Official Luthiers Forum!

It's incredibly painful to announce that early Monday morning, May 8, 2006, my old friend and business partner (in Duke of Pearl) Lawrence John Sifel died at a hospital near his Maryland home from a massive heart attack. Founder and owner of Pearlworks, the innovative high-tech company responsible for the design and CNC cutting of much of the spectacular inlay seen in the guitars of C.F. Martin, Taylor, Paul Reed Smith, and others, Larry had been involved since the 1960's in building or working on guitars, banjos, and decoratively inlaid items, and through the years his creative and innovative spirit has permanently altered the course of the entire industry. He was a co-inventor of the now ubiquitous laminated shell known as Abalam, and pioneered many of the modern techniques used in fine production inlay cutting.

A recently issued signature edition Martin guitar, the "Night Dive", a unique collaborative effort by Martin with reknowned Canadian builder William "Grit" Laskin, honored Larry's contributions to the world of luthiery by featuring him in the peghead inlay, which of course were also cut by Larry's factory using entirely novel techniques invented especially for this project!

In the last couple of years, Larry had brought his factory to the place where he could safely semi-retire from active design and supervision in order to pursue his long-time fantasy of fabricating the "ultimate" computer-cut-parts acoustic guitar, as well as working with myself on plans to make a small run of very sophisticated M.O.P. folding hand fans, involving a level of ornament not seen in well over a century! Whatever he did, he always had fun, and did it with all his considerable energy and intelligence.

He is survived by his wife Jean, their young son Ben, his mother Irene, many nieces, nephews, cousins, his family of employees at Pearlworks, and a world of friends and admirers. Memorial contributions can be made to the school which his son Ben attends, Calverton School, 300 Calverton School Rd., Huntingtown, Md., 20639, or a charity of your choice.

My heart goes out to you Chuck, it's a terrible loss to our whole community, but most especially to those of you who knew him closely.

I had the pleasure of meeting him at the ASIA Symposium this past summer, and quickly understood what a great man he was.

We are going to do a group donation here at the Luthier's Forum to honor his life and memory.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

My deepest sympathy to the family and to you as well Chuck.

Serge Poirier

Our prayers are with you as well as Larry and his family
Andy

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Our sympathy and prayers to you, Chuck, and to his family.

_________________
now known around here as Pat Foster
_________________
http://www.patfosterguitars.com

We really appreciate your sympathies and comments, and especially that you'd put together a donation in Larry's honor. Just returned from his Maryland funeral service (Thursday evening), which was very sweet and spontaneous, including music performed by a number of well known musicians playing on instruments built by Larry, and remembrances by a host of close friends including Chris Martin, Dick Boak, and Paul Reed Smith. Pouring rain and overhead lightning punctuated the event, and it turned out that the mortuary's hosts both had indirect ties with Larry's work -- one has a son-in-law who is a main "go to" long-time employee at Paul's factory, and the other has a brother-in-law who actively performs on three old Martins which were inherited through the family. That really put things on a personal note, even with the funeral employees! Thanks again to you all.

   Larry will be missed. Though I can't say I knew him personally , we did meet as ASIA last year. He was very free with info and a pleasant man to be around. He could make you laff.
   He made the world a little brighter while he was here
john hall