The Acoustic Guitar Forum - My Custom Build From Vietnam

During my trip to Vietnam this Spring I was suprise to find out that a childhood friend of my wife comes from a family of luthiers. Being in Vietnam many times and had my fair share of experience with the guitars produced there. I bought a couple og guitars from a gentleman by the name Thanh, he's popular with alot of tourists as far as guitars go. They're relatively inexpensive ($200-$800 depending on how much bling you want). Most are made from woods I've never seen before, mahogany and Indian rosewood here and there. They had Koa as well, though I believe it was monkeypod that they were trying to pass off as Koa. Most of them sound great, loud/lush. They're usually finished in matte or poly, i couldnt really find a poly finish one that sounded good. Fit and finish was "ehh", "Gibson on a bad day" ;)

Anyhow me and my wife visited her friend's home to meet her father who was the head luthier at the family shop. His name is Thuc, he's been building instruments for over 50 years, he started when he was 8 working with his father in the shop. In his beginings he was building mainly Vietnamese folk instruments, just think of heavily scalloped neck guitars with 3 strings, body is usually made from a gord. Very nice man, immediately as I stepped in his home i noticed a stash of tonewoods off to the side, he saw me eyeballing the pile so he said I was free to go through them if I wish, these were tonewoods which he has imported from the U.S. and Europe, too many to name but most of your usual suspects. I was suprise to see a luthier out of Vietnam that cared so much about wood, folks there usually just build off what is cheap or abundant.

I was invited to come check out his workshop the next day. Very small shop, 5 man operation. Father is the head luthier, the son is in training, finisher, inlay artist, and a cleaning guy :) I was checking out his tools, your normal hand tools and the thing that suprised me was that he gets alot of stuff from stewmac(frets, lacquer, bindings). He doesnt have hide glue but he does have titebond (the norm around Vietnam is usually CA glue). I decided to have him make me a guitar, it will be based off a Martin 00-45sc. I sat for hours going through his stash at home and picked out a sitka/ziricote set. Sadly I was leaving Vietnam and he will have to ship me the guitar when he is done. Here are some photos of the process so far. I've visited small shop luthiers as well as big names such as Martin and Collings, and I must say this man is doing pretty well for what he has as far as tools, the work might not be 100% clean but the couple of guitars he had built that I played were very nice playing/sounding instruments. I am aware of the humidity in Vietnam, I live in central Oklahoma in an older home which can get to 85% humidity in my living room during the Summer months. I have brought back a couple of guitars before and eased them into the climate here with no problems, Thuc also does a very thin finish on the interior of the body as an option, I opted for it since the guitars of his I played prior had the inside finished as well and they both still sounded spectacular.

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