We’ll start off this month with a few more shots of the ‘Guitars’
exhibition guitar: here’s the black pearl flower inlay on the fingerboard
And here’s one of the Rio back and laminated neck. This
rather special instrument is for sale at the Hub for £4,700
Now for some of our customers this month – Here are Martin and
Les for their second Brooks, Martin’s is a cutaway Clyst
and Les’ is a twelve string Creedy
David, here, came down for his rosewood Tamar
John picked up his cherry Torridge,
beside him you can see a superb Les Paul replica he made himself with
woods he got from us when he ordered the Torridge!
And Michael came all the way over from Germany to pick up his Rio Lyn
We’re really pleased to announce we’re now supplying the finest
guitar shop in Exeter – Project Music. Here are Mike and Lee trying
out the first batch of five guitars we delivered to them last week
Finally, here are some pictures of a seven string guitar we built for
Yuriy from the Ukraine about ten years ago
Unfortunately Yuriy managed to break off the headstock but we managed
to do a successful invisible repair on it
Whilst it was back at the workshop we thought we’d take the opportunity
to show you this spectacular Devon walnut back
Now that’s a lovely piece of wood!
We do like to use local woods wherever we get the chance so if you like
what you see here then it’s worth considering these fine English woods
as an alternative to the Rosewoods and other tropical options
November 2008
For this month’s news we’ll show you a few pictures of this
mandola shaped seven string guitar we made for Mike Selley
Here’s Mike, Jocinta and Ben outside the workshop playing the new
creation
Mike wanted a very personal instrument and we inlaid this dove in the
headstock along with a gold ingot in the truss rod cover…
…this adder on the fingerboard…
….and a pierced sound-hole with his initials
Here’s a shot of the quilted maple and Rio three piece back
We also had time to complete a couple of Boveys,
here’s Neil showing off his new one alongside his Torridge
…and this beautiful koa one with a Lancashire rose inlay for Nizam
Lastly, we’ve been invited to take part in an exhibition to celebrate
the work of UK luthiers hosted by Gordon Giltrap at…
the National Centre for Craft and
Design – The Hub in Lincolnshire
Here’s a taster of the guitar we’re showing
The exhibition opens on the 22nd November and goes on until the 17th
January
More of this next month…….
October 2008
We’ll start off with a quick return to last month’s
news with the Otter
acoustic bass again, Gareth wasn’t able to pick it up from the workshop
at the time so he sent a couple of pictures down to us
One here of the stunning myrtle four piece back
Freddie here came down to pick up his mahogany and cedar Lyn
And Graham, his Torridge
Here’s a close up of the lacewood back
Richard’s got several of our guitars already and ordered this beautiful
little koa uke
Here’s a shot of the koa top along with the pearl rosette and purfling
Finally a quick shot of Andy delivering the latest couple of Brooks
to Colin at Intersound
If you like the look of these then drop into Intersound in Dursley in
Gloucestershire and try one out.
Better be quick though as they don’t hang around for long!
September 2008
Some years ago we were offering guitar making
courses at the workshop, Angela has been coming up to work on this Tamar
occasionally over the years and is shown here playing her finished guitar
Here’s an unusual shot of our first 5 string Otter
bass
We found a stunning set of myrtle for the back and
sides…
… and we also designed this asymmetrical headstock to deal with the
fifth string
Below is a shot of the inside of the Ash,
a rather unusual instrument
We made the original of this some years ago for Billy Connolly – a five
string banjo with a wooden body
Keith is really pleased with his one
Here’s a close up of the sequoia front
And another of the figured cherry back
And finally…
We’re really pleased to be able to put on The
Honeytones for another gig in the barn this year on Friday the
19th of Sept
We had a great time last year and we’re looking forward
to more fun this time around
August 2008
Maria here came over to our workshop with the intention
of ordering a custom made guitar but went away with this koa Taw
we had in stock
Brian’s the lead guitarist in the Dave Rich Band and has just collected
his cutaway cherry Tavy to concentrate
on some acoustic playing
Alan here has quite a collection of our guitars now and owns the first
12 string we ever made
The beautiful back on this Lyn is
reclaimed Brazilian rosewood
This guitar was a 50th birthday present from his wife Marion who asked
for this inlay on the 12th fret…
and we designed this extra label for the inside!
