Apart from working on a couple of commissions over the last few months, I've also been very busy putting the final touches to an instructional DVD entitled "The Guitar Maker's Guide to French Polishing". Actually I should say that my partner in this project, John Stratford, has been far busier working on it than I have. He has had the dubious pleasure of filming me over a period of a few months (7 days actual filming), while I French polished a guitar, and talked at great length about how to do so successfully. In fact, I now realise that once the filming was done, there was still a huge amount of work to be completed in editing, tweaking, fixing unwanted background noises, adjusting colour settings, and probably much else that I'm still blissfully unaware of.

Anyway, the good news is that the project is finally complete, and I'm hoping to be sending off the master copy for duplication this week. The photos opposite show the package - these are pre-production copies - including the DVD itself, and the printed booklet that accompanies the DVD.

French Polishing DVD

The DVD is a very detailed instructional course on French polishing, aimed mainly (as the title suggests) at guitar makers, although it will have some relevance for anyone interested in French polishing. It's a very detailed guide to the French polishing process, with chapters on Materials, Preparation, Basic Techniques, Grain filling, Bodying up (building up the finish), and how to get that final deep gloss and mirror-like finish. There's about 2 and a half hours of video footage, and there's even a short excerpt of me playing some Bach on the finished guitar!

As soon as I have the production copies in hand, I'll be promoting them on my website, and they will be available for sale to anyone interested. Price will be £45.00

DVD package

I'm currently French polishing a guitar with ziricote back and sides. This is the first time I have used this tonewood, but I've heard some very good reports of it's tonal properties, and that it can compare well with Brazilian rosewood. I should have the strings on in about a weeks time, and I'm really looking forward to hearing it. It's certainly a beautiful wood to look at, and although the polishing isn't yet finished, it's already looking like a stunning guitar. It will also have an armrest and a soundport, which are also fairly new to me as a maker. I'll post some pictures of the finished guitar in the next issue of the newsletter (it wouldn't be fair to post any before the customer has seen it!), but for now, here's one of the back during construction.

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Ziricote back

Photography by James Lister