The Burning Bush Guitar

In In early 2010 A friend told me about a master woodworker who had a fantastic eye for detail and the patience to achieve outstanding results. I was told that he had begun building guitars that were quite remarkable. Knowing that experience is a dominant factor in building a quality guitar I was skeptical how good a novice luthier’s guitar could actually be. My friend Bryan insisted that I take a look at this guitar. That is how I came to meet James J. Lovell.  When he opened the case I new I was in for a treat. The guitar was Martin like dreadnought. To my surprise it was high quality detailed workmanship with good tone and volume. Not to mention some dandy inlay work. With a little more inquiry I discovered that this was only Mr. Lovell’s second guitar, however, the first guitar was built step by step under the instruction of legendary north Georgia Luthier Jay D. Riness of  Jay Ryhnes Guitars.

I once read a story about Mr. Riness building a replacement neck for a vintage D’Angelico that someone later sold as an original for $80,000. Many well known luthier’s were trained by him.  Still even accounting for a renowned instructor Jim Lovell was obviously a gifted woodworker to be able to come up with such an impressive guitar so early on.

All of this got me to thinking. What if you gave this talented guy the best materials and also took advantage of the internet to get the latest innovations and best advice from the best luthiers.  The more I thought about it the more intrigued I became. So, I asked Jim if he were willing.  He said he would give his absolute best effort to build the best guitar we could imagine.

First we decided to make a Martin type dreadnought since that was a specialty of his mentor Mr. Riness. Since I am a big fan of bluegrass and flat picking I wondered if we could build a guitar that captured the best concepts of both the old Gibson and Martin guitars while adding the latest but confirmed innovations for a guitar that would be difficult to surpass in beauty, sound and playability.  As a place to start we chose Merle Travis’s 1969 Martin D-28 for the basic dimensions. That is really where the intentional similarity mostly ended. Thus began the research in my quest to create the ultimate bluegrass guitar.

I wanted to use Brazilian rosewood for the body if possible.  I soon found a Colorado woodworker/luthier named Max Krimell. Max had purchased some BRW back in the early seventies and had been holding on to a few awesome guitar blanks until he felt he was ‘good enough’ to build a guitar worthy of them.  Since in almost 40 years he never satisfied himself of this and having held on to them for so many years they were now up for sale. With his help I chose what we hoped was the best one for our purpose and only after close examination of the photos of all the blanks. Jim agreed on the choice.

For the top I went against Jims first recommendation to use Sitka spruce. While I love the sound of good Sitka I wanted to see if there were still any really good pieces of Adirondack spruce available.  This is when I came across John Griffin at Old Standard Wood. They supply the tops for Collings Guitars and for Stephen Gilchrist Mandolins. The owner John Griffin  was nice enough to take time out from his day to help me  I explained that I was trying to build the best guitar possible and I wanted a solid one piece Adirondack spruce top. He understood my theory but he pointed out that because the right piece of wood is so hard for even him to find you would wait much longer, if he found one, and pay much more for not much more if any actual benefit. He also said that properly cut book matched  two piece bearclaw Adirondack would be difficult to beat as far as beauty or sound. As a matter of fact he said that he had one top that he remembered cutting because it was from a really nice piece of bear clawed wood with little or no runout. Considering the amount of wood he cuts, that seemed like a pretty good recommendation. I was in. A funny thing happened when the top arrived. John had packed it between two pieces of remnant tops as protection. When I showed the top to Jim he was horrified. You see, I had accidentally mixed up one of the actual pieces with one of the cover pieces.  (Now in my defense, to the untrained eye, you can barely tell the difference before they are finished.) But Jim immediately said that something was terribly wrong if that was the top. I then called John, who very patiently said that he would be happy to take the top back but he thought I might want take a second look to make sure that I was looking at the right pieces because the pieces he sent me were definitely book matched high quality and unusually nice looking. With John on the phone I swapped and lined up the pieces per his instruction and suddenly, Kazam!.  Even I could tell the difference.  I then took the correct top to Jim who now looked at them like a father looks at a new born baby.

Only a little humbled and better for the experience I pressed on. Jim was familiar with and liked Honduran Mahogany and a little research indicated that if cut and installed properly it would be an excellent choice for the neck. Our piece was to be cut as one piece from a  hand selected quarter sawn blank connected to the guitar with a mortise and tenon neck joint.

With the basic materials decisions mostly under way I turned to the Fret board, bridge, saddle and bracing. For the Fret board I went to Randy Allen of Allen Guitars in Colfax California. Randy picked out a nice piece of Ebony and slotted it per Martin’s exact scale. Traditionally Martins have a 16” radius neck and Gibsons have 12 inch radius. Theoretically making the Gibson easier to chord and the Martin easier to play riffs.  I, naturally wondered if I could have both.  This is where a little research turned up Les Peatt of Peatt Guitars in Florida. Les, a very innovative luthier,  had developed a machine that allowed him to do a true conical radius on a neck. I asked him to cut a radius from 11” at the nut down to 16” at the tail. Next we chose to use ebony on the  bridge with a maple brace on the inside of the bridge.

I chose a Mammoth Ivory nut and saddle. We chose to use also Adirondack spruce for the bracing.
When we started the process I had bought as a gift for Jim, yes I had selfish motives, a copy of  Ervin Somogyi’s book “The responsive Guitar”. Well, Jim took it to heart and soaked it up like a sponge. So between the tutilidge of Jay Riness and the book by Ervin Somogyi. Jim had developed some definite ideas about bracing. Consequently when I suggested that he used forward shifted bracing he flatly refused. While he claimed he had some great plans for bracing Jim was convinced that centering the contact between the bridge and bracing across the end of the bridge was crucial to the proper transmission of the sound.  We went round and round like guitar sumo wrestlers and finally contacted Mr Somoyi who was very patient and helpful considering he is very busy. I can only paraphrase by saying he while he didn’t actually declare forward shifting bracing to be bad he did  know that the bracings contact with the bridge was critical as was total brace placement for the best sound transmission along with some other luthier language that only he and Jim understood.  We finally settled on a combination of slightly flaring the end of the bridge crossing the bridge on that center. It was a unique solution but to be honest I suspect that I lost the argument and the slight flare on the bridge was inconsequential and was implemented just to shut me up, but still, it made sense in theory. But that scalloping, Wow! You would have thought Michelangelo was carving David.  Every aspect seemed to be of the utmost importance.  His developments are proprietary and I won’t divulge them here but by listening to the sound of the finished product, he has sure figured something out.

We wanted to add a feature that is used by a few fine guitar makers. It is for lack of a better term an “armbevel” cut out of the corner wall of the lower bout. This indentation where the side meets the face of the guitar beneath the right forearm makes playing the guitar noticeably more comfortable. Also no one I have talked to has mentioned a negative impact on the sound. Well that all sounds good until you have to do it and discover that there are many wrong ways to do this. This is where Jim’s gift as a wood crafter was really able to shine. He researched a way to build a beveled armrest without harming the integrity of the box or the sound but he also wanted the armrest to appear as part of the side simply bent inward, using the left over rose wood side as a sort of thick veneer. After much thinking planning and even practicing he was able to build the bevel in a manner so fluent that you have to look twice or three times to see that the guitar top is not still symmetrical. The prayer came in when trying to apply the rosewood over this unique bevel. Apparently the problem stems from geometry because of the placement and shape of the bevel.  The rosewood must bend and change shape slightly as it bends matching the curve of the guitar.

Jim fought and prayed and quit and prayed and fought some more before he was finally able to accomplish building a beautiful bevel with a fit and finish that is truly unique.

Next up was the inlay and purfling.  Jim is an accomplished hand at carving mother of pearl. I asked him to use the theme of flames and leaves. After many drawings we settled on the design. We were both pleased.  Another thing I wanted was to avoid using any plastic anywhere on the guitar. This meant all wood purfling and binding as well as a wood pick guard. That’s right it is not plastic. Jim cut down a piece of ebony to thickness compared to a thin guitar pick. At my request he then carved it into the shape of overlapping leaves.

By this time I think his prayers were extended to not killing me. He actually kept the pickguard in a press to prevent any warping until it could be applied.  Jim chose ebony and tiger maple purfling and binding respectively.  To give you an Idea of his attention to detail have a look at the headstock on the guitar. The shaped binding around the top of the head is not bent but is actually carved from a single piece of ebony to fit around those delicate curves.

After much comparison I ordered Grover imperial vintage machine heads with 16:1 gear ratio. I wanted to go the extra mile so I also ordered a blank piece of grade A Mammoth ivory from Russia. Jim carved this into replacement pegs for the machine heads. I also had strap pins turned from mammoth ivory by Master wood turner Nick Cook in Marietta, Ga. Nick also turned a piece of Mammoth ivory down to toothpick size circumference to be used as fret markers on the upper side of the neck.

The finish is nitro cellulose. It took six weeks to finish, three to apply and three to cure before the final buff.  The result is that perfect balance of just barely enough finish to make it shine and protect it. If you hold it up to the light just right you can still see the grain in the wood. This thin finish is to allow the carefully crafted sound box to do its work without muffling the volume and complex tone character.

Well there you have it. I would like to say that you can get Jim Lovell to build you a guitar also but he told me that because of the mental stress and time involved he would have to really be heavily persuaded so get out your check book if you want one of his with this much detail.

I hope you enjoy the pictures and music as I add it. Feel free to comment or email your questions.