I’ve just come across a photograph of my original cittern from 1973.

Cittern 2006

I recall it took me over three months to build, including removing the neck and fitting a steel re-inforced replacement.

The soundboard is yellow pine, the back and sides Indian rosewood, the neck is mahogany and the fingerboard ebony.

The idea of the heavily curved fingerboard was taken directly from my Portuguese guitarra, and the carved arched soundboard was inspired by my 1931 Martin arch-top C1. I still own these instruments.

I played this cittern around the British Folk clubs until retiring from public performance some years later.

Cittern 1973

Revised MS Signature model web page

The Martin Simpson Signature model page has been revised and now includes information on the Mk 2 model.

Sound Techniques are producing a series of DVDs featuring British guitarists. Their latest features Martin Simpson playing guitar and chatting one to one with Trevor Dann. As well as showcasing Martin’s playing and singing, it gives insights into his ideas on many aspects of music and instruments.

At the end is a ‘bonus’ in which he and I talk in my shop about my guitars and how they have developed, including the idea that his playing and my guitars have influenced one another.

It’s available from the Martin Simpson website www.martinsimpson.com, and I recommend it as enjoyable and informative.

The two New World guitars are now completed and strung.

Yellow Calton cases

In the mid 1990s I started selling guitars to Mr. Kakuta in Japan. The arrangements were made by his Japanese colleague in California who gave me the specification Mr. Kakuta wanted, including bright yellow cases with a green interior lining. This seemed such a bizarre choice that I queried it, but was told firmly these were the required colours.

Keith Calton made several of these cases for me. Visitors to his workshop could not fail to notice them and were unanimously horrified – how could anyone want cases this colour?

But by the time they left, some had changed their minds. No one could walk away with your guitar in a bright yellow case without being noticed. And once you acclimatised, the colour wasn’t so bad after all. And in direct sun the guitar inside would heat up less than in a dark case.

Some time after this Martin Simpson was touring Japan. He was accompanied on much of the tour by Mr. Kakuta himself, a charming and friendly man. Well into the tour Mr. Kakuta felt bold enough to ask Martin ‘why do we have to have yellow cases?’

Mr. Kakuta now takes his Sobell guitars in black cases. However, yellow cases have caught on. The standard MS Signature model case is now yellow with red interior (other colours available of course) as can be glimpsed in pictures of Martin’s new MS model in my news item of 28 December 2005.

Trimming the back binding on one of the last two cocobolo citterns.


The two New World guitars ready for their bridges. You can see the taped bridge area on the nearest, ready to be cut out and removed.

Bridge clamped and glue drying

Side bending

Fox side bending jig in use. The sides are partly bent by hand on a heated bender, placed in the Fox jig for 30 minutes plus cooling time, and finished off by hand on the heated bender.

This is an early Fox jig heated by light bulbs. Later versions use electrically heated blankets instead of bulbs, but I find the bulbs work fine.

Each instrument shape has its own dedicated former. The one shown is the Martin Simpson model former.

I understand some players are perturbed to find their new instrument has little bits that can be heard rattling around in the instrument when they shake it. These little shavings are in fact the sign of a hand made instrument. If there are none in the instrument when it is finished (having been vacced out previously), I usually drop in a pinch or two.

These are also available from Stew-Mac in three grades. I use the top quality, though since I don’t use abalone, I have to be careful to pick out any abalone fragments, as these would give the game away.

The neck is now shaped (the heel was shaped before the neck was fitted). Now the fingerboard will be leveled, cambered and fretted.

The two experimental New World guitars are now ready for lacquering. You can just see that the bridge gluing area has been masked with clear tape, so it won’t be lacquered along with the rest of the soundboard. I can then remove the tape before glueing the bridge on.

The finishing process takes between two and three weeks, after which the bridge can be glued to the soundboard, the nut and tuners fitted and the guitar can be strung up.

Necks and bodies joined, ready for fitting fingerboards and shaping necks.

If the extension of the neck is not perfectly flush with the soundboard around it, it has to be leveled by gluing in a thin piece of spruce which is then cut and sanded flush. The fingerboard is then glued on.

Here is one of my two experimental New World guitars located in its carriage, ready for cutting the binding ledge. The carriage allows it to be run past an inverted router, which can rise and fall to allow for the curve of soundboard and back.

The cutter adjusts up and down to vary the depth of cut, and different diameter followers change the width. By adjusting width and depth of cut, I can cut appropriately sized ledges for the binding and purfling.



