Thursday, May 30, 2019

My Shop Is Closed Until July

The Wilson Burnham Guitar Shop is closed until mid July 2019.



We are selling our house here in the Rocky Mountains, it is currently under contract and my wife and I are packing like crazy! We have come to the conclusion that for our next move all of our possessions should be able to fit into the bed of a pickup truck, if it doesn't fit, it won't move with us!



We have found a place to live for now in Lakewood, Colorado. It's only 15 minutes from my wife's new job, how nice, and I will be closer to many of my clients and the classical guitar community in Denver and other cities along the Colorado Front Range.

I will be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 14-15, 2019, as a vendor at the New Mexico Guitar Festival, stop by the Albuquerque Youth Symphony Building on Menaul Boulevard NE and visit with me and my friend Ben Silva, who is a guitar maker and a wonderful guitarist! The festival is a great place to meet new people and the performers for this year's festival are all internationally recognized guitarists!

I will miss our "magic cabin" very much, but it is time that we moved on and continue to grow.



Please stay tuned to this blog for updates on when I will be in a new shop!

Friday, May 10, 2019

A Lonely Shop

The workshop reflects the character of the [guitar] maker...

Roy Courtnall, Making Master Guitars, 1993




My wife and I are in the midst of selling our house, that means items we once used everyday are tucked away in laundry baskets so a towel can be thrown over it to hide the contents when there is a showing, other items are boxed and sitting in what was to be my new workshop.

Our house has been on the market since this Monday, there has been a showing every day and late this afternoon there are two showings. I will load the dogs into the FJ Cruiser and drive down to Lyons and meet my wife for dinner at a local pizza joint.

My studio is bare bones these days - no tools hanging on pegs, the stacks of tone wood are packed away, honestly, it's a little weird to sweep the studio floor ever half hour or so of work. I'm not doing much work, a few guitar repair jobs and I did replace a top on a guitar that I built about twelve years.

I tell myself that I can only do small projects, nothing big, but today, I pulled out a very nice East Indian rosewood back and side set to pair with a nice Engelmann spruce top. The plan is to make a guitar while we wait for the closing on this place and the new house we will buy. The closings will take up some time, I need to keep busy while we wait.

So, maybe there is a chance I can assemble another guitar before we pack up and move down hill.

1912 Ex-Segovia Cedar/East Indian Rosewood Classical Guitar

Inspired by AndrĂ©s Segovia’s famous 1912 Manuel Ramirez guitar, I chose Western red cedar top and East Indian rosewood back and sides from m...