That gives it a nice personal touch don’t you think?
July 2008
Again, quite a few cherry guitars went out this month
– here’s Dave Smith with his third Brook, this time a Torridge
… and Chris came down for his cherry Taw
Take a look at the figuring on this slab-sawn back!
Then Steve and Norm from Intersound popped in for their
latest batch
Norman ordered this ‘fruit and nut’ Torridge
{cherry and walnut) for himself
Phil Simons came down from Surrey to pick up his rosewood
Tamar and enjoyed an overnight
stay at the ‘Tom Cobley’ in Spreyton before heading back in the morning
Here are a couple of close-ups of a spectacular 12
fret Rio Teign for Tom Brookes….
And one of the proud owner
Every month we get a fresh bunch of challenging repair
jobs. A tricky bit of clamping on a double bass here….
And here’s one of the many Martin refinishes we’ve
had in over the years, look how easily the top coats of lacquer separate
from the wash coat
As you can see, we have been busy this summer
But that’s the way we like it!
June 2008
We recently received a 5-Star review for one of our guitars in
‘Guitarist’ magazine.
Read all about it right
Also this month, Rhyd Lewis came down here to collect his new cherry
Tavy
and James Murphy picked up his second Brook – a slope
shouldered Teign
An old friend of ours, Nick Bassett turned up for his
for his custom American Red gum Tamar
Here are two close-ups of a beautiful matt finish walnut
Tamar we made for Roger King
And this one shows off the heel
Finally – a quick picture of a 1930’s Columbia
guitar we recently had in for a neck re-set and fingerboard replacement.
It’s for a customer in Spain
Some people will travel far to get the Brook workmanship
May 2008
First this month is the model we’ve just made
for Ian Anderson, it’s a replica of the one we originally made for him
when we were working with Andy Manson many years ago
Ian regularly uses this one on stage
And Kevin here, came down from Edinburgh to pick up his 12 string cherry
Tamar,
he asked us to build it with reversed octave strings on the lower three
courses to suit his playing style
Mark here didn’t have to travel quite so far but still had a three hundred
mile round trip to collect his rosewood and European spruce Tamar
Here are the latest batch of guitars we’ve just sent up to Ivor Mairants’
shop in London
Here’s our friend Mike Selley who came to visit us the other day to
see how we were getting on with his latest instrument – a seven string
mandola shaped guitar! To find out a bit more about Mike please click
here
We’re working on this new instrument for Mike at the moment so watch
this space for developments
April 2008
April sees us hard at work keeping up with the order book
Here’s Michael Lockwood with before and after pictures of his red gum
Lyn
Before…
and After…
This battered Brook Taw belongs
to TV Smith, this guitar has seen more action than any other we’ve made,
at the last reckoning it was about 1000 hours just on stage!
And now for another one-off: Tom here wanted us to build a baroque type
guitar and fashion a bridge in the shape of his moustache…
Here are a couple of close ups of the result…
and the headstock…
Finally, Stephen here lives in Switzerland and bought his Torridge
from Ivor Mairants, in London.
He got in touch to thank us and sent us this excellent picture
We’d love to see any unusual pictures of customers with their Brooks
in interesting locations and we’d love to add them to the site so please
send them in to us
March 2008
Matt here is a fine guitarist and singer, he’s been using our guitars
for several years now, he came down this month to pick up this lovely
Rio Lyn
Here’s Bev with our farm dog Polo listening closely. Bev ordered this
walnut Bovey to use with a really
interesting tuning and string selection she’s developed for her songwriting
The first left handed guitar of the year is for Richard Vanstone, here’s
a close up of his cherry and European spruce Tamar
and here’s an action shot
Martin and Les came down from London last year to order these two Lyns
They both chose our finest Indian rosewood for the bindings and purfling
as well the back and sides, Les chose a European spruce top for his…
…and Martin chose cedar
And lastly, here’s Colin collecting the latest three for Intersound
They are… a rosewood Taw and Torridge
along with a splendid Koa Tamar
Pop into Intersound if you’re near Dursley (between Gloucester
and Bristol) and get them while they’re hot…
February 2008
Many thanks to Adrian Legg for the namecheck in this month’s
Acoustic magazine
Adrian said:
“The only people who make a good parlour size at this time are
a bunch in Devon who were taught the dark arts by Andy Manson …
The Brook Creedy is one of the most
delightful guitars ever made. It sits small and docile in your arms,
doesn’t twist your back over or your shoulder out of joint, and focuses
exactly on the sound you need to come out when you fingerpick….”
