On Sunday January 11th, Grit Laskin spoke at A&M Woods (Cambridge, Ontario). He had two of his own ornately inlayed personal instruments on hand, one of which is shown on the back of his book “A Guitarmaker’s Canvas”. Grit has had a long association with A&M Woods and graciously agreed to do the talk pro bono at the request of Bob Cyr of the Golden Triangle Luthiers’ Group (www.gtlg.org).
There were a number of OLF members on hand – Josh House, Ron (Koa Snatcher) Belanger, David White (not the fella from the UK), Richard (aka Gibson355) and Tony (cornered the BRW bridge blank market) Karol. If I missed anyone – my apologies.
Grit is a very affable fellow. Having started working with Jean Larivee at the ripe age of 18, I suspect he does not have a formal education other than Guitar U. Notwithstanding his formal education he is an excellent and engaging speaker that was able to easily hold the tone wood hungry audiences’ attention for about 1-1/2 hours and graciously stayed on to field questions for sometime after his prepared talk was done. His discussion was primarily on aspects of his building with little discussion of his inlay work.
From my perspective the three (3) highlights of his talk and instrument display was:
1). Sound port Demonstration;
2). Visual Impact of Seeing His Inlay in Person vs. Book Pictures; and
3). Top Bracing.
1). Sound port Demonstration
Grit did a simple demonstration of how a sound port which he locates in the upper bout improved the sound not only for the player but the audience as well. Many of us have probably done the cover/uncover the sound port test and noticed the improvement in tone and volume for the player. Being an audience listener, his guitar increased in volume, projection and tonal colouration dramatically (well at least to my ear). Grit indicated that initially he used to build louvered sound ports (with a felt lined sliding door). He has stopped doing this since the extra days labour (and cost) isn’t warranted as closing the slider diminishes the sound to the player and listener alike. The sound port is now a standard feature on all his guitars unless the person ordering his guitar specifically requests that it not be included. (Likewise the armrest for which he has become famous for is now a standard feature. The rib rest is an extra).
Grit stated that he has had a long standing objective to build a guitar with a multiple number of sound ports which could be individually opened or closed. He graciously acknowledged the work and research of Alan Carruth in this regard.
2) Visual Impact of Seeing his Inlay in Person vs. Book Pictures
Having often perused Laskin’s website and his book I have been a huge fan of his inlay work. The detail, workmanship and artistry of his work truly in my view places his work in a company of one. Having said that, I have commented here on the OLF and in conversations with others that I often find some his work to be “too much” and would not want some of his work on a guitar of mine. An example of that is seeing the picture on the back page of his book and now having seen the same instrument in person I find I am now really in awe of his outstanding inlay artistry. My initial reaction when seeing the inlay on the back cover was to cringe, yet seeing it in person had a total different positive visual affect. It truly looked fabulous. Now when I flip through (my autographed book) I will see his work differently.
3). Top Bracing
Below is a diagram of Laskin’s top bracing pattern as it appeared in an old Fine Woodworking article. From the diagram you can see that Laskin uses a 90 degree “X” brace positioned so that it crosses over the corner of the location of the bridge. He does not use the standard scalloped Martin tone bars rather he uses two tone bars situated horizontally below the bridge pad (noted as E and B in the diagram below). (He confirmed this is still the case in his talk).
[DIAGRAM TO FOLLOW ONCE UPLOAD PROBLEM RESOLVED OR SUFFICIENT INTEREST WARRANTS THE EFFORT]
What I thought was unique (gauging from reading numerous bracing discussions on the OLF) is that while the X brace and side tone bar braces are radiused, the horizontal lower tone bars below the bridge pad (denoted as E and B) are not.
The horizontal lower tone bars are actually glued in flat and through his clamping technique forces them to be slightly concave (0.2 mm over the span) as opposed to being pre-radiused to a convex shape. His reason for doing so is that once the instrument is strung up to tension the braced section below the bridge will naturally take on the symmetrical radius of the top. The originally laminated flat to slightly concave lower tone bars counteract the natural tendency for the bridge to bulge and distort the radius of the top. (I would imagine the size of his bridge plate is also a factor). He demonstrated such on a three year old guitar where upon close inspection the plane of the top has held a “true” radius with no sign of bridge bulge. As a student of guitar building it would be interesting to hear your reaction to this.
A few other interesting things Laskin mentioned was that for his steel string guitars, Sitka Spruce is his tone wood of choice (I wonder what his reaction would be to Shane’s Lutz Spruce). His discussion of what he looks for in spruce tops was consistent to what many other Luthiers will tell you, i.e. straight tight grain, no run out, etc. As for sides and backs he favours Indian Rosewood however will build with Brazilian for a significant uplift in price.
With respect to his remarkable inlay work – Laskin is totally self taught and has had no formal art training.
Hearing Grit Laskin speak was a real treat and a very worthwhile Sunday afternoon jaunt. Unfortuneately Grit Laskin will not be attending ASIA 2007. He mentioned that he blocked off June in anticipation of the event being held then and has prior obligations which will prevent him from attending in May.
I doubt I was able to give you the deja vu feeling but hope I captured a few useful tid bits.
Anthony Z39098.4044675926
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