acoustic guitars

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Acoustic_guitar

Walker (Kim)

Kim Walker acoustic guitars are inspired by C. F. Martin’s classic pre-war period with a bit of Gibson from the 30’s and 40’s. They are not exact copies of guitars from that period, but have further refinements for the modern player - like a modern neck and finish. All Walker's guitars are made with an adjustable truss rod in the neck and have a scalloped bracing system for the tops. Walker tap tunes each guitar for maximum tone, volume, and presence.

Tony Vines

Tony Vines was born in East Tennessee and in 1989 began a lifelong career as a professional Luthier.  Initially tony built 5 acoustic guitars per year and logged over 400 repairs as owner/operator of the premier musical instrument repair shop of  Kingsport, Tennessee.  During these early years he gained extensive knowledge regarding design and function of a wide variety of musical instruments - which he feeds into the production of Tony Vines acoustic guitars.  Through the years many great artists have owned Tony Vines handmade guitars: most notably Johnny Cash and Joe Carter (son of A.P. and Sara Carter).  Examples of Tony's work are displayed at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota.

Source: Tony Vines Guitars website (9 June 2021)

Veillette

Veillette acoustic, electric and bass guitars are built by Joe Veillette, AndeChase, and Jimmy Eppard, in Woodstock, NY. Joe Veillette learned guitar making in the early 1970s with Michael Gurian and made acoustic guitars until 1975 when he founded Veillette-Citron guitars with Harvey Citron. Veillette-Citron guitars proved popular and sold well until closure of the company in 1983. Over the next 8 years Joe made very few guitars: he was performing as the singer & guitarist of The Phantoms. In 1991, he founded Woodstock Music Products with Stuart Spector, making Spector basses & starting a line of Veillette electric & baritone guitars.

VANTAGE

The original Vantage brand guitars were produced in Japan (by Matsumoku?) during the 1970s: The Avenger and Invader series had the most unusual body styles. Double cut-away VP, VS and VSH modesl were more conventional. All these models had great features with multiwood natural finish bodies fashionable in the late 1970s.  The Vantage brand name reappeared on lower quality guitars produced by Music Industries (Jay Turser) in the 1990's up until 1998.

VALLEY ARTS

There are three distinct periods in Valley Arts history: the original period, the Samick era and the Gibson era.

Original Valley Arts era

The Valley Arts brand began in a music shop run by Duke Miller. Miller was a guitar teacher, and when he went off to music teaching position at the University of Southern California, two of his students Mike McGuire and Al Carness bought the music store business. Around In 1973, they moved from the shop's original location on Laurel Canyon Blvd. to Ventura Blvd.

Although they specialised in teaching, McGuire also began learning how to repair guitars quickly building a good reputation. An important watershed in the Valley Arts story was when Larry Carlton ordered a refret of his old Gibson S.G.The Valley Arts did repairs for an impressive client list including Tommy Tedesco, Steve Lukather, Robben Ford, Mitch Holder, Mundell Lowe, Al Viola and Duane Eddy.

True North

Dennis Scannell founded his luthiery business in 1994, focusing on high-quality steel stringed acoustic guitars. A graduate of MIT, Scannell had worked as a master woodworker and product engineer, before he studied guitar making with Charles Fox in 1995. He launched the True North Guitars brand at the 1999 Healdsburg Guitar Festival. His instruments feature graceful, elegant lines tied together with a unified design sensibility throughout. Typical features and options of True North acoustic guitars include ergonomic side-tapered bodies, contoured Venetian cutaways, hand-voiced radiused soundboards with scalloped braces and sculpted x-brace joints, fast graphite-reinforced necks, bound fingerboards with semi-hemispherical frets, extended scales, asymmetrical headstocks, and Green Heart abalone trim.

Source: True North Guitars website (29 April 2021)

James Trussart

James Trussart is a musician-turned-luthier. His career began in the 1970s as a violin player in his native Paris. He turned his attention to making violins and then guitars in the 1980s. He is now a resident of southern California, where he makes custom steel-bodied guitars, basses and violins out of metal.

Instruments come in a variety of finishes: from shiny chrome to weathered and rusty. Trussart's "Rust-o-matic" technique involves leaving the guitar body exposed to the elements for several weeks, allowing it to corrode, then sanding it to replicate years of distress, and then finishing it with a clear satin coat. The metal construction leads to a distinctive tone: and many leading players have a Trussart metal guitar in their collection.

To date your Trussart guitar look at the serial number: the first two digits are the year the guitar was made, and the rest are the number of guitars produced to that date.

Traveler

Leon Cox conceived and built the  first Traveler Guitar in his garage workshop in Redlands, California in October of 1992. He used tuning machines from an old acoustic guitar, spare conduit left over from a home improvement project, and wood salvaged from a discarded bar top. Cox, whose wife worked as a nurse, was inspired to install the diaphragm of a stethoscope in the body of his prototype to provide the player with a battery-free, private listening experience. During the next three years, more than three hundred of “The Traveler” guitars were produced, both in Cox’s garage and at an outside shop. Then, in the summer of 1995, Corey Oliver walked into Redlands Guitar Shop and was fascinated by the unique instruments and offered to take the entire inventory on a sales road trip. Cox agreed. So, Oliver and then-partner Carey Nordstrand (of Nordstrand Basses fame).

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