Here is the second guitar with binding and purfling fitted, scraped down and sealed. It is now ready to receive the neck.

Octave mandolins under construction (continued)

The ledges for binding and purfling have been routed out using the system described above. The ledges are not routed where the purflings join; this area will be finished by hand and the purfling joins mitred, as on the guitars above.

The red/gold/green purfling I’m using on these octave mandolins is made by gluing and clamping coloured wood veneers and cutting them into strips with a scalpel drawn along a straight-edge.

Comparing woods

Different woods make different sounding guitars, but sometimes we can’t say one is better, just that it’s different. Comparing Adirondack (American Red) spruce with European spruce is like this.
Adirondack gives a different sound to European, so guitars using it should be designed differently to get the best from it.

Great products

Carlos Ghosn was put in charge of the Renault car company when it was struggling. He said ‘There is no problem at a car factory that great products cannot fix’.
While I don’t build cars and don’t see myself as a company, I do agree with his philosophy. I think that’s why around one in four of the instruments I build is experimental in some way.

Octave mandolins under construction

At the moment I’m working on two octave mandolins, both with European spruce soundboards and cocobolo back and sides (see later item on cocobolo). Here is an octave mandolin body with the top lining clamped to the sides while the glue dries. The top lining gives glueing area to the join between sides and soundboard.

I’m also building two more guitars with Adirondack spruce soundboards (see news items dated 3rd January 2005 and 18th March 2005). As with the first, these have Adirondack spruce soundboards, old Brazilian rosewood back and sides and figured Brazilian mahogany necks.However, I’ve made changes.

These new guitars are a little narrower and shallower (in effect a slimmed down version of my Simpson model body), are built lighter and have modified soundboard bracing. They also have their own trim, maple binding with red/white/red purfling around the back and sides, and crowsfoot with red/black around the soundboard.

The construction and dimension changes bring them closer in concept to the 000 and OM Martins from between the world wars. I’m planning to introduce this as a model in its own right, calling it my New World model.

Here are the two completed backs and sides. Each has its back and sides from the same flitch, not common these days as it’s a more wasteful method of cutting rare old logs. But the effect of perfectly matching backs and sides is really good.

The next steps will be to fit the soundboards, bind the bodies, fit the necks and fingerboards, fret them and make the bridges.

Phasing out Cocobolo

I plan not to take more orders for cocobolo instruments. Cocobolo sanding dust is unpleasant, and I understand it to be toxic. I’ve know this for many years, but now feel strongly enough to stop using it. I intend to offer alternative woods for the cocobolo instruments on order, and will be in touch with customers before starting work.

In the Yorkshire folk clubs of the late 1960s I came across very few good guitars. When I saw Stefan Grossman play a small club near Harrogate, he had a vintage Martin the like of which I hadn’t seen before. I think now it was a Brazilian rosewood 000, probably an OM.

When he first took it out it was unlike any guitar I’d heard; I was astonished. The sound from other guitars around crept out from somewhere inside, but this seemed to hit you straight off the sound-board. It was my first experience of what new strings and a really good steel string guitar could do.



After all these years I can’t really say how I’d feel now about Stefan Grossman’s Martin. I’m sure it was a great guitar, but I’ve heard an awful lot more good guitars since, and I’d be putting it in a different context. But I can say that the moment I first strung and played this Adirondack guitar, for the first time in decades my mind went straight back to that evening in Yorkshire and the sound I heard there.

My idea in building this guitar, as mentioned in previous bulletins, was to get the classic American sound but with added presence and sustain. I think it does this, and I love it.

Experimentation

New ideas don’t always turn out the way you expect, however experienced you may be. A year or two ago I built an experimental soundboard braced using ideas taken from classical guitar construction, which was so successful I immediately removed and replaced it. But as often happens, finding out what doesn’t work helps you find what does, and in this case the lessons learnt led to the very different bracing system that works so well on the Martin Simpson signature model.

Cocobolo for backs and sides

Here are cocobolo sets just arrived, bound and lathed. They’ve been cut to make four piece backs so they can be fully quarter sawn; had I cut them for two piece backs, they would have been well off the quarter towards the edges.

Cocobolo is a central American rosewood. It gives a dark, clear bass with good separation right across the strings. It has some of the tonal qualities of Brazilian rosewood. Its appearance varies, this looks great.