iLuthier

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.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2005 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Guitars, Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.