On Wednesday I removed the tip of my left middle finger.  In nearly fifty years of building instruments I’ve had no serious injuries, and perhaps half a dozen very minor ones.  This, fortunately, is very minor.  But it’s a reminder that scalpels are very sharp.

When telling Roger at Fylde guitars of my mishap, he helpfully suggested that when I reach the end of the wood, I should stop cutting.  Thank you Roger. But not relevant in this case, as I had not yet reached the end of the wood.  After slipping with the scalpel, there was an interlude consisting of lots of swearing, bandaging and mopping up blood – amazing how much comes out of a finger, it looked like very nearly an armful.  After which I finished cutting the wood.  I then sanded off a small drop of blood that had landed on the inside of  a soundboard, shouting  ‘Out, out, damn spot’ as I did so.

I was reminded of an article I read many years ago in ‘Fine Woodworking’.  A man making small maple boxes cut his finger and a drop of blood fell onto one of his boxes.  He sanded and sanded, but the blood had soaked into the maple and the stain would not sand out.  Frustrated, he eventually wrote next to it  ‘This is my damn blood’.  And this was the first box to sell.

Taken in the mirror, the damaged finger is in fact on my left hand.

Early 6 string and recent 12 string guitars

I’ve recently built my first 12 string guitar in a while, quickly followed by a second.  The first is shown above, along with my original 6 string arch-top from 1981.

My 12 string is the same basic guitar I’ve been building for many years, but there have been a few changes.  The trim is black binding with birdsfoot and black/red/black trim round the soundboard and red/white/red purfling round the back and sides.  The bone saddle is now a wider single piece saddle fully compensated for the octave strings.

I’ve always been intrigued by 12 string guitars.  Like many others, I had  cheap one in the 60s (or in my case, a part share in one).  But I couldn’t really get to grips with it and sold my share; it really is a different instrument from the 6 string and has to be approached as such. Good 12 string players can make it sound magical; it seems to me part of the the trick is learning what to leave out as compared with 6 string playing.

In Hiscox Artiste case

Side showing black binding with red/white/red purfling

Gotoh 510 tuners – the best

Fully compensated 12 string saddle

This guitar has been finished a while now, but I loved it, played it every day, and was reluctant to part with it.  However, this last week I’ve traveled round most of the country and came back via Sheffield to visit Martin and see if he wanted to take it.

Martin played it for hours in the evening, and more hours in the morning, beautiful sounds drifting up to me while I was still lying in bed. When I eventually went down, he said ‘it’s astonishing’.

Martin playing it at home in Sheffield.

‘This is one of the very best guitars you’ve built’ said Martin ‘which means it’s one of the best guitars on the planet’.

The Steinbeck D is a large guitar, built on my Model 2 body, with an extended (28.5″) scale.  It has African Blackwood back and sides, a figured Sitka soundboard, and a Wengé neck, the same woods as the standard smaller bodied Steinbeck.

It’s designed to be tuned one tone below standard, so fitting a capo to the second fret gives standard pitch at standard tuning and standard tension. Played open without a capo it has a magnificent depth of tone; played with a capo higher up it blossoms as a different guitar, bright and ringing.

Very little Martin plays is in standard EADGBE tuning, but each of his tunings becomes a tone lower than on a standard scale guitar.  So the low C he uses in his nearly open C tuning becomes a low B#, immensely low and rich.

Massimo Raccosta

Food and drink in Verona, my daughter Becky on the far left.

Wulfin Lieske, me and Massimo.  Dr Hannen is out of picture on the right.

The concert

The concert was given in a magnificent small hall with elaborately painted walls to an invited audience of around fifty.  These included many players and several classical makers and I was able to talk to some of these afterwards.  From where I sat the acoustics were excellent; the microphone was just for recording.

Wulfin Lieske with La Leona at the concert

Dr Erhard Hannen telling us about the repair to La Leona.

Wulfin Lieske playing La Leona in Verona.

Martin Simpson is planning to buy one of my  Model 2 based D guitar (long scale, tuned a tone lower than standard – see News, page 2, 29 January 2014).

It will have African Blackwood back and sides and a bear-claw Sitka soundboard.

D guitar in the spraybooth
(photo – D Wilson)

Martin is selling one of his Signature models, his Mark 1 (above), to make room for it.  Details and more photos on my ‘Available now’ page.

When Eamon Doorley was on tour in the US, United Airlines took it upon themselves to modify his guitar-bouzouki. Here it is as Eamon took it out of its case.

He told me it still played perfectly and sounded fine.  Amazing.  He bound the damaged side with gaffer tape, and some months later it arrived at my workshop.  Close examination showed there was also a crack below the nut, but otherwise there was no damage other than that suffered by the side.