Acoustic – Feb/March 2008
Iain (above) also came down to pick up his new mahogany Clyst
Here’s a shot of the headstock with our favourite Waverly tuners
Here’s a picture of John who came down with his brother and spent an
enjoyable evening at the Tom Cobley in Spreyton before venturing over
to the workshop to collect his walnut Lyn
015
We inlaid his initials in the slotted headstock
Apologies to Stan from North Devon for not getting a photo when he came
for this beautiful sequoia topped Lyn
Finally – here’s a picture of Malcolm Dobson and us in the orchard with
his custom Madagascan rosewood Tamar
Malcolm wanted a really deep cutaway, a 24 fret fingerboard extension
and an Ellipse pickup system along with fairly light strings
We made sure that he got what he wanted!
January 2008
Happy New Year to everyone!
We saw a few more guitars leave the workshop before our Christmas break.
Howard here came down for his cherry 12 fret Torridge
Thea, a classical guitar player, came to visit, fell in love with this
Taw and couldn’t resist taking it
away
Arthur picked his guitar up from us a couple of years ago and we didn’t
get a photo at the time so when he was passing by last month we took
the opportunity to get a shot of him and his Torridge
We hope Pat won’t mind us including a couple of pictures his wife April
took on Christmas Day
Pat lives in Las Vegas and we’ve got to know him pretty well over the
nine months we’ve been making these two Ian Anderson models for him
We were going to send them after the holiday but April thought it’d
be a real surprise for him to get them on Christmas morning.
We just managed to get them shipped out on time…
…and Pat was quite overwhelmed to open the case and see them!
We hope the new year is good to you and we look forward to making more
fantastic guitars in 2008
News 2007
December 2007
The December News is in two sections:
Firstly here’s our friend Bob with the new Lyn
12 string we’ve just made for him
It’s a spectacular koa custom 015
and features a lot of hand-cut inlay work…
plus a custom headstock
Needless to say, it sounds terrific!
***
Next we have an unashamed plug for Pete Berryman’s latest CD along with
some of the reviews it has earned
Pete was playing his Tavy on all
the tracks and we really like the result; hope you do too!
“Pete explores various moods and influences with equal respect
for folk jazz and celtic roots with his delicate fingerstyle technique.
His love for the acoustic guitar and its ability for nuance and subtlety
is showcased in this album of fresh and highly original compositions.
Enjoy”
Ralph McTell
“Pete Berryman, and his contemporary Bert Jansch, still have plenty
to offer us in the 21st century, it’s hard to believe that a period
of thirty years lies between some of these compositions when they all
sound so vibrant and new. .” Acoustic
Magazine
“Pete is one of the unsung heroes of the British acoustic guitar
movement.”
John Renbourn
“Pete Berryman is one of the UK’s hidden jewels.”
Guitarist Magazine
https://www.peteberryman.com
November 2007
We’ve had more folks down this month picking up their guitars:
Norman and Nelson here picked their Taw
from Andy’s house: that’s Nelson on the left
while George picked up his Tamar
from Simon’s
Richard came up from Cornwall for his second Taw
and Angel even came across from Spain for his one!
Jonathan came down for this sweet sounding Tamar
baritone set up for the Pat Metheny tuning.
And here’s Peter with his new Tavy
he found this fantastic set of Madagascan rosewood for us to use on
the guitar
and as if that wasn’t enough, Jack finished it off with a fine job on
this spectacular hummingbird and vine inlay
Very fetching indeed!
October 2007
We’d like to thank Melissa for this month’s classy black and white photos
from the recent Acoustic Guitar Show
in Cheltenham
We met up with friends, other guitