#46
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David,
I just wanted to take a moment to let you know just how much I am enjoying your postings in this thread. Yes, your photography and graphical presentation are compelling (kudos) but the underlying talents of the attending luthiers on display is no doubt "World Class". :-) Bob
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A bunch of nice archtops, flattops, a gypsy & nylon strings… |
#47
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Quote:
Hey Bob ... thanks for the kind words!
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David Wren |
#48
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Mario Beauregard !!! TICKETS ARE LIMITED, SO PLEASE PURCHASE IN ADVANCE AT: http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com .
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David Wren |
#49
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Mr. William "Grit" Laskin !!!
TICKETS ARE LIMITED, SO PLEASE PURCHASE IN ADVANCE AT: http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com "This inlay depicts the history of photography, from camera obscura, during the late renaissance, through to legendary photographers of the mid-20th century. The client's 2 year-old daughter is the Emilia of the Journey." William “Grit” Laskin – since 1971, builder of performance level steel-string, flamenco and classical guitars. He originated the Armrest and Ribrest body beveling on acoustic guitars; he co-originated the Sideport Soundhole; his groundbreaking Inlay Art is known around the world. For his work he has received the Saidye Bronfman Award For Excellence. In addition, he is a founding partner of Borealis Records and co-founded the Canadian Folk Music Awards. In 2010 he received the Estelle Klein Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals and most recently was made a member of The Order Of Canada. .
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David Wren |
#50
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I can't stop looking at this rosette. What a beauty.
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#51
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I couldn't agree with you more ... EVERYTHING Oskar does is top notch!
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David Wren |
#52
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TICKETS ARE LIMITED, SO PLEASE PURCHASE IN ADVANCE AT: http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com CHRIS LOUNSBURY !!! For over twenty years I have been fascinated by the guitar as both a vehicle for expression and as a beautiful physical object. Having had a lifelong leaning toward building things with intricate detail, I became more and more intrigued with the structure of the guitar. Attending Sergei DeJonge’s guitar making course in Chelsea, QC was a galvanizing experience and despite the long hours spent working late into the night, I always looked forward to returning to the shop in the morning. I found this work entirely captivating and decided that I would have to pursue it full time. Today I am proud to continue the tradition of Canadian guitarmaking in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. I begin by consulting with the customer regarding playing style, relevant dimensions and the desired tonal response. Then I select from the best materials available, and craft the instrument myself from start to finish using hand and power tools. Each guitar is then French Polished, a centuries-old tradition of applying a shellac solution by hand using a fabric pad. I use the French Polish method as it is non-toxic, non-polluting, and it creates a beautiful, lustrous finish that is physically thin and thus, is arguably acoustically superior. .
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David Wren |
#53
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TICKETS ARE LIMITED: PLS PURCHASE IN ADVANCE HERE http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com LINDA MANZER !!! Linda says... "I've been making guitars for over 30 years. I love what I do. The most important thing to me is that the player is inspired by the guitar. And plays it." According to Wikipedia... Linda (Jane) Manzer, Toronto, is a Canadian luthier renowned for her archtop and flat-top acoustic guitars. She received her training from Jean Larrivée between 1974 and 1978 and later with Jimmy D'Aquisto in New York. Her greatest claim to fame is that she has and still does build many custom guitars for renowned jazz musician Pat Metheny including the Pikasso which has 42 strings and three necks. Carlos Santana, Stephen Fearing, Julian Lage, Henrik Andersen, Liona Boyd, Heather Bishop, Bruce Cockburn, Mike Francis (Pepe), Marie Lynn Hammond, Sherry Shute, John McGale and Gordon Lightfoot have to be mentioned as special customers too. .
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David Wren |
#54
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TICKETS ARE LIMITED: PLS PURCHASE IN ADVANCE HERE http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com LUIS FEU DE MESQUITA !!! My name is Luis Alberto Feu de Mesquita and my ancestry goes back to Andalusia in the south of Spain where the modern guitar evolved. Coming from this region, I was exposed to the richness and passion of Flamenco from an early age, but the emergence of The Beatles drew me to the electric guitar. After subjecting my poor classical to several modifications, I decided to build my own guitar from the ground up. I built that first guitar in my mid-teens and ended up making guitars for the other members of our band. By age 18 I had already built and repaired several guitars, ultimately finding that construction was more fulfilling for me than playing. After moving to Canada in 1970 to attend college I graduated as a mechanical engineer, began my career, married and had children. Throughout this entire period of time, I continued building and repairing guitars after work and on weekends. Later, life changing events made me realize that I needed to nourish my passion for building guitars and LFdM Guitars was born. I subsequently undertook more formal training with master luthier Sergei de Jonge to further refine my skills. He was a wonderful teacher who encouraged exploration and I absorbed a great deal from Sergei and his entire family. Engineering has contributed significantly to my approach and brought out the perfectionist in me. I prefer drafting and resolving ideas and challenges on paper first to ensure that the execution is very efficient and surprises are limited. The result is that each of my guitars is not just hand-built with love and pride; they are also built with great precision. They are unique masterpieces that reflect the individuality of their owners. .
