Madrid Meets the Front Range

R S Roosevelt National Park 1

In May of 2013 I set out north from Boulder, Colorado, to the Roosevelt National Forest, not to avail myself of backpacking, hiking, or white water rafting opportunities, but to visit a maker of classical guitars.

R S Roosevelt National Park 4

One of my favorite websites is Wilson Burnham’s Brokeoff Mountain Lutherie: The Adventures of a Luthier.” The writing is all about the joys of woodworking as it relates to the long, careful, and loving process of building beautiful, resonant musical instruments,“copies of guitars that were made by the Spanish masters, such as Santos Hernandez, Domingo Esteso and Hernandez y Aguado.”

 

  Hand made guitars especially those made following the artistic ritual and creative process of the best last century style guitar makers, or luthiers, are different to the manufactory ones, because it takes an average of 250 hours of accurate manual labour to a luthier in order to ensemble a guitar as Marcelo Barbero or Santos Hernandez did, opposed to manufactory made guitars which are ensambled in hundreds by machines simultaneously.” ~ http://www.rdiaz.org/rd-art%204.html

R S 1968 H y A guitar

I pulled off the highway onto a dusty lane, past this sign that greats you at the head of the driveway,

R S Wilson's sign

and up to a log home built in the 1940s.

R S Wilson and Amanda

Wilson and his wife Amanda gave me a warm and enthusiastic greeting and a fresh cup of coffee. Before heading into the shop they showed me around their warm, cozy home filled with Native American textiles, jewelry, sculpture, Western bric- a- brac, and simple and well made furniture, like the Craftsman style rocker Wilson has restored and written about.

Amanda’s creative space is upstairs.

R S Amanda's studio 1i

R S Amanda's studio 2R S Amanda's studio 3

To link to her Etsy site click  here.

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In the attic crawlspace instrument wood is tucked away and carefully kept flat.

R S Wood stored in attic

“The real value of the wood is in its being aged, and the fact that first class aged wood is very difficult to find is also to be considered.”

The guest room doubles as guitar storage. Wilson took these four out of their cases for me.

R S Four guitars made by Wilson

“Starting at the far left is a full size classical guitar with a western red cedar top with black walnut back and sides; then there is a copy of a Romantic era guitar that was made in 1839 by Rene Lacote, it has a redwood top with California laurel back and sides; the next guitar is based up a “Legnani” model guitar also made by Rene Lacote circa 1832, it has a Douglas fir top and California laurel back and sides; the last guitar is a full size classical guitar with a spruce top and black walnut back and sides.”

The first thing that caught my eye as I walked into the lutherie was this hand tooled saddle made by R.T. Frazier, a very famous saddle maker in Pueblo, Colorado, another solid reminder of the part of the world I was in.

R S Saddle

Wilson recounts that his mother acquired it “as a dude wrangler with Harold “Husky” and Katie Beresford, who ran the Mineral Lodge in Mineral, California, summer of 1944. She was 17 years old when she started working for the Beresfords and worked for them every summer until 1952 when she got a full time teaching job. Anyway, one summer, during a slow period, Katie had my mom (Ardith was her name), clean out the old ice house that was by the original hotel. Mom said that it was full of old sawdust, which was used to insulate the ice, some old junk and four old saddles. Mom grabbed the saddle that I have in my studio, because it was in the best repair compared to the others, which she later took home with her. She then set fire to the sawdust pile and old saddles, and then discovered that there were a bunch of old bullets in the sawdust, she said that she had to run away fast because bullets started exploding and whizzing every which direction.” 

R S Tone woods

On a low bench on the same wall were beautiful “tone woods” that marry rich sound and expressive grain. They must be tremendous inspiration to have just hanging around, waiting for their turn.

And here is Wilson’s one room lutherie.

R S Wilson's Shop

It seemed to me to be a slice of woodworking heaven, with light coming in from the blue Rocky Mountain sky, fine woods, and antique and shopmade tools. He uses only hand tools in making guitars. At first it may appear like a modest assortment but he has quite an extensive selection of hand and specialty tools that relate to his craft. It would have been easy to spend an afternoon investigating.

If you’ve followed his blog you recognize the way he has composed his working space through the shop aids he’s designed and put in place, the saw horse, tool racks and shelves, bench, wooden cam clamps, Krenov style scrapers and planes. Everything is in easy reach and within a step or two of the bench.

Here are two small planes he made.

R S two small planes

R S Rosette on guitar

To know more about his wonderful guitars and to read posts on guitar making, western history, restoration carpentry, and the happy doings of an enthusiastic spirit visit http://guitarluthier.blogspot.com/. 

 

 

 

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