Building a $36k Acoustic Guitar From Start to Finish (With Client Reaction)

a commission like this has to be showstopping the guitars that I aspire to build hold storytelling at the Forefront of their identity celebrating materials for their connection their Heritage and their performance I was commissioned to build a piece that upheld this brief in its finest form this video is the result of that vision and my client has allowed me the creative freedom to document every single part of this guitar's conception I I will take you through my beloved craft my processes my materials to show you a full guitar being made from start to finish I'll

even include the hand delivery where I took the instrument to Florida to present to its new custodian I can't wait to show you guys I always begin with the back and sides selection process not only do the back and sides dictate the color palette of the instrument but it also has a huge impact on the tonal performance depending on what species you pick I knew exactly what kind of wood I wanted to use for this build it's a good tonal allrounder but its Heritage is where the real magic happens and for me in particular it's

extra special I was born in a flat fenland region of the UK called Norfolk and only a few kilometers down the road from where I began my life so too did the tree that I'm using for this guitar the key difference is I was born in the 1990s this tree was born a few years before that in the Neolithic period And it stood tall according to its carbon dating around 5,000 years ago when sea levels Rose all of those years ago in the flat fenland regions of the United Kingdom Pete bogs were formed these swampy

pools of water were completely free of oxygen and so any tree around that time that had been felled by natural causes thus fell into the Pete bogs preserved in the oxygen-free conditions this meant that they could not decompose but as well as that over time the tannins in the wood reacted and turned this beautiful shade of black significantly nearer to the time I was born a farmer came along with his big industrial equipment and hit this tree underneath the soil that he was planning on probably making into a potato field now if you've ever had

the pleasure of taking a walk through the English Countryside you will see many an oak tree and again Neolithic England was no different so this species of wood is Oak as a very British person and somebody who grew on very similar terrain to this tree I felt so connected with this material as a good choice for a back and side set and this is where I'd like to begin the building process with the sides the first thing I do with my sides is to thickness them guitar making is such a tactile craft and I never

underestimate my hands when it comes to being my most valuable tool I'll use the drum sander for this because it's a lot less aggressive on delicate Timber plain blades have a habit of tearing out detailed figuring and I just don't want to risk that with this [Music] build just a little note here I have Tourette's Syndrome so if you see me hop or do anything a bit strange that's not part of guitar making just in case I had to clarify that anyway onwards once the sides are thickness the best thing to do next is to

make sure you have marked everything out properly I call this idiot proofing because as an idiot at times sometimes I really amaze myself with how silly I can be these markings will let me know which the show side is so which side of the wood is going to be on the outside of the guitar but also where the top the upper belt the waist the lower belt and the end will fall when it comes to different guitar designs all curves fall in a separate place so it's really important to make sure for my design that

I have them in the right place now this next bit did not go to plan and I really think it's so important to keep that stuff in nobody ever gets anything 100% when you're building something as detailed as a guitar and I think that's a beautiful thing about the craft and here's a prime example of something that did not go [Music] right I got this side Bender from the USA and I'm in the UK and I didn't know the rules around Transformers even though stac did tell me subsequently although I've used this kind of jig

a few times during my apprenticeships the first time I fired it up was for this build because the voltages were off it just got a lot hotter than it should have done and very luckily nothing happened to the timber it just relaxed a lot quicker than I was expecting not before the fire alarm went off though so apologies if you were one of those people in my building who had to evacuate watching the footage back it was actually very funny because it looked like a comedy sketch me running around the place trying to make sure

nothing set on fire and also unplugging everything at lightning speed but here we are I've got the Transformer now and for the next side that I bent it was all [Music] calm now once the sides are bent it's time to get the mold involved the mold is the foundation point for the instrument we're going to use it as our template to get the shape properly accurate we want the sides to be as beautifully fitted to this mould as possible so I'll commence a process of using a square and a plane to achieve this although this

