Custom Guitars: Rosettes

by Jim · 3 Comments 

I’ve been thinking about rosettes quite a lot recently. The rosette is the decorative circle around the soundhole. They come in many guises.
This is a Martin rosette. It’s an example of what you may find on many guitars, with a few rings surrounding the soundhole.

Spanish guitar rosettes tend to be more elaborate, [...]

Broken Headstocks, Snapped Guitar Necks and My Solution

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As a guitar repairman I glue a lot of headstocks back onto guitar necks. Often the guitar has been dropped or has fallen and the headstock has snapped.

Wenge: the "new Brazilian Rosewood"?

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A few months ago I was talking to Ervin Somogyi. We were discussing woods and geeking out. Following a tip off, he had produced a guitar body out of Wenge

Custom Guitar: Brazilian Rosewood

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I am making a 00 acoustic guitar from Brazilian Rosewood. The wood was cut a long time ago; with a finish on, its rich chocolate browns are accentuated.

Building A Custom Guitar: Two Acoustic Guitar Tops

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I’ve got a couple of new acoustic guitars on the go.

This is the top.  I’ve just glued the x-brace into it.  I carve the braces by hand once they’re glued in.  I can’t shape them first, as I make them tall and thin, coming to an almost-point, so I wouldn’t have a surface to clamp.
So [...]

Jim Fleeting Guitars in the Guardian

by Jim · Leave a Comment 

A very nice piece was written about me in Saturday’s Guardian. It’s a feature about people with “dream jobs”. Before I began making custom guitars I used to