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David Wren |
#55
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TICKETS ARE LIMITED: PLS PURCHASE ON LINE HERE: http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com ALASTAIR MILLER !!! I developed an interest in guitar building in 1993 when I was introduced to local Toronto Luthier Joseph Yanuziello. After several years of odd jobs and traveling, I had the pleasure of attending Sergei de Jonge’s guitar making course in Oshawa Canada and as a result, was hired by Sergei to work for the de Jonge Guitar Company. I worked with Sergei for a little under two years before venturing off to start my own shop in Montreal where I spent a year developing my own brand. At the end of the year, I headed back to Toronto to open another shop. I spent the first ear back in Toronto working alone, then had the pleasure of sharing my space for a year with fellow de Jong apprentice Mark Kett. .
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David Wren |
#56
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TICKETS ARE LIMITED, SO PLS PURCHASE IN ADVANCE AT THE WEBSITE http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com SHELDON SCHWARTZ !!! When I was in high school back in the 70s, I set up my Strat with the tremolo down on the body to keep it from going out of tune so much (this is done all the time these days). This threw the intonation off, and not knowing how to fix it myself, I took my guitar to the local music shop to have that done. I explained to the repairman what I wanted, but he was not happy with my tremolo adjustment. He set the tremolo back up off the body and tweaked the intonation. When I picked up the guitar he told me, "that's not the way you set up the tremolo". I was a little frustrated to find he didn't do what I asked. I took the guitar and walked out without paying, vowing never to let another person work on my guitar again. That's how it all started. I did my own research and learned how to set up my guitar. Things just progressed from there. I was always interested in working on guitars and how they were constructed. At the same time, I was never satisfied with any acoustic guitar I saw in a music store. Even though I wanted to have a good wooden acoustic guitar, what I saw was so abysmal (at least to me) I wound up getting an Ovation to tide me over until I could find an acoustic guitar that I liked. I never did. In 1992 I decided to pursue a full-time career in guitarbuilding. Not having any real training, I enrolled in David Freeman's guitarbuilding course at Timeless Instruments. That's where I built my first acoustic guitar. Shortly after the course I rented a space in a cabinetmaker's shop and built three more acoustic guitars. It became clear to me that Timeless Instruments was a good place to learn the basics. Now I needed to find out how people that made guitars for a living really did it if I was to continue. Luckily, there are some great guitarmakers in Toronto. The first person I sought out was Grit Laskin and next, Linda Manzer. I was very fortunate to have guidance from two of the world's most talented hand-builders in my early days. My next shop was in the basement of my house. I was there for four or five years before having to get a bigger space. In my basement shop, I really started to refine my skills. After taking Grit Laskin's inlay seminar, my inlays really improved too. I was always a good artist, and took art all through high school and painted in my spare time, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to do the engraving until shown by Grit. Once shown, it came very easily to me because of my drawing ability. In 1995, at the A.S.I.A. Convention in Easton PA, I met Kent Everett. I was really blown away to learn he made 50 of those finely crafted and great sounding guitars a year. Kent invited me to spend a weekend with him at his shop in Atlanta, which I did. He let me take photos and showed me all kinds of new ways of doing things. He also gave me some great information about tuning the soundboards and boxes. At the time, many of the construction methods I saw were too advanced for my little basement shop, but I kept the photos and the knowledge. I'm still implementing some of the things that I saw that weekend. That year I began going to the vintage guitar show in Michigan on a regular basis to show my guitars. It was the height of the vintage guitar boom and the show was always jammed with people. Many times I was the only builder there. Other times it was local Michigan builder, Gary Zimnicki and me surrounded by Strats, Teles and Les Pauls. With the huge crowds, business was good and I built quite a following in Michigan through that show. Now my basement shop was getting a little too small. A friend of mine was renting an industrial unit but only needed half. I sublet the front part where the offices were. I had three rooms plus a spray room. When I first moved in, my jam-packed basement shop barely fit into one room! Eventually it all got filled up with wood, machines, jigs and fixtures. At the 1997 