is trickier than it looks it is very satisfying when you make the top and the bottom fit each other exactly now the head block and the tail block are very important structural components in an acoustic guitar I choose to use a word called cedrella for my head and tail blocks that's because I find it matches the durability of mahogany whilst being as lightweight as Cedar as you can we're working with engrain here and engrain as we all know absorbs water like a bunch of straws there is no water in epoxy and that makes it a

good candidate for durability and [Music] reliability again the mold makes life a lot easier here because I Trace the contours of the guitar shape to that head block and tail block directly meaning that when I glue them in the curves are going to be perfect now while that's gluing up it's time to get started on our neck the first thing I'm going to do is lovingly plain this mahogany up by hand I love this part because I get to start with this very raw looking plank of mahogany and I've got to turn it into a

beautifully smooth carved and delicate neck that will facilitate my client's hands in the making of [Music] music I just tried to explain the scarf joint in terms of simple English and I found it very difficult so so I'm just going to let you watch the process of the scarf joint and then once you've seen it I'll tell you what I did [Music] so as you saw I marked out a what was a 15° angle on the side of my neck blank I chopped it with a bansel and then I planed up the surfaces to make

sure all of them were smooth I then took that excess offcut and pasted it onto the back of the existing Billet subsequently we have a neck with a 15° angle on it which will become our headstock [Music] although I make sure the joint is absolutely perfect what I'm going to do is inlay some carbon fiber so we can be sure that our neck has the best chance of making it in the wild I'm going to use the router table for this and while I'm at it I'm going to route that slot for the truss rod

[Music] the next part of the neck is actually something I kind of dread because it's actually very difficult to achieve what we're going to do is install a Volute onto this guitar I like to see the Volute as a little roller coaster fun for your thumb next to the nut at the end of the neck it's a really nice tactile interaction with the instrument when you run your thumb up and round but also it provides a bit of structural Integrity To That Nut area which sits on the breake point now to make the volum look

extra pretty I'm going to add an ebony back on it bending this piece of ebony for the back strap is the thing that I'm talking about when I say I dread it I find ebony quite difficult to bend in this form but thankfully nothing went wrong in this particular [Music] instance now we have a neck black well on its way let's return back to those sides and a few of you have asked me questions about the way I build my guitar sides because it is a little bit unusual that being said a lot of luas

are moving towards this way of building especially in the handmade Community now I build with what are called structured sides and of course there is no one way of doing anything so this is the way that I've picked but of course I'm very open to the fact that some people don't build like this and that's okay too my thinking behind my structured sides is this the way I build my guitars is very Reliant upon the voicing of the top which we'll get into later in my mind the top is the thing that resonates and is

able to move around and produce the most sound when it comes to the instrument and for that top to resonate to its full potential in the way that I design that bracing pattern I need a really rigid structure that that top is glued to so that it has a reliable platform on which to move if you imagine one of the most resonant instruments out there which is the drum they use the same structure they'll have a very stiff Rim assembly or side and they will have an animal skin which reverberates on top I've been really

happy with the sound of the guitars that I produced using these structured sides so that is why I use them today it's also worth noting that I'll add a veneer over the top of the structured sides which just looks beautifully clean when you look through the sound hole in order to assemble these components I will use a vacuum bag very exciting bit of tech here it's essentially just a fantastic way of clamping things up really tight I've got a mold which conforms exactly to the shape of my guitars and I will layer up the layers

like a cake and when the vacuum turns on it will suck them into place what I will be left with is a beautifully accurate guitar [Music] side now we have our two sides we can pop in the head block and the tail [Music] [Music] block now I should talk about radiuses because contrary to what I believed before I started guitar making the back and the top of a guitar are not flat they have very subtle radiuses on them the top radius is 40 ft and the back radius is 15 ft if you imagine a massive

