I really began to learn something about instrument making sometime in the '70s by taking classes at The College of Furniture (now part of Guildhall University) taught by Tony Smith. At about this time I also met Stephen Delft, then living in London, who was very helpful to a beginner luthier. Later I built a lute at a Morley College class run by Stephen Barber. More recently in Lewes I built a classical guitar in the workshop of Pablo Requenas and have been learning more about steel strung guitar construction with Nick Benjamin. I am currently building an archtop mandolin under the expert eye of Richard Osborne.
As well as guitars and the lute I have made several mandolins including one for Will Fly (a match for his tenor guitar, hear mandolin and tenor guitar here) and Celtic Bouzoukis one of which is owned by Richard Durrant. I mainly make steel strung but recently made a nylon strung guitar inspired by a late 19th century Martin 0-28 guitar. This has a quite different feel to a modern classical guitar and is particularly pleasing to play.
Although I mainly make acoustics I have also made electric instruments, including an electric mandolin. I've just completed work on a Telecaster / Variax hybrid. Since in a previous life I was an electronic engineer working in the Film and TV industry I am well qualified for projects involving electronics.
Currently I'm working on a second baritone cittern - 5 pairs of strings tuned in the same register as a mandocello.
Lutherie Gallery
The Sales Bit ....
If you decide to commision a guitar we will have a conversation, sometimes a very long conversation - I can talk about guitars till the cows come home - sometimes face to face but often by email and we agree on a price and a specification. Nothing hand made to this quality will ever be cheap but I don't think my instruments are expensive in terms of what they deliver. I require a deposit of one third of the price of the instrument before I start, with the balance to be paid on delivery. Once we've reached this stage I'm happy to involve my customer at every stage. You are welcome to help choose tonewoods and to visit my workshop. At one stage I was building guitars destined for Italy and Canada and posted web pages of photos showing progress, now I do this for almost every instrument.
I typically take four months from start to finish and have three instruments in my workshop at any one time but these figures are very approximate. I tend to be quite busy so there's very likely to be a delay before I can start work.
Once you've got your instrument I'm always happy to see or hear how it's progressing. I learn from this as well because guitars take time to develop. They certainly improve over time and may well change in ways I would like to know about. My warranty is simply that if anything goes wrong for any reason bring it back and I'll do the best I can.
There's a limit to the number of guitars a man can own - I know it's hard to believe but it's true - so I do sometimes have guitars for sale.
Ian Chisholm
Ditchling, Sussex, UK
September 2009
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