I have been making instruments for more than twenty years specialising in making acoustic guitar, mandolins, bouzoukis and citterns. My workshop is located in the far south eastern corner of England on the Kent coast. My instruments are all made individually by hand. While I have "standard models", I can customise most aspects of the instrument to your specification: width of neck, woods, string spacing, neck profile.
Would you like to make your own musical instrument? I offer specialist classes at my workshop in Ramsgate, where you can learn all the techniques for making your own string instrument.
Would you like to make your own musical instrument? I offer specialist classes at my workshop in Ramsgate, where you can learn all the techniques for making your own string instrument.
Services
A handmade guitar, designed just for you, gives you many options in appearance, features and playing style. Bringing over twenty years' experience as a luthier, I provide expert advice to guide you through the process of choosing the perfect handmade guitar for you, while listening to and adapting to your specific requirements.
I make almost exclusively carved top instruments which are in general larger than the "standard" American mandolin, with a warmer tone and a bit more bass. A slightly longer scale length and a wider finger board makes them, in my opinion, more comfortable to play. It took me many years to come up with a body shape for my mandolins I am perfectly happy with, the model MVI.
As with all the other instruments I make, my focus is on the precision of the sound, with the strings clearly separated and good projection. I first used a port hole ( sound hole in the sides) on a carved top bouzouki to overcome the fact that most of the sound is projected into the audience, leaving precious little for the player to hear and is now a standard feature with all my instruments.
I offer each of the bouzouki models as a cittern and you can choose the scale length according to the tuning you want to use. I now favour using a multi scale or fan fretted fingerboard on my citterns as it allows for a lighter gauge Bass string and a heavier gauge top string. Contact me for more information or discussion.
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