40t sphere and then you throw some clay at it wait for the clay to set and pull the Clay Away you'll end up with a very subtle curve that follows that sphere obviously very subtle because it's such a big sphere the way we install a radius is with a radius dish so if you go back to that clay example again basically I have a CNC'd piece of MDF with that curve in it what I do is sand the rim assembly into the dish which makes it take on the form of the radius exactly it's worth

noting that my guitars are also skinnier at the heel than they are at the bottom of the guitar subsequently it's a bit of a complex mathematical situation trying to figure out the exact side taper of the measurement at the top and the bottom versus the radius don't worry yourself too much about that it's actually not that complicated once you learn God knows I was terrified of that when I was [Music] learning acoustic guitar backs are not one sheet of wood they actually involve a highly precise jointing process like a butcher us guitar makers require certain

cuts of our own material to delegate different tasks too and the cut of wood that we favor for guitar backs guitar sides guitar tops and guitar necks is quartersawn if you don't know what quarter sawn is here's a very quick rundown basically if you imagine a log the quarter sawn cut comes from this portion of the log so there's only a certain few Cuts in the log that you can use as quarter sawn Timber you'll notice that the grain goes straight down on this particular cut of the log providing you with a very straight grained

plank this means it's stiffer more reliable and when would expands and contracts it does so in Tangent now the benefits of the quarter sawn are also to do with the book match which is essentially the quality of the mirroring that the timber displays visually if you have a Billet of quarter sawn on Timber and you cut along the line open it up it's going to be the same as the other piece so that's what you use for the back I also do have other videos about this so please do go back and watch those if

you're still confused so let's get making the back I'm going to do this joint and then I'm going to cut it to shape and then I'm going to get to work on the spruce bracing [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] as I mentioned this bracing is Spruce that's because it's nice and lightweight and actually even if you flick this Timber it's just so ready to make music very resonant very beautiful tap tone it's the perfect bracing material and the perfect material in my opinion for a guitar top this Spruce actually goes a bit further than just being

your average Spruce and it is called Moon Spruce why is it called Moon Spruce well as we know the moon has an impact on many things in life and trees it turns out are no different in the beautiful Alpine mountain climbs these trees are grown but they are only fed at the full moon this is because the sap levels in the timber are actually lower during this part of the month the lower sap levels equates to stiffer and drier Timber better for making music another beautifully magical thing to add to the story of this instrument

I think time to radius these braces in the same way that we did the rim assembly by pushing them and sanding them into this 15 ft radius dish that way when we clamp the back the back itself will assume that 15t radius first we have to fit the braces to the back [Applause] strip now the back strip is also Spruce just for the same reasons as I use Spruce bracing but one thing that's cool about the back strip is that it gives us an opportunity as craft people to use materials for their natural properties in

clever ways so obviously we jointed the back up which provides a lengthwise joint so what I done is cut the Timber on the side grain meaning that it's going to provide a sort of cross-hatching support to that back joint pretty cool that nature offers different ways to support itself and helpfully it makes it a lot easier to Chisel into when we're fitting those back braces into that box strip [Music] now I think it's time to talk about the other material that I'm very excited about regarding this build which is the top you may have seen

a previous video where I tap tested this top had a sensational tap tone to [Music] it that's right I'm going to use the Smokie's Spruce for this build so let's talk about the again it's got a fabulous story to it the Smoky Mountain range is one of the most highly protected but most beautiful places in the USA and quite rightly you're not allowed to fell any trees or indeed remove any trees that have fallen from natural causes at least until hurricane opal came hurricane opal wended its way through the Smoky Mountain Hills and one of

its victims was a tree according to carbon dating this tree had been well on its way to adulthood in the year 1588 which is a long time ago so this this was a seriously old growth tree and it happened to be a spruce tree in fact the area which it had grown was only 15 cm deep in soil subsequently the tree was forced to slow down and the growth rings were strikingly tight usually us guitar makers believe that the Tighter and slower the growth would the better it will perform as a musical instrument now usually