It was clearly going to need a sizeable patch (in the end two, one large and one small), but first I had to pull the splintered tongues of wood into their proper place and glue them there.  I glued four light vertical pieces of spruce behind them, and as most clouds have a silver lining, was able to get clamps in place through the gaping hole near the tail. I could then glue up the cracks and fill them as invisibly as possible.

I chose similar Indian rosewood to the damaged side and bent it to the correct curve.  I then cut a rectangular patch large enough to cover the hole, and squared up the sides of the hole to match, making it a tiny bit smaller.  I carefully trimmed the size of the patch, bit by bit, until it fitted perfectly so I could glue it into place.

I followed the same procedure making and fitting a smaller patch to fill a second gap low down further along the side.

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I then sanded the side smooth and also glued up the neck crack.  So now the instrument was ready to go to Dave for refinishing.

Here is Eamon’s guitar bouzouki ready to have the side and neck refinished.

Rob Ellis from Cambridge reminds me that United have form regarding instrument breakage, as recounted in the ‘United Breaks Guitars’ video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo .

Now lacquered and ready to be re-strung.

Jonathan Moss and his family visited over the weekend to pick up his new ‘Steinbeck’ guitar – so named by Paul Hostetter, referring to a passage in John Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’.  Jonathan is an outstanding guitarist.

Jonathan visited in the summer and played Paul’s guitar, after which he decided to sell his MS model and have me build him a Steinbeck.  Here we are in my workshop yard; I’m holding Jonathan’s MS model, he is playing Paul’s Steinbeck, his daughter Emilie is tormenting my dog, and my son Jason is chatting with my neighbour Annie.  Jonathan’s son Louis took the photo.

Jonathan has sent me the following text.

In this golden age of luthiery  I’ve played guitars by some of the world’s most respected builders (Greenfield, Somogyi, Traugott, Olson etc). But I’ve now just bought my second guitar from Stefan Sobell, replacing the MS he built me ten years ago.

I visited Stefan to have my original MS guitar checked over, and on a balmy day in early August, kids and dogs playing around us, Stefan nonchalantly said “here, try this” and handed me one of the greatest guitars I’ve ever touched.  I couldn’t put the guitar down! Beautiful sounds seemed to just flow from my fingers with ease.  It was the guitar he’d built for Paul Hostetter, who called it the ‘Steinbeck’ model.

I’m a guitar player and not a collector – a guitar to me is a tool to express my music, and tone production is the most important thing.  It’s easy to be impressed by the initial loudness and bass response of a guitar, but on its own this doesn’t satisfy long-term; the subtle nuances, clarity and balance are what make a truly rewarding guitar. When played quietly, I want every note to be crystal clear and when played hard, I want it to seem as if the volume has simply been turned up, with no loss of definition – this makes a great guitar.  Stefan’s ‘Steinbeck’ model really does this.

What marks Stefan out as unique is his ability to create the most resonant thick trebles, especially when they are fretted around the twelfth fret, and what is magical about this latest guitar is that he’s augmented the bass frequencies to match. Lots of makers can create a deep thunderous bass, but the trebles usually disappoint – I want them to sing out above the harmonies and to be complemented by a full, dark, velvety bass, as on my new Sobell.

When I collected my new guitar we met at his home and there was an air of expectancy in the room when I first played it… of course I wasn’t disappointed. Stefan then played it, it’s very rare for a maker to be a top player, but once he’d finished some very accomplished noodling, he made me laugh when he said “I’ll build another if you don’t like it, that way I’ll get to play this one for longer!”. I’m sure he wasn’t joking.

Jonathan playing his Steinbeck through the Highlander pickup.

Paul Hostetter
Photograph ©2015 Jim MacKenzie

Just before my house move a few months ago, Californian luthier Paul Hostetter and his wife Robin visited. Paul bought one of my Model 1 Sicilian guitars around twenty years ago, and while he was here played my latest Blackwood and figured Sitka MS model.  He clearly liked it a lot, and a week or so later Robin called and asked to buy it.

Here is Paul with the MS in sunny California.  He pointed out that quite coincidentally the guitar that reminded me of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath (News 22 April) had come home to live in Steinbeck country.

Photograph ©2015 Jim MacKenzie

After 40 years in a farm house up near the moors, Liz and I have moved down the hill to Hexham.  We are both sorry to leave such a lovely house in lovely countryside, but Hexham is a quiet market town on the river Tyne with a pretty market square, good local shops and restaurants, and extensive parks such as the Tyne Green below.

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