Lowden Guitars

[nylon rock]

Visited George Lowden's new workshop last Thursday and was given a tour of how the shop hand builds each and every guitar. Just a really great experience to see how the wood is taken through every step. The workshop is just large enough for him and his apprentices to carry out the various operations. Four rooms make up the behind the scenes operation.

 

A "dirty" room is where things begin. The wood is still in its unworked appearance, and tops may be as yet unsplit. (All of his top wood is split wood, but I believe he mentioned that he receives it pre-split these days.) This first room is where the cutting and sanding takes place. It then connects to an assembly room where various procedures are used to work on individual parts.

 

Bending of wood, gluing, planing of surfaces, inlaying, fretting of fingerboards and the final connecting of the pieces together takes place in this second room. Really clever techniques are used and special jigs of his own design are employed. With everything done by hand, the result is luthiery as it would have been done 50 years ago, or even 150 years ago. The end result is that his guitars have a lot of old world charm to them that cannot be found anymore, elsewhere. It was wonderful to see how each step is precisely defined so that one of his apprentices, once shown how to do a step from start to finish, can then do it thoroughly and with authority, providing a very similar result time after time again. The guitars receive a lot of attention to detail in this room since all sides are connected by all-wood bindings and multiple wood purflings: figured sycamore, rosewood, mahogany, and walnut are used on his 35 series models.

 

What I really liked was that George pointed out how mass produced guitars don't have the same attention to detail, and he showed me a few examples of shortcuts that would be taken by mass producers, short cuts that separate a thousand dollar guitar from a several thousand dollar hand-built guitar.

 

After the assembly room each guitar goes to the finishing room where they are sprayed with eight separate coats of acrylic polyurethane. Finally, they go to the final assembly room where they have their finishes steel wooled to give a satin appearance, tuning machines are added, and they are strung with their strings. I saw some Elixir boxes on the counter, so I'd guess that they go out the door with Elixir Lights on them.

 

If you've ever had the pleasure of playing one of his guitars, you would have noticed that they have a nice heft to them and feel very solid. The action is always close and they are effortless to play all the way up the neck. Their balance imparts the ability for the strings to sound as one when played together on chords, yet the acoustic voicing, which results from his dolphin shaped braces, allows for clear trebles and basses with excellent note separation. Sort of the best of everything.

 

From the number of guitars he produces per week, I'd estimate that each guitar involves around twenty five man hours of work, and this is not drying time, it is where someone is actually performing a by-hand procedure. And George is there every day, involved with overseeing the construction and quality of each guitar.

 

A really interesting tour and a pleasure to meet him. He told me the guitar I have on order will begin construction in late September and be ready around early November, so a month for the build steps to be scheduled into real-time. By being able to talk to him we agreed to a couple of modifications to the custom specifications I had requested.

 

It really will be a dream guitar for me. I'm getting a Nylon String Jazz 35X with Alpine Spuce top, Fingerboard Extension (for 19 2/3 frets rather than just 19; you really do need that 20th fret high C note which almost all classical guitars do not have), his personal Custom Rosette, Rodgers Tuning Machines, and a few other incidental modifications so that it will be an acoustic and not an acoustic electric, as the usual Jazz guitars he makes are.

 

A great end to my unrelated business trip to Northern Ireland.

[Andrewrg]

Nice story nylon.I owned an original Newtownards built 012 which contrary to what you say was absolutely featherweight with a gorgeous airy tone.Sadly,I found the neck a bit of a handful and it is now with a friend.

[riovine]

Hey Nylon, what are the specs of this guitar WRT to body size and neck dimensions etc. I tried to go to the Lowden site but it was down. I just had a custom nylon built for me by Kirk Sand, just got it last week. I use it mainly for solo acoustic fingerstyle jazz, so the neck dimesions are closer to a steel, I guess it's what you would call a hybrid nylon.

 

Also, have you ever checked out the hybrid nylons produced by Breedlove or Goodall, I have a Goodall steel string standard that has an absolutly amazing sound.

 

Keep us filled in on how things turn out.

 

Ron

[nylon rock]

riovine,

 

To go to the Lowden site, you have to search on George Lowden.

 

You will then come to a screen that will allow you to go to Lowden Guitars or George's Personal luthiery. At the Lowden menu page you will be able to access the specs. There are no pics as yet.

 

The neck width on mine will be 48-mm at the nut and 60-mm at the 12th fret. Most likely will have him set the action at the 12th for 3.8-mm low E and 3-mm high E, and ask him for a little leeway each way without buzz notes at the first frets resulting.

 

The reason I went with him, was that his nylon jazz has a 24" radius of curvature fretboard which felt so cool to play, while all other classicals I've seen are flat fretboards. Then, the fact that he would do the position markers no charge all the way up the neck, and also let me have a fingerboard extension to give that Lowden "swerve," as I call it, for 20 reachable frets. 650-mm string length.

 

And I have liked his instruments all along.

 

Have never been able to find a Breedlove or Goodall nylon hybrid in stores, though I did get really close to considering the Breedlove one with the strange wood back and sides. (can't remember it's name or the wood type) But breedlove is sort of a little too radical and I wanted something slightly more traditional.

[riovine]

Yeah, Lowden does make fine instruments. There was a shop here in Dallas who used to carry them a few years back. I found his website, it sounds realy nice, too bad he doesn't have any pictures up so we can see what they look like, maybe you can remedy that when you get your guitar,

 

So, I'm curious, what pickup system (if any) are going to use. From his website he said he uses a Headway system. I'm not familiar with that system. The reason I'm asking is, since I was so happy with the sound of the pickup I'm using with my Goodal steel string (B-Band A2.2), I also had it installed on my Sand. I'm still undecided as to whether I like this PU with my nylon. Needless to say, my initial impressions weren't especially positive. I've been doing some research about other various PU systems for nylon. I've been reading about the Schertler DYN, PUTW and others. Do you have any insights on amplifying a nylon. I dread starting and expensive search for an optimal PU system for my nylon like I did with my steel (I have a closet full of various PU systems that I tried out for my Goodall before settling on the A2.2). Like I said earlier, my main application is solo & duet fingerstyle jazz playing in small rooms.

 

Cheers,

Ron

[nylon rock]

I deliberately am having him not put in a pick up because I just play for my own enjoyment and I feel electronics cheapen an instrument. But that's just my feeling.

 

By not having electronics, he can then "voice" the guitar so that it will ring out to the best of his luthiery design skills. With a pick up, and the feedback he needs to avoid, he does not sculpt the braces and the guitar, when played acoustically, is much quieter.

 

My current nylon is a Yamaha CGX-171CC that has a microphone in it with foam around it. I think I tried it once amplified, but that's not really my thing. I bought it because I liked the way it sounded and decided to live with the electronics.

 

So many people have no idea what nylon playing is like with classic rock songs. You can get lost in the music, it is that comfortable. But you have to have an intricate style of play. I you a pick and it is like playing an electric guitar with the buttery smooth feel of the nylon strings. La Bella 900 Golden Superiors that are polished on the bass strings for virtually zero squeak.

[riovine]

Hey Nylon, so would say that you loose any sound quality (i.e. brightness, clarity etc.) by using polished strings? What about gold vs silver? I assume that the polished strings have less friction, hence are also "quicker", and more slick feeling, is that true in your experience? I know that after playing my nylon for a while, or esp on a gig, my fingers get very sticky, which hampers my playing and increases finger noise.