it would have died in the place that it was born but hurricane opal had other plans for it hurricane opal pushed this tree into the middle of a public [Music] Highway I'd be sad but like I'm not two guys John and Ted managed to persuade the authorities to let them take this tree away and they sold it into guitar making now I received some of this wood as a gift from a supplier friend of mine and I am so grateful that I got the chance to build with this wood because it is just not available

anymore I knew this was the perfect Timber to use on the top for my very special Commission [Music] okay I here I you [Music] I actually studied a literature degree before I came a guitar maker so I feel feel like books are a big part of me and again I love putting a little bit of my soul into my guitars so my signature thing has become inlaying hand marbled n papers into my guitars now the M paper that I'm inlaying into this used to be on display in St james' Street in London in one of

the world's most prestigious Art Gallery areas marbled in the 18th century by Crafts People there they were reclaimed from old atlases and bought by a renowned art dealer that art dealer donated his entire collection to me when he found out that I was a guitar maker he'd never heard of The Craft of instruments and after I told him I'd experimented with M papers he gave me this very old very valuable collection to use in my guitars me and my client picked out our favorite and we used it to inlay the rosette with you'll now see

me do that process and I'm going to use copper as a nice Motif around the outside of the sound hole and the inside which will be nice when it catches the light and I'm also going to suspend everything under Crystal Clear resin [Music] the back braces require a little bit of fine tuning when they are glued up and this is essentially a process of just being with it listening to it make music and feeling it out this is so experience-based so it's really hard to explain what I'm looking and feeling for but I want it

to be stiff enough that it's not going to break but I also want it to have some Flex so it can move in rhythm with the soundboard so I'm just going to let you watch and then you can make your own conclusions now the top bracing is a huge deal in the art of fine luary as I mentioned when I was describing the structured sides my guitar tops I see as the Workhorse of the instrument the way that I tune them the way that I brace them it all has a huge impact on the sound

and generally you can tell a hammer Bill instrument versus a factory one by the way that the top is constructed Factory ones will tend to overbuild their tops over brace them and the sound will be compromised I've cherry-picked my favorite ways of bracing a guitar top from my two apprenticeships but also from the internet and books I've read Around the subject and of course a lot of experimentation [Music] [Music] I will spend days after I've glued the top on just making sure that I'm happy with every little crevice of that top sonically aesthetically every little

detail I'm really really particular about but the most exciting bit when the voicing is over is that you can finally see this guitar as a soundbox and a soundbox needs binding binding is the wood around the sides of the soundbox that protect it from being knocked and also provide a visual framing of the instrument for this build of course I'm making them from scratch as usual but I'm going to use Ebony and Flame Maple with some veneers involved as well which give the materials of this build room to breathe with nothing pretentious or too flashy

the way we install the bindings is to Route channels out around the edges of the instrument bend the bindings to those Channel shapes and then install them using wood glue and tape [Music] this part is one of my favorite parts of the build because it is very detailed I'm going to install the end graft the end graft's a lovely visual addition it just frames the end of the instrument beautifully with a nice detailed inlay it's a chance to get the miters out it's a chance to do some fine woodworking just for Craft's sake [Music] the

neck joint that I'm doing on this guitar is a mortise anten and Joint so I need to route that out on the top and then we're going to go ahead and Route it out on the next side of things as well [Music] setting the neck is really quite a difficult task because there are so many forces and angles at play you've got to make sure the neck sits perfectly flushed to the top of the guitar but that it follows the exact desired angle that you want the neck that will impact the ergonomics of your guitar

and of course the sound there is a lot of complicated mathematics when it comes to setting a neck angle and although nobody takes to setting neck angle Les easily when you start guitar making it is something that the more you do it the easier it becomes to feel your way through what the instrument wants to do I do a lot of this process by hand so I don't make any stupid mistakes because your brain is considering a lot when you're doing this process [Music] on to the fretboard guys now the fretboard has to be exact

