Bartone Guitars
18th May 2014, 07:04 PM
I have browsed this forum for answers on a number of occasions and found it very helpful... thanks fellas... so I thought it must be time for me to sign up and say hello.
Having worked in major construction most of my life, I'd just about had enough of driving an hour & a half to Melbourne and 2 1/2 hours home. I live in Loch, Gippsland (Vic), married with a 1 year old daughter, and it was the birth of our daughter which actually inspired me to quit the rat-race and spend more time at home.
I first started modifying guitars and basses 40+ years ago (age 17), but never saw it as anything more than a hobby, a hobby I was passionate about, but nevertheless not something I ever seriously considered as a business. People would bring their guitars and basses to me for repairs and setups but I would only charge them for parts (hard to get in those days without internet), and was happy to be paid in beer (I already had a job and your money went a long way in those days). My understanding of how guitars work well was almost instinctive, so with a certain amount of trial and error I came to be a pretty hot set-up bloke.
A few years ago I built my first guitar from scratch, a baritone Strat with lipstick pickups (amazing tone), and I was so pleased with the outcome, I realised that this was something I was born to. My brother is a kitchen maker (of the highest order), so I was able to use all his power tools and other woody stuff. A musical acquaintance saw the long scale Strat and asked me if I could build him a baritone Tele because he loved that spaghetti western tone but preferred Telecaster-style. I was a bit overwhelmed at first, but agreed. Well things just snowballed from there, so I spent a year tooling up and finally took the plunge and quit work to start a home business.
There are a lot of people out there hand crafting electric guitars, it's kind of saturated really, but I didn't care I just wanted to follow my heart and my passion and do something for myself for a change, not always doing what I'm told by some underworked overpaid uni student kid.
At present I am focussed on making F-style guitars and basses, for no other reason than I love that timeless single coil tone and style Leo F created more than 60 years ago. I wind my own pickups and have found that they sound great when combined with an unbleached bone nut, brass frets, and some decent Aussie hardwood. I don't know why exactly, maybe it's just my ego, but I reckon my hand wound pickups sound much better than those robot-made corporate "cookie-cutter" pups.
I'm not trying to turn this intro into an advertisement for myself, I just want to relate to you the reader how deeply satisfying it is for me to not only work with wood using tighter tolerances than metal work, but to produce instruments which I love so much I don't want to part with them... each one is like another baby and I want to keep them all:B but now that I have no income I am forced to sell them... the only downside to the whole hare-brained venture.
Thanks for reading and I hope to make some great woodworking friendships here. I'm a knockabout bloke, very approachable, not hard to get along with, no illusions of grandeur (other than a healthy belief in my talents), and keen to become part of the community.:pipe1:
Cheers,
Jess.
Having worked in major construction most of my life, I'd just about had enough of driving an hour & a half to Melbourne and 2 1/2 hours home. I live in Loch, Gippsland (Vic), married with a 1 year old daughter, and it was the birth of our daughter which actually inspired me to quit the rat-race and spend more time at home.
I first started modifying guitars and basses 40+ years ago (age 17), but never saw it as anything more than a hobby, a hobby I was passionate about, but nevertheless not something I ever seriously considered as a business. People would bring their guitars and basses to me for repairs and setups but I would only charge them for parts (hard to get in those days without internet), and was happy to be paid in beer (I already had a job and your money went a long way in those days). My understanding of how guitars work well was almost instinctive, so with a certain amount of trial and error I came to be a pretty hot set-up bloke.
A few years ago I built my first guitar from scratch, a baritone Strat with lipstick pickups (amazing tone), and I was so pleased with the outcome, I realised that this was something I was born to. My brother is a kitchen maker (of the highest order), so I was able to use all his power tools and other woody stuff. A musical acquaintance saw the long scale Strat and asked me if I could build him a baritone Tele because he loved that spaghetti western tone but preferred Telecaster-style. I was a bit overwhelmed at first, but agreed. Well things just snowballed from there, so I spent a year tooling up and finally took the plunge and quit work to start a home business.
There are a lot of people out there hand crafting electric guitars, it's kind of saturated really, but I didn't care I just wanted to follow my heart and my passion and do something for myself for a change, not always doing what I'm told by some underworked overpaid uni student kid.
At present I am focussed on making F-style guitars and basses, for no other reason than I love that timeless single coil tone and style Leo F created more than 60 years ago. I wind my own pickups and have found that they sound great when combined with an unbleached bone nut, brass frets, and some decent Aussie hardwood. I don't know why exactly, maybe it's just my ego, but I reckon my hand wound pickups sound much better than those robot-made corporate "cookie-cutter" pups.
I'm not trying to turn this intro into an advertisement for myself, I just want to relate to you the reader how deeply satisfying it is for me to not only work with wood using tighter tolerances than metal work, but to produce instruments which I love so much I don't want to part with them... each one is like another baby and I want to keep them all:B but now that I have no income I am forced to sell them... the only downside to the whole hare-brained venture.
Thanks for reading and I hope to make some great woodworking friendships here. I'm a knockabout bloke, very approachable, not hard to get along with, no illusions of grandeur (other than a healthy belief in my talents), and keen to become part of the community.:pipe1:
Cheers,
Jess.