A.S.I.A. Convention in Vermont, I saw Jim Olson give a slide show of his shop, with all his jigs and fixtures. That was a real eye-opener for me. I was amazed that one person could do so much. Later, when I talked to Jim at his booth, he explained quite a few things in detail for me and showed me his photo album of his shop.A few years later, I got to spend most of a Saturday with Jim in his shop, thanks to one of my (and Jim's) customers. I continued making and refining my guitars and my guitar building process. I used the information that I got from the different guitar builders in ways that suited how I wanted to build guitars. I never copied an idea or used it exactly how it was shown to me. I always tried to improve upon it, or at least adapt it to what I wanted it to do. I also began learning more and more about guitar building from my customers. It seems like the fingerstyle players have really driven the refining of my guitars lately. I've been really fortunate to have some very finicky players with extremely high standards of what they expect a guitar to do. More than anything else, this has made me a better guitarbuilder. This also helped to make my once-too-big shop seem much too small. In April of 2002, I moved into my new shop. This is an 1800 sq. ft. building, built specifically for guitar making. I hired an engineer to do the architectural drawings to my specs. Its very well insulated and provides an extremely stable climate for guitar building. I have north facing windows, which I have found to be the best light to work in and a clean room with a finishing area. I've got a lot of space... at least for now.
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David Wren |
#57
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I played a Schwartz Oracle in Woodstock two years ago. It was my favorite at the show.
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--------------------------------------- 2013 Joel Stehr Dreadnought - Carpathian/Malaysian BW 2014 RainSong H-OM1000N2 2017 Rainsong BI-WS1000N2 2013 Chris Ensor Concert - Port Orford Cedar/Wenge 1980ish Takamine EF363 complete with irreplaceable memories A bunch of electrics (too many!!) |
#58
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Hey Mike ... I'm not surprised ... Sheldon's work is just amazing!
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David Wren |
#59
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THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON! TICKETS ARE LIMITED: PLS PURCHASE IN ADVANCE AT THE WEBSITE http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com PETE SWANSON FROM DAGMAR GUITARS !!! Self taught luthier, Pete Swanson has invented a "never been done before" way of constructing guitars. His company, Dagmar Custom Guitars, builds each guitar not with forms but using a string of mathematical equations and extremely accurate machining. Swanson is the only luthier in the world who builds guitars in segments (reminiscent to keystones in Roman Arches) to create a rim that is rounded on the outside with a complimentary "mini amphitheater like" concave interior. This perfect fusion of form and function not only creates a completely original yet familiar aesthetic but is also ergonomic with an architecture that helps amplify and focus tone. Since his start in 2008 Swanson has been recognized by the Ontario Arts Council 4 times as an emerging artist in fine craft, been featured in Vintage Guitar, Premier Guitar, Guitar Aficionado, Guitar Connoisseur, Arabella Art and Architecture, Just Jazz Guitar and on the HIFI HD network's show "Guitar Picks". His first commissioned guitar was built to show case Queen's University's state of the art fiber optics pickup technology and was featured on Discovery's" Daily Planet" show and on HIFI's "Guitar Picks". The guitar, affectionately known as Vicky, (named after Queen Victoria who chartered the school) has been acquired by the Canadian Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa. .
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David Wren Last edited by David Wren; 06-16-2014 at 01:50 PM. Reason: ADD TEXT |
#60
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THIS SUNDAY AFTERNOON! TICKETS ARE LIMITED: PLS PURCHASE IN ADVANCE AT THE WEBSITE http://www.handmadeguitarshowcase.com PEGGY WHITE !!! Peggy White is a new builder from Almonte, Ontario, Canada. In 2011 Peggy decided to pursue a lifelong dream of building instruments and signed up for Sergei de Jonge's guitar building course in Chelsea, Quebec. She moved on from there to apprentice with master luthier, Linda Manzer, where she is currently studying and working. Peggy's years as a singer/songwriter/performer prepared her well in understanding what's needed to make a guitar that's both acoustically full and sensitive and able to withstand the real rigors of being on the road, performing onstage or in a studio. Peggy has designed and is now building her own line of acoustic guitars and flat top mandolins in her shop in Almonte, Ontario. .
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David Wren |