in its measurement and if it's not you're going to be in trouble when you string up the instrument I'm using a table saw to slot my fret slots and I'm going to use a template so that I know all of these fret slots are bang on I created a very simple jig for this which just meant that I can do fretboards accurately and quickly while prioritizing quality [Music] [Applause] [Music] these markers are thought were a really nice addition aesthetically and they do help you locate where you are on the fretboard I'm using brass tube here

and it just brings me so much joy when I inlay these it's just a very simple lowkey way of adding a bit of detail [Music] call [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay guys time to start making the bridge I like to do my bridge before I'm done with the instrument because I need to pin it on and mask around it before I do my spray finishing I'll start by routing the most important part of the bridge which is the saddle slot [Music] right [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] it's finally

time to mask everything up and take it to the spray booth I use an acid Catalyst lacquer it's a high gloss finish which means it's quite a challenging thing to apply but there's something very healing about watching the layers build up and that wood starting to pop I apply about 12 to 14 coats of this which sounds like a lot but actually that's what you need to make sure all of the pores are filled and that the Finish is perfectly flat a balloon is good for stopping the finish going inside the instrument but it also

means you can have a party at short notice [Music] [Laughter] [Music] now I have to to leave the guitar for at least 10 days to dry before I can start buffing it to a high gloss in this time I will make a start on the Fret work I do each fret individually by hand and I follow a process which creates semi hemispherical Frets each little end is a semi hemisphere this of course takes a really long time but my goodness it feels so delightful when you play an instrument with these Frets in my opinion that's

why I like to do it it's just another level of attention to detail I have a compound radius that goes up the fretboard for playability so I'll bend each fret according to its place on the fretboard as well [Music] when I put the strings on this guitar for the first time I got very emotional because although I filmed as much as it as I could I really can't communicate to you via this medium how much of myself goes into every single one of these guitars it's so many hours hundreds and hundreds of hours so much

time in my own head so much dedication to the thing that I'm producing and to be perfectly honest I wasn't able to capture as much as I'd like around the end of this build because it was frankly quite emotional the guitar was finished when I booked my flight to Florida to meet my client and deliver this guitar in person I just had to set up the guitar using the rough saddle and nut blanks that I'd prepared earlier for this guitar and once I'd polished them up set the instrument up beautifully and Polished around every single

edge that I could think of I was feeling very nervous to say the least but very fulfilled and very grateful subsequently the sound demo that I'm going to show you of this guitar is going to be in my hotel room the day that I dropped this instrument off this guitar wasn't about playing it at the end it was about building it it was about all of the experiences that made that guitar that guitar and my client is the one who sh should enjoy it and play it it's 5: in the morning but today I'm going

to drop the guitar that I've been filming off in in Florida so let's [Music] go I've got this um microphone here so I'm going to put this up here and I'll try and capture what I can hear but the city is loud this kind of feels like it's the best we're going to get let's give it go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] time to go time to go it's starting to rain hi welcome nice to meet you we [Music] are oh my goodness that is gorgeous oh thank you so much wow oh my

goodness look how that wood turned [Music] out right and I hear her voice all the time when I watch her videos and she's right in your house very very stable humidity keep this environment sort of yeah and I can feel that especially coming from outside yeah yeah I think it's wonderful but I think it's a great size oh good I wish everybody could see it in person all my friends and family will but I wish your audience good cuz it would blow their mind that's very kind it's stunning thank you so much thank you thank

you [Music] Rob it's been such a pleasure absolutely thank you so much for the opportunity to create something that's beautiful this is the most exciting thing in a long time very cool this project should be dedicated to my client who now owns this guitar because he was the one who made it possible he was very gracious with the time he allowed me to complete the instrument and very gracious with his patronage of me I want to thank my dealer the Rob report who made this commission possible and I also want to thank each and every

one of you for supporting this channel watching me showing up and being you that's so cliche but I I mean it thank you I hope you enjoyed it I'm going to go take a bath [Music]