I never got around to building a guitar on it. It is made from a nice piece of Spanish cedar with a slice of East Indian rosewood on the headstock. Earlier this month, I decided to pair this neck with a redwood top and flamed black walnut back and sides, but there was one repair that needed to be done before putting the neck to use. I accidentally left the rosewood veneer a little short, it was about an eighth of an inch shy of the where the headstock slope meets to horizontal surface of the neck. Usually, I run this veneer a little wild and trim it back after the fret board is glued on and I am ready to install the bone nut. I was afraid that I wouldn't have any rosewood on hand to match the original, but I got lucky and found a scrap pieces that was a fairly clo

For the convenience of planing, and other operations, a rectangular platform is raised upon four legs, called a bench. Peter Nicholson, The Mechanic's Companion , 1831 If our shop is where we live, then our workbench is where we think and feel, where we do what is most satisfying to us as craftsman. James Krenov, The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking , 1977 I built my workbench in 1995. The top was made from big incense cedar tree that I felled and then milled with a Granberg Alaskan mill attached to a 1960's era McCulloch chainsaw sporting a twenty eight inch long bar with 3/4" pitch chain. The legs are also incense cedar and the cross pieces were milled from a black (red) oak tree that grew about twenty from the incense cedar. The idea for the bench came from Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's Apprentice , at the time I needed a workbench that I could transport. I didn't mill enough wide boards from that cedar tree, in order to make the bench top wid

Want to hear what one of my guitars sounds like? Click here . I have a 2017 Redwood/East Indian Rosewood classical guitar at Savage Classical Guitar and Rich has posted this recording of him playing the guitar. He comments on the sound and playability as he plays. It is a wonderful recording. Thanks, Rich!

Hi, Wilson, guitar arrived in excellent shape. I'll be photographing and listing almost immediately today. She's a beauty, brother. Very nice. Richard Sayage, owner, Savage Classical Guita r I shipped a very nice redwood/East Indian rosewood classical guitar to Savage Classical Guitar on Monday, and it arrived in Bohemia, New York, this morning! This is really a wonderful guitar, it is loud with a beautiful bel canto voice, all notes are very even up and down the fret board, and, as my wife pointed out, every note is clear, clean and crisp. It is one guitar that I wish I could keep for myself, but it needs to be in the hands of a player that wants a truly outstanding guitar. The bracing is an adaptation of one used by Jesus Belezar, Manuel Hernandez's son-in-law. I purchased the redwood top from Luthiers Mercantile. I bought this set of East Indian rosewood back and sides sometime around 2002, I wish I had bought more back then, it is really hard to find

I've made all my tools, matter a'fact, everything I got. Well, this shaving horse I guess is about fifty years old. Alex Stewart, bucket and butter churn maker, Foxfire 3 , 1975 I made this shaving horse in 1978, when I was fifteen years old. I was tired of trying to hold stock in the leg vise on our grandfather's workbench, sticks of wood often would slip out when I took Grandpa's drawknife to it, and the jaws limited access to the wood I was trying to shape. I saw a photo of one in Foxfire 3  and decided I could make one. My parents had all sorts of pieces of wood cached up in the attic of the old workshop, both were children of the Great Depression, they squirreled stuff away "because you never know when you are going to need it!" There was a five foot long piece of chainsaw milled incense cedar, pieces of old painted window, miscellaneous Douglas fir 2x2's and one piece of old growth Douglas fir that was just right for the bridge t

The gifted hands of these makers turn these rare old woods, ideas and dreams into beautiful musical instruments. James Sherry, classical guitar importer I am often asked by the people who view and play my guitars how I got into this thing called "guitar making". My pat answer is "I couldn't afford the guitar that I really wanted". Good classical guitars are never cheap and here are some examples of prices past and present. When I started studying classical guitar in 1974, at the age of 12, a Jose Ramirez III 1A classical guitar cost something like $3000 to $4000 - $15,175 to $20,234 in today's money. Back then, great players such as Andres Segovia, Christopher Parkening, Liona Boyd, Douglas Niedt played a Ramirez, because those guitars were the best. In 1990, I stopped by a well known guitar maker in New Mexico to check out one his higher end guitars. It was $3000.  I think my take home pay at the time was only $800 a month, and I had to decline

Whenever you smooth down a freshly polished surface, always use your glass paper very lightly... The French Polisher's Hand Book , 1910 I've been very busy lately pore filling two guitars, which gets to be a pain in the ass, pore filling is my least favorite part of finishing. It seems like no matter how hard I try to get the pores completely filled with wood dust and shellac, that when I get ready to start padding shellac I discover spots that aren't completely filled. I go ahead and pad down some shellac, wait for it to harden then go at those spots with a pad loaded with shellac and pumice then sand with Micro Mesh when the shellac is hard. I pore fill with a combination of shellac and wood dust, East Indian rosewood dust for this guitar. It makes a goopy mess that I sand back to (almost) bare wood with 400 grit sand paper. Lots of elbow grease and heart ache. I know the old recipes for French polish use tallow or tinted whiting for pore filling, but for