Massimo Raccosta received his Model 4 Dreadnought today at his office in Verona, Italy. He sent me this picture. I have talked and emailed with Mr. Raccosta many times, but only now do I realise he is in fact half man, half chair.

He has a very extensive collection of fine guitars, both old and new, and will be showing them in his private museum late this year or early next year. He had hoped the museum would be ready sooner but was delayed by the discovery of an ancient Roman thermal plant just below the location of the museum.

This is common in Verona, where there is an ancient Roman town two metres below the present town.

For decades and decades, guitar bodies were made from three woods; Indian rosewood, mahogany and, less often, maple. I knew some exotic guitars were made of Brazilian rosewood, but saw only a handful in the twenty years or so I played the UK folk clubs. If other woods were used, I never heard about them.

In the past few years this has changed greatly. Partly because more timbers have become available and offered to builders and partly because of restrictions on previously used woods like Honduran and Brazilian rosewoods.


A few years ago I was offered and bought some Malaysian Blackwood. This could have varied colours rather like Brazilian rosewood or be dark and straight, more like African Blackwood. It was this dark wood I bought. Not only did I like the look of it, it also had a promising tap tone.

I’ve now built and strung two Martin Simpson models with this wood, and both worked out wonderfully well. The sound has the smooth depth of African Blackwood but is slightly brighter overall, and suits the MS model perfectly. So now I’m offering it along with my other standard MS model woods. I’m in process of building a Malaysian Blackwood New World model.[/two_third_last]

My Model 4 Dreadnought page is finally up. Shown is the Dreadnought last seen waiting to be laquered, which is now finished, strung and ready to ship.

Model 4 Dreadnought web page

Next out of the spray booth is a Malaysian Blackwood Martin Simpson model guitar, the first I’ve built with this wood. Followed in a few weeks by two octave mandolins, one Indian rosewood and the other Malaysian Blackwood.

My Model 4 Dreadnought page is finally up. Shown is the Dreadnought last seen waiting to be laquered, which is now finished, strung and ready to ship.

Model 4 Dreadnought web page

Next out of the spray booth is a Malaysian Blackwood Martin Simpson model guitar, the first I’ve built with this wood. Followed in a few weeks by two octave mandolins, one Indian rosewood and the other Malaysian Blackwood.

While in Scotland, Darrell Scott recorded a live session for Radio Scotland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00c4mjm. This clip shows why Darrell is so widely admired as both a guitarist and singer. Unfortunately it can be accessed only from Britain. There’s also a YouTube clip of Darrell singing his own song ‘Crooked road’ and playing his MS model guitar at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk8W3XuZygc which should be accessible to everyone.

Yesterday Nick Kemp collected his African Blackwood and Italian spruce New World guitar. His is the third I’ve built with African Blackwood back and sides; the other two went to Martin Simpson and Jackson Browne. So Nick is in good company.

I’ve also built an African Blackwood and Douglas Fir New World guitar which went to Peter Saunders in Aberdeen. He is now taking ceilidh dance classes so it doesn’t get played much, but Peter is adamant his guitar is not for sale. He says it’s more likely to go on his new multifuel stove (which has a special setting for guitars) if Scotland has another hard winter. Alternatively, he could keep himself warm with more ceilidh dancing. Peter is also adding a cittern to his fuel supply later this year.

The Dreadnought built and ready to go to David for finishing. This will take around a month.

African Blackwood makes great sounding guitars. When I first came across it I was surprised by it’s weight and didn’t know what to make of the tap tone; to my ears at the time it didn’t have the ring of good Brazilian rosewood. But my first instrument with African Blackwood back and sides (a Model 1) was such a good guitar I went back to the wood and listened again to the tap tone. This time I realised that while it didn’t have the same clear metallic ring as Brazilian rosewood, it had a deep and solid tone musical tone that I hadn’t listened for the first time.

This difference in the tap tone is reflected in the sound of the finished instruments. Brazilian rosewood gives a more delicate ringing tone while African Blackwood makes guitars with a powerful and very solid sound.

I’m now building my first Dreadnought guitar (my Model 4 Double-decker) for over a year. Here are pictures of the body ready to receive the soundboard. The inside always looks so nice it almost seems a shame to cover it. The last one I built was 14 frets to the body, this will be twelve. The body size and shape are the same in either case. No pun intended.

Different dog

For many years Rens appeared regularly on this site; his ‘big personality, small brain’ character made him an irresistible photgrapher’s prop. Rens sadly died last December and has been greatly missed.
Now he has a successor. Ben is a labradoodle – ironic that someone should have given these dignified dogs such a ridiculous name. Ben will grow to be more poodle-like as time goes on, and much bigger than Rens.

[three_fourth]Carol MComb has sent pictures of her early cittern, asking me to date it. The label gives no date but it gives my present Old School workshop address along with my home telephone number at the time, a short lived combination.

I transferred my workshop from my home to the Old School in very late 1979, beginning work there at the start of 1980. In these pre-internet days, the telephone was vital, so I used an extension from my home phone even though this was one and a half miles away. This meant customers could contact me on the number I’d been using for several years.

However, the system didn’t work well. My ability to make and receive calls depended on the correct option at the home phone. When Liz used the phone she pressed the button for a different option, and then had to press the extension option when finished. Time and time again this didn’t happen, leaving me no contact with either home or the outside world. Short of going home myself, my only option was to call home from the nearby call box and ask a completely unrepentant Liz to press the appropriate button.

There was a further problem in that the extension line quality deteriorated drastically, giving more hiss than voice, especially in wet weather. Telephone company engineers were unable to find and fix the problem. For many years after I found myself shouting into telephones because of this.

For the next year the telephone company wanted to quadruple the cost of the extension, so I had a separate phone (with my current 567 number) installed. Thus simultaneously relieving pressure on my throat, wallet and marriage.

Only when engineers checked the line some time later did we find the cause of the poor sound quality. The line had been peppered with shot, piercing the insulation without breaking the wire. Clearly hunters shooting rabbits had found birds sitting on the line an irresistible target.

So all instruments with an Old School Label and a Slaley 338 telephone number were built in 1980 or very early 1981.

After a long break I’m now accepting large bodied octave mandolin and cittern orders again.

Details to follow.