iLuthier

Beauty, style and functionality…

Adam Lawrence of Jam Court Mountain Dulcimers has been professionally involved in the music industry for over twenty years. As a Music Business major at Anderson University in Indiana, he studied classical guitar and voice and he has performed in numerous venues as a soloist and as the founder of a contemporary Christian music group that included dulcimer instrumentation. Adam is currently an active member of the Hills of Kentucky Dulcimer Club. and all of this passion for music and his wide experience in music production goes into each an every Jam Court dulcimer.

What makes Jam Court dulcimers different from other dulcimers? Well primarily it’s because you can have one crafted to your own complete custom design. Unlike most “off the shelf” instruments, for a dulcimer that expresses your unique personality and playing style you need more than a choice of two or three walnut/spruce models that a dealership may offer. As Adam explains “If you want Bolivian rosewood back/sides, Honduras mahogany top, and a curly maple fretboard with ebony overlay then we can do that. We let you select the wood type for every piece that goes into your dulcimer. You can even give us your dimensions for side depth, fretboard width and fretscale! We also do custom inlay using pearl and wood marquetry and we have a few unique soundhole themes from which to choose or we can work with you to incorporate your own hole shapes. As well as that we offer side binding (to enhance beauty) and a double back (to enhance resonance).”

At Jam Court various selections of hardwood can be used to overlay the fretboard and head. This allows for a softer wood to be used for the fretboard, for increased resonance, while protecting the playing surfaces with a more durable, dense wood. Also, using a contrasting overlay color enhances the beauty of the strum hollow and the curved relief carved into the head.

The sound hole themes on the dulcimers are non-traditional insofar as the holes are offset at an angle from one side of the soundboard to the other. The shapes themselves vary in size and orientation to give a more natural look. The unique bridge pin cover hides the pins while providing a surface for decorative inlay, while the side binding, a decorative wood trim along the edges of the sides, can dress up a dulcimer and make it extraordinary. To personalize your dulcimer, Jam Court can also inscribe under one of the sound holes with something that is personal or meaningful to you, for example a bible verse, poetic phrase or a person’s name.

And at 37 ½ inches in overall length and a standard 2 ½ inch side depth, Jam Court’s dulcimers have a big sound that stands out in a crowd.

To check out some more images, click here.

To go to the Jam Court Mountain Dulcimer webpage, click here.

Bill Spence LP The Hammered Dulcimer US $8.00 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 12:44:46 PDT   | Watch this Item

Hammered Dulcimer by Peter Pickrow US $9.99 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 12:47:49 PDT   | Watch this Item

Jim Miller- Hills & Hollers (Hammered Dulcimer/Guitar Duets) LP MINT US $5.09 (4 Bids) Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 12:54:10 PDT   | Watch this Item

T Tuning Wrench - Harpsichord, Zither, Dulcimer, Harp US $13.95 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 13:23:16 PDT   | Watch this Item

Apple Creek ACD100 Dulcimer with Spruce Top US $53.55 (2 Bids) Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 13:27:07 PDT   | Watch this Item

DULCIMER FAIR - LEO KRETZNER & JAY LEIBOVITZ LP US $16.00 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 13:35:10 PDT   | Watch this Item

First Act Begniners Lap Harp Dulcimer With Song Books Pick & Manual NO RESERVE US $3.95 (2 Bids) Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 13:47:33 PDT   | Watch this Item

Apple Creek Mountain Dulcimer US $119.22 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 13:53:32 PDT   | Watch this Item

Guitar maker survives on a string and a prayer

From humble beginnings nearly 50 years ago, the future of Melbourne’s Maton Guitars now looks rock solid, writes Dewi Cook.

A business needs more than passion. Since buying the family company, Maton Guitars, 18 years ago Linda and Neville Kitchen have come to understand this – the hard rock way.

The company, established by Linda’s jazz musician father Bill May in 1946, has sold its guitars to musicians as famous as George Harrison, Ben Harper, Carlos Santana, Tommy Emmanuel and Mark Knopfler.

It began when 18-year-old May, not satisfied with his then imported guitar, decided to make his own. His first forays into guitar making were experiments in simple stringed and fretted instruments but the principals were very straightforward – develop a skill with your hands, know your woods, learn patience and perseverance, develop an eye for line and design, maintain your individual touch, remain open to criticism, surround yourself with a good supporter base, service your product and don’t price yourself out of the market.

Bill May worked during the day and went to night school, graduating as a technical school teacher. In 1944 he and his wife Vera set up the first Maton – a combination of “May” and “tone” workshop in the garage of their first house in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. May was laughed at when he decided to give up his safe and secure job as a teacher to work full time as a guitar maker – After all even Leo Fender was at an embryonic stage, business wise, at that time. Determined to succeed though Bill May had to make a lot of his own benches, tools and machinery – Including a bandsaw made from Model T Ford wheels and other bits and pieces.

