About Me

Past Life

I came to Lutherie somewhat late in life and the road there has been pretty varied. I've been a Submariner, a Divemaster, a Systems Engineer and a few more careers besides. I've always loved music and decided to explore what goes on in an acoustic string instrument to make it work.

Musical Styles

I lean towards Celtic and Folk styles in my musical tastes with a bit of Blues and of course the Rock & Roll of my youth thrown in. So I typically build to suit those styles of music. I don't really aim to make the instrument you would take on stage plug in and play I would prefer to make the instrument you relax with afterwards.

Design Approach

In keeping with this my designs tend to be more subdued as opposed to highly decorated. Althought I occaasionally do a "fancy" one. Some shapes are totally mine and some harken back to older designs like the Gibson L0 or Howe-Orme. I make guitars and also have fallen in love with that rather loosely defined group of instruments that are tuned in 5ths with 4 or 8 strings. Call them what you will, Tenor Guitars, Mandocellos, Mandolas, Octave Mandolins, Bouzoukis and Ukuleles as well. I make a few that are harder to define like a 4 string Cello Guitar. 

My instruments are flat topped, carved archtop, domed or radiused. Builders who's work I admire include Nigel Foster, Stefen Sobell, Robert O'Brien, Jeffery Yong and Johann Brentrup as well as the historic works of Howe-Orme.