What is a "British" guitar? (upcoming NGD)

Tannin

The older I get, the more aware I become that the body doesn't last forever. These days I have to manage over-use injuries to my left arm and sometimes the odd twinge to my right shoulder. I'm over 60 and - who knows? - I could fall off the perch next week. I'm fit and well for the most part, and expecting and planning to go a good few decades yet, but no-one can be certain of that.

Anyway, I'm planning to bring forward a couple of long-anticipated experiences and purchases to make sure I enjoy them while I can. One of them is a British guitar. I like having guitars from different places.) I've been intending to buy one eventually, so why not now?

I've settled on Brook as the maker. You know I don't think I've ever heard a bad word about them, other than the difficulty of finding the damn place up those tiny laneways. The comments here on The Fretboard are universally positive. (I also hear consistently nice things about Atkin, but Brook guitars are more my style of instrument.) I was expecting to do the whole transaction by telephone and email - I live in Australia and have never been to Europe, let alone the UK. (And never really  intended to.)

But as it happens, another one of my bucket list things is a visit to my favourite in-laws who a few years back moved to Croatia. Come July Mrs Tannin and I are doing just that. So I'm taking a week out of that family visit to slip over to the UK and visit a good friend who lives in the countryside south of London. We will drive down to the Brook workshop together (he loves guitars as much as I do, though he's more on the electric side) and order something which they can ship to me here in Tasmania when it's finished. (I'll probably end up paying a little bit less for it than you'd pay in the UK. Shipping will be a couple of hundred pounds and I have to pay 10% GST but I save on that crazy-high 20% British VAT - If they tried bringing in a 20% sales tax here in Oz I reckon there would be blood in the streets.)

Now I don't know exactly what I'm ordering yet; I'm clear on some aspects, not sure about others and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions. 

First, the use-case.

I want an evening guitar. Something full-voiced and pleasing and responsive to play late at night, but not too loud. Mrs Tannin is very tolerant of my guitar playing and quite enjoys it as a rule, but in the evenings while she is sewing or reading I try to play a quiet one so as not to stretch the friendship. Mostly that's the Huon Pine Cole Clark Angel, a lovely instrument to be sure - but just one is never enough. (There are two or three others I also sometimes play at night but I have to be a bit careful not to get too carried away with them.)  

There are three common ways to reduce the volume of an acoustic guitar. (A) Build it more solidly with a thicker top or heavier bracing. (B) Use a hardwood top instead of spruce. (C) Just make it smaller. My Angel uses method (B) with a little dash of (A); it's a grand auditorium size.

Method (A) isn't always the disaster some people pretend it is but it's not a route I'm keen on going down for this new one. Method (B) is certainly on my radar as a possibility. And method (C) is top of my list. I'm thinking parlour or single-0 size as a starting point. I have a few specific requirements as regards neck width and scale length and so on, nothing outlandish there so no need to go into that here.

Second, the theme.

If I'm going to get a British guitar, I want it to be properly British! There are two aspects to this. The obvious one is timbers. The possibilities fall into several classes:

(5) Tropical hardwoods - rosewood, mahogany, and others. Out of the question.
(4) Foreign softwoods, mostly American. Sitka, Red and Englemann Spruce, redwood, Western Red Cedar, and European Spruce. I'd like to rule all of these out too as non-British but may need to accept one or another of them for the top if a suitable native timber does not present itself. Of those, the best choices would be European Spruce (which is at least from the right continent, and also because I have one or more of all the other common spruce tops and I like having different things) or cedar (just because I love the soft warmth of cedar). PS grown-in-the-UK foreign timbers such as plantation Douglas Fir or cedar count as foreign in my book.
(3) Quasi-native timbers. European Walnut is an example: it is not native to the UK but was introduced a very long time ago (thousands of years?) and has become a part of the landscape now. Ditto London Plane and several others. Happy to consider any of these.
(2) Genuine native timbers.Better still.
(1) Best of all, native timbers with special historical or other significance. There are probably quite a few of these and I'd be most interested to hear suggestions. The two that immediately come to my mind are oak and yew. Both have played huge parts in the history of Britain and I certainly intend to have both of those two somewhere in the finished instrument. 

Third, what is British anyway?

What makes a British guitar British? Set aside made-in-the-UK, that's a given. Set aside the timbers too, I can come back to that question. Is there such a thing as a British style of guitar? 

There is certainly an American style of guitar. They make a huge range of different instruments, of course, but nothing is more American than a big, bold, lightly-built dreadnought such as a D-18, an HD-28, a J-45, or a D-55. If you were going to have just one guitar to stand for all American guitars, one of those would be a very good choice: spruce top, mahogany neck, tropical hardwood back and sides, and that American-guitar sound.

There is equally an Australian guitar style which (of course) I know well. Once again there is a vast range of instruments made here but once again there is an obvious theme: body can be medium to medium-large (808, GA, or dreadnought) but always with deep sides, more robustly built than American guitars, balanced sound, slightly compressed with an open, glassy top end. Tops are Sitka Spruce from Canada or (increasingly) Bunya from Queensland, back, sides, and neck are nearly always Queensland Maple or Blackwood. 

I understand that there is also a well-defined Irish style of guitar, but I haven't played enough of them to know what it is or how to define it. 

So is there a British style? If you wanted one guitar to stand for all British guitars, what would it be? A sweet little cedar and walnut parlor? A concert-size instrument with a slotted headstock? Which guitar is the most typically British and what does it sound like?

bertie

even better than British,  Brook is Devonian,   only great things come out of Devon   

BillDL

Custard

bertie

BillDL said:

Custard

and Cream rice.   same factory.   

Used to play skittles against their social club back in the day

Cig35

Two “out-of-the-box” suggestions for wood that could be possible for back/sides: Rowan or birch. Both are as far as I know native and have distinct significance in Celtic mythology. I’ve seen a couple of smaller guitars using them but haven’t tried one, so I don’t know if the suggestion is good or not.

bertie

Cig35 said:

Two “out-of-the-box” suggestions for wood that could be possible for back/sides: Rowan or birch. Both are as far as I know native and have distinct significance in Celtic mythology. I’ve seen a couple of smaller guitars using them but haven’t tried one, so I don’t know if the suggestion is good or not.

back / sides are never the issue, al sorts of great tonewoods grow natively  -  its finding a decent wood for the top

drofluf

bertie said:

even better than British,  Brook is Devonian,   only great things come out of Devon   

Aren't you from Devon as well though @bertie ;?

bertie

drofluf said:

bertie said:

even better than British,  Brook is Devonian,   only great things come out of Devon   

Aren't you from Devon as well though @bertie ;;?

ha f***ing  ha  

 

I did come out of Devon,  trouble is they wont let me back in

Mellish

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works by mentioning Fylde. Superb quality, and its mystifying that they get little mention here.  Even if you don't buy one, I'd urge you to check 'em out while over here. 

wrinkleygit

Cedar and Walnut would be an excellent choice, a trip to the Brook workshop is a wonderful experience, check out Jack’s inlay work while you’re there, as a Brook owner I would recommend a Torridge based on your requirements. Enjoy your day out.

have a look at this review 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iq_Dj2zr_LI

Tannin

A very well-respected maker @Mellish, though  don't think they sell to just anyone.

Funny you should mention them up there in Preston. I have a double connection with the Lake District. My family lived there for centuries (though my branch shipped out to Oz well over 100 years ago). Every family member except me has made a pilgrimage to the family mill in .. er Kendal I think. Not something that's ever been on my radar. I'd rather go and see the place where my other great-great-something grandfather lived - in Port Arthur. I was down that way just the other day but didn't go in because the bastards wanted to charge me $47 entry. Great-something Grandfather Tannin didn't have to pay anything to go there and he got free transport too! 

The second connection is a decades-old interest in the Settle-Carlisle rail line (which runs through the windswept hills only a few miles away). I'm not by any means a train buff but that particular part of England has a real fascination.

So I have a total of six days in Blighty; three with my friend in Surrey (including a day slipping down to Brook in Devon), and two in and around Cumbria, plus one traveling north. (I may or may not spend a few hours in London on the way through. I'm not much on cities as a rule. Probably I'll do the same in London as in Paris - spend an hour or two walking from one main railway station to another instead of taking the Metro/tube.)

I aim to stay in Settle and spend the first day on the west coast loop (Camforth, Barrow-in-Furness, Whitehaven, Carlisle) finishing up with a southbound look at one side of the Carlisle-Settle line, the following day northbound back to Carlisle looking at the other side, then a lightning trip round Glasgow to Edinburgh, flying back to Croatia from there that same evening. 

So I'll be practically within a stone's throw of Flyde in Preston twice, and do a complete loop around the Lake District without ever setting foot in it.

Mellish

@Tannin ; oh you'll love it me old mate. The Lake District has fine scenery, like its been God-blessed.

And if you go to Fylde, you may get a factory tour.

But whatever you do, have a good one. 

 

rogd

Fylde are in Penrith rather than Preston.

Tannin

Oh!

bertie

rogd said:

Fylde are in Penrith rather than Preston.

isnt that closer (in) the Lake district tho ?

guitarjack66

rogd said:

Fylde are in Penrith rather than Preston.

As Fylde is close to the Blackpool/Preston area it's an easy mistake to make,even for somebody outside the UK,such as an Aussie chap like @Tannin. ;

BillDL

I suppose it's a bit like us assuming that Woollabongalong is close to Wanabaragimba because they are only 1cm apart on a map and are off the same main two-track red-dirt road 

One thing about the UK in general that many people from more rural or suburban places in America, Canada, Australia, and Africa find hard to imagine is why it takes us so long to travel comparatively short distances here.  A lot of the non-Motorway and non-dual carriageway roads connecting towns here are a lot more windy as they weave their way around places and things that were here a long time before the roads were built.  The notion of somebody doing a flying visit to London and then popping up to the Scottish Highlands for a few days is more daunting and takes a lot more planning than it ideally should.

Mellish

Fylde Guitars
Gilwilly Industrial Estate
Penrith
CA11 9BD
Tel: 01768 891515

ToneControl

I was going to suggest Fylde as well

Also you could get an English guitar made in the Gold Coast in Australia
https://www.nkforsterguitars.com/

Mellish

@ToneControl ; Fylde are superb.

I saw a girl playing one seated at an open window and the tone made my jaw drop. It was beautiful.. 

Expensive, though, I believe. 

 

ToneControl

Mellish said:

@ToneControl ; Fylde are superb.

I saw a girl playing one seated at an open window and the tone made my jaw drop. It was beautiful.. 

Expensive, though, I believe. 

 

£2.5k last time I looked, just checked now, there are a few at £2900