In 1946 Bill’s brother Reg, a cabinetmaker, came into the business with him and work continued for a few years while they perfected the first Maton prototypes. Also that year the company took out a patent which turned out to be a world first – a simple but effective device which enabled the guitar maker or repairer to ensure that the neck remained true and straight. The device was called the “double thrust truss rod” and was anchored from the base rather than the headstock end of the guitar.

In 1948 the company moved to an old soap factory in Canterbury Road, Canterbury and a year later the first Maton electric guitars appeared. Hawiian slide guitars, solid body electrics, semi-acoustics, classical guitars and electric basses soon followed suit over the coming years. An early innovation came in 1968 when Maton was one of the first companies to make acoustic bass guitars on a larger scale. Named “The Bindara” bass it was of generous proportions, but smaller than the bass guitar-like instruments used in the Mexican marriachi bands.

Maton also adopted a “quick-drying” method to season its wood. The timber was aged in a process called “high frequency dialectric heating” which was developed in conjunction with the Phillips Corporation. It was an artificial drying process which could simulate 15 years of seasoning within a very short time, using microwaves to reduce the moisture content and solidify the timber resins.

When the Kitchens bought Mr May out in 1987, Maton Guitars was in it’s own “dire straits”. The couple inherited a $200,000 overdraft and a declining local demand for top-end instruments. Cheap Asian imports were flooding the market and Linda’s father’s business model – hands-on and with no salespeople – had become, after 40 years, unprofitable.

“When dad retired he found it difficult to let go because a family business, when it’s your blood, sweat and tears, it’s very difficult to walk away from” Mrs Kitchen, 56, says. “It was a gamble financially for us to embark upon it but I suppose, because I was so emotionally involved and had been all my life, that you can always think if you never give it a go then you’ll never really know.”

In its darkest period the Canterbury-bases factory was producing only 30 guitars a month and staff had dwindled to 12. Today it’s up to 60. What sweet chord was struck?

When the Kitchens took over they decided to concentrate on one model, steel string acoustics, and working to establish themselves as top-quality manufacturers.

“I think you’ve got to put all your energies and your money and your ideas into perfecting what you’re best at doing.” Mrs Kitchen says.

In the past 10 years Maton Guitars has been transformed from a brand “like an aunt who’s always there but you never think of” to a premium, made-to-order manufacturer.

A new Bayswater facility and modern equipment meant the company could once again duel with the American super-brands of Fender and Gibson. The emphasis on product design began to pay off.

Two-and-a-half years ago the Kitchens invested about $2 million into a new factory in Box Hill. It’s created a harmony between risk and reward.

That was a gigantic leap for us financially,” Mrs Kitchen said. “We could have lived quite well and maintained that factory (in Bayswater) but it was too small and if we want to maintain the product, and export and look after the staff that we’ve got, we really had to take the plunge.” she says.

“There’s no point embarking on an export drive if you don’t have the capacity to supply,” Mr Kitchen chimes in.

Maton Guitars produce 7000 guitars a year and sends them to about 250 Australian retailers and more than 50 across the globe. It first started to export guitars to England, America and New Zealand in the 1960′s

But with expansion comes added lengths of red tape, mrs Kitchen frets. She nominates payroll tax as the worst – “an insidious tax”. “It’s a tax on employment,” her husband backs up.

They reckon productivity has increased 20 to 30 percent since the Box Hill move, and they hope to be producing 12,000 guitars a year within a few years.

The local market in Australia has been fantastic and has supported us and enabled us to do this,” Mrs Kitchen says. “But I don’t think that can happen forever. You have to have little niche markets all over the world.”

Passion, with a Kitchen twist, is poised for a global tour.

Washburn J-6 Archtop Jazz Guitar US $400.00 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 13:44:53 PDT   | Watch this Item

Godin Multiac Jazz Spruce Electric Guitar Archtop Acoustic Spruce Top NEW US $1,799.00 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 17:03:01 PDT   | Watch this Item

HOFNER HCT-J17 JAZZ ARCHTOP L5 ELECTRIC ACOUSTIC GUITAR CHERRY SUNBURST US $379.99 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 17:20:21 PDT   | Watch this Item

New Archtop Jazz Guitar Bridge Rosewood Chrome Hardware guitar parts US $16.99 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 19:06:50 PDT   | Watch this Item

Collectible 40th Ann. Peerless Leela Jazz archtop guitar NAMM Demo w/ Hardcase US $2,150.00 Auction Ends: Saturday May-19-2012 22:09:02 PDT   | Watch this Item

JAZZ GUITAR SOLOING METHOD for Archtop, Electric, Acoustic US $29.95 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 8:55:11 PDT   | Watch this Item

1950'S AIRLINE KAY 17" ARCHTOP JAZZ ACOUSTIC ELECTRIC GUITAR SPRUCE TOP US $399.99 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 9:09:47 PDT   | Watch this Item

Artec Side Mount Pickup for Arch Top Jazz Guitar Gold US $14.99 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 9:26:42 PDT   | Watch this Item

Warren Nolan-Fordham is a professional violin maker and silversmith who is totally committed both to his vocation and to using Australian Timbers. During the late 1980′s and early 1990′s he lived and worked in Montsalvat, an artists colony in Eltham, Victoria, where his cottage contained his fifteenth century styled workshop, crammed with instruments. He now lives and works from his workshop situated in Preston in Melbourne, where he works long hours, his life utterly dictated by the work pattern of making and repairing. If he goes out it will most likely be to spend time with other instrument makers. He has had a lot of help and encouragement from Kevin Williams – one of Australia’s premiere violin makers – whose knowledge of timber is unsurpassed.

Nolan-Fordham began as a self taught maker, building his first instrument when he was just 15, and was later awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1979 to study in London. Although never an apprentice in any real sense, Nolan-Fordham allied himself with some practising instrument makers in Melbourne. Two who were particularly helpful to him were Colin Cerr, a repairer, and Tom Lewis, a violin maker.

Good tools, it seems, are very difficult to obtain and Nolan-Fordham considers that “part of the concept of making is to have good tools”. He was fortunate enough to buy a collection of vintage handmade tools in an old shop in London and says these are made from much finer steel than is used in today’s mass-produced tools.

Nolan-Fordham believes that part of what makes a violin maker good is an instinctive feeling for timbers, “a feeling for shape and form in the wood”. He also sees the secret of good instrument making as one craftsperson retaining “personal control” over the whole process, distinguishing the so-called “handmade” production-line instruments from those made in small numbers.

He has perfected an instrument which he calls his “soloist” violin, and has orders for as many as he can make.

One of the few violin makers working exclusively in Australian timbers, Nolan-Fordham proudly asserts that they give better results and that he would always use Australian timbers which he feels are “outstandingly better” than, say, the spruce traditionally used. He uses Tasmanian mountain ash or Australian blackwood for the neck, scroll, back and sides, King William pine for the belly and willow for the blocks and linings. He makes new bows and repairs old ones with brumby (wild pony) hair.

Nolan-Fordham has also included native floral designs, eucalyptus leaves, roses and gumnut designs using pyrography on some his ornate instruments.

He prefers the ornate instruments of the Brescian school from the late 1500s to the mid-1750s. Indeed, perhaps eccentrically, he has even adopted the lifestyle of the fifteenth century, saying “I was born 400 years too late”.

You can check out Warren’s official website at www.warren-nolan-fordham.com or contact him at:

Warren Nolan-Fordham
20 Albert Street
Preston, 3072
Melbourne
Australia

Ph: 0425701821

This passage has been updated, but taken largely from the book “Australian Made, Australian Played” by Michael Atherton.

Old Violin Jacob Stainer 1674 Plans Seven in Set! US $39.77 Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 13:40:36 PDT   | Watch this Item

Very old fine master German violin ! ! ! Alte geige ! !! Jacobus Stainer! ! ! US $500.00 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 14:19:02 PDT   | Watch this Item

Stainer vintage violin US $52.00 (6 Bids) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 15:32:37 PDT   | Watch this Item

♫► OLD GERMAN 4/4 STAINER VIOLIN ♫ VIDEO ♪♫ VINTAGE ANTIQUE VIOLINE ♪♫ Violino ♪ US $189.80 (42 Bids) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 20:33:20 PDT   | Watch this Item

Very old violin nice flamed NR "jacobus Stainer" needs repair US $199.00 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 22:18:54 PDT   | Watch this Item

Nice old violin nice flamed NR "jacobus Stainer" 1part back, full blocked US $279.00 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Sunday May-20-2012 22:19:50 PDT   | Watch this Item

Jacobus Stainer In Absam Prope Oenipontum Violin 1630 GERMANY W/ Violin Case US $99.99 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Tuesday May-22-2012 8:35:25 PDT   | Watch this Item

old 4/4 violin with label Jacobus Stainer violine viola fiddle geige US $53.74 (8 Bids) Auction Ends: Tuesday May-22-2012 10:34:25 PDT   | Watch this Item