Official Luthiers Forum!

What was your big thrill this summer? Well I just got back from a 10 day trip down to SummerFolk in Owen Sound (as well as a trip to Niagra falls etc with the family). This turned out to be my summer highlight. One of the Headlines for the Festival was a customer of mine, Rita Chiarelli (AKA Goddess of the Blues). This was the first time I had a chance to see her playing the Guitar she bought from me and to see one of my babies up rocking in front of close to 4000 people was a real treat. I was in the third row and loving it.For me this was the first time having such an experience and to hear her talk about her new guitar in front of everyone had me almost bursting. Turns out she had been playing with Colin James the week before and the shleppers had misplaced his guitar so she leant him the one I built to use. This is obviously one of the treats that we as builders get to experience. I had a booth set up at the festival and all sorts of the Musicians ended up comming round to check out my guitars as a result of seeing her's. To top it all off, another musical hero of mine, Bird "Stone Ranger" Bellany from the Reggae Cowboys bought one of my guitars that weekend and another guitar of mine (a 12 fret Quilted Maple, Adirondac Spruce L-00) was voted as Peoples choice in the Crafts exebition there. I sold all my demo's and have more orders so it was deffinately the highlight of the summer.

Picture of Rita with my guitararvey38592.4994212963

Here are a couple of pics of the Guitar that got Peoples choice.




Hope this doesn't come off as self promotion but I thought I'd share my excitement with everyone and hopefully there are others who can share similar highlight from their summers.

Wow that's great Arvey. What a thrill for you congrats.
Great looking guitar BTW looks like you earned that thrill SWEET.

Right on Richard!!!

Now get back building!

Really that is absolutely awesome, you are on your way!

Shane

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Canada

Hey that is awesome ... Thrill of the summer?? I think that would rank up close to the thrill of my career!

Yes, back to building,these exciting times are great but building is what it is all about. At the same time I still plan one more sailing trip on Superior befor putting the boat away for th winter. I have a number of orders backed up now including one for an over the top Sj for a singer songwritter from Minniapolis. She is having A CD realease Party the beginning of November and it sounds like she will be having a couple of big names in the roots/Folk industry taking part so she really wants her new Arvey Guitar ready by then. I'll be using some of the Spruce I got from you on that one shane. Puts the preasure on as there are 2 others ahead of her on the list. One ogf those two though is still making changes to her order so will probably get bumped back.

Big fun, man!!! Congratulations! I'm glad to see that small-bodied guitars are continuing to gain the respect they deserve.

Awesome Richard! Just please let me know how the spruce works out and send a me a couple of pictures of the finished guitar and I will post them on my site as well! You're doing GREAT and your work is obviously building a reputation that is leading to a following.

We'll all be watching!

Thanks
Shane

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Canada

The quilting on your guitar is so beautiful Richard. Did you stain it at all? Natural? Unreal!! You must be proud and have every right to it!
Mark

The guitar is french polished as are all my guitars, no stain. For this guitar I used Blonde shelc for most of the sessions and did about 3 sessions on the Top with Orafnge and one on the back then back to blonde to finish it off. The quilting on this guitar actually is quite tame compared to what I have used on other guitars. Rita's guitar makes this one look like nothing. It is funny how a reputation is seeming to build in a nich area. Seems like My guitars appeal to the Finger style Blues and Folk players. Garnet Rogers popped into my booth this summer and said he recognised the headstock and logo. He had seen a few of my guitars out there and had heard people talking about Arvey guitars so wanted to find out who was building these. For those of us involved in the French polish Debate on Steel String Guitars what he said he liked the best about my guitars is that I am using a real light French polish instead of all sorts of coats of Nitro. Seems I have other builders tell me that SS Players won't accept French Polished guitars but the actual players seem to really like them.arvey38592.5656597222