Tony begins the ‘Dragon’. Willem, Hans, and Fred arrive from Holland to build their first guitars.

Tony will return on the next course to continue with this one. Obviously there is not time for this sort of thing in the normal 5 days.

In this case Liberon finishing oil is applied to the finely sanded guitar. What a great job Willem…..nice inlays.

Here’s Mark demonstrating the ‘string tension simulator’ to Hans. It bends the neck as if it were strung up to pitch making fret dressing more accurate.

Some instruments, like this bass, just have something nice about them. It is just a standard really, mahogany neck and body with an ebony fingerboard, but it definately has the x factor. Just wait till it gets the knobs on….

An Absolute pleasure to have these four and help them all build their first guitars. William came from Brazil! The others were slightly more local.

The photo of Chris’s guitar doesn’t really do it justice but that is a stunning piece of wood. The gold hardware really sets it off.

Rock on Doug! Nice one mate. All mahogany with a set neck and floyd rose trem.

Kieran made this stunner – It shows just what is possible now on the course.

William has just discovered his fathers fence at home in Brazil is made from purple heart! Not for long we think…sorry seem to have misplaced your pic william…. Will find it…..

Tom finishes his fretless bass with a TREM!

When Tom first asked me if he could make this I did think he was a bit mad…. but aren’t we all? Started on the Nov course this guitar took 8 days (3 days longer than normal) mainly because it was a thru neck design but also because of the trem.

Yes it really does have a trem and no it really doesn’t have any frets…..Crazy man…..anyone want a cheese sandwich?

Hmm is it any good though?

Judging by the reaction I think it’s pass standard.

Duncan Finishes his 4th byo, Paul’s 3rd, Andy Wood’s 2nd, and Nick Harris makes his first.

Dunc came to finish what he had started in Nov. What a stunner.it turned out to be. The Paduak body really came up gorgeous. Highly figured flame maple neck,Gold Wilkinson trem and hardware made this guitar a touch of class.

What can you say? Absolutely fantastic – top job Paul. Great sounding acoustic built from scratch in 15 days over 3 courses.

Last time Andy made a set neck, double cut. It was the same colour as this one (tobacco burst). He wanted to do something different so, in the 5 days, made a bolt on style instead.

After we finished the guitars we retired to the house for a photo op. Duncan had to leave for his long drive home. There’s Nick right in the middle with his custom selfmade B1.

That’s Carol on the left admiring our handy work.

Paul continues his acoustic, Adam makes a single cut/set neck. Duncan Starts his 4th BYO guitar. Marcel also starts his 4th Bailey BYO – a bass to be featured in the Dutch ‘Bassist’ mag. Tom starts to build a fretless bass with a trem – yes he is quite mad. More on Tom and Duncan in Dec…..

Excellent progress from Paul….He has been before. In between building his guitars he also took a cabinet makers course which has obviously helped a lot. His guitar has mahogany back and sides with a sitka spruce soundboard, the binding is snakewood.

A very decent chap indeed and a very decent guitar too. Adam chose a piece of amazaque for the cap which really came up lovely.
Marcel returns from Holland to make another beautiful bass. He made up his own shape which looks amazing, and chose a piece of Walnut for the cap…….

Thanks to Marcel for writing this amazing article. I hope they are saying nice things. We have many visitors from Holland so our reputation is growing!