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To put all of these works into some kind of time perspective, it should be noted that I have been painting seriously for most of my life, but on an intermittent basis. Different times require different endeavors to maintain sanity and I have wandered from one craft to another as well as worked an untold number of jobs to keep body and soul alive. The early paintings from the 1970's were done mostly in the evenings after working in my furniture repair and design shop. Much of this period's work has been scattered to the wind and may or may not still be of this earth. Painting from the 1980's was partly done while working as a welder and carpenter along with building several wooden boats and in the late 1980's my wife and I went on the road, attending Arts and Craft fairs throughout the Pacific Northwest where we sold my paintings as well as prints along with Liz's weaving. This, we did until the mid 1990's when the road became too hard and profits softened. I put my brushes away for some five years and built guitars which sold well, but near the turn of the century my need to smear a bit of paint returned all but the continued playing of the guitars came to an abrupt halt, canvas was stretched, and the paint began dripping off my brushes again. In 2006 we took a vacation to Nova Scotia where we fell in love with the place, returned briefly to the Pacific Northwest, sold the farm and moved back to Nova Scotia where we are at present and the most recent group of paintings have been painted here in Canada's "Ocean Playground" where the summers are perfect and the winters are long, but wonderful in their own way. What comes next can only be guessed at.
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All of these guitars are hand made with the finest quality woods available. Backs and sides are, when possible, made from locally grown trees, harvested from the front yards in Walla Walla, Washington. My favorite wood is Sycamore and many of these guitars incorporate it. Sycamore is a strong beautiful wood and quite exciting when quarter sawn. It imparts warm tone to the instrument, that when combined with a Sitka Spruce top, creates an even toned clear sounding guitar, ideal for finger picking and slack tuned playing.
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My COMMITMENT is to build individual instruments to the highest possible
standards using the best materials available and never take any shortcuts.
To me, building individual instruments means taking the extra time to make
the most of each instrument, bringing out its own voice. Building this way
takes a tremendous amount of time but the results are worth it.
A standard Gnaedinger is built with fine materials individually selected for tone, structure, and beauty, these materials are then worked into instruments of quality that reflect their beginnings.
A fine instrument starts with fine wood & I buy only well seasoned master grade tone woods, which are handpicked by my wood suppliers to meet my exacting standards.
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Archtop guitars are
crafted from select billets of the finest air dried, well-seasoned North
American and European cello woods. Every piece of wood that does not meet
these standards is returned. Most wood is then put away, for several more years, to age and season further in my shop. |
The shop |
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The "X" brace is cut from split billets of Sitka spruce
and are hand fit to perfectly match the complex arch of the plate.
Anything less than a perfect fit would result in lost tone, power,
harmonic distortion, buzz (i.e. "wolf tone"), which would prevent the
instrument from realizing its maximum acoustic potential.
Once the braces have been glued to the top plate, they are carefully carved and shaped by
hand, while continuing to tap and tune the plate. This is a crucial step
in assuring a clear and articulate voice for each instrument. All other
braces for the top are carefully fitted to perfectly match the shape of
the top plate. This exerts an extremely even pressure over the entire surface of the parts being glued, resulting in the parts being stress free, which means they are free to vibrate more naturally, when tensioned by the strings.
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The house
The barn
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The braces are then scalloped and each soundboard is individually voiced to bring out its full tonal potential. The back plate of the instrument is built in much the same way on a separate work board of a different radius.
The top and back plates of my arch top guitars are carved by hand. No
duplicating carvers are used. This affords me the opportunity to "get to
know" each piece of wood and tailor the final shape and graduation of the
arches to achieve a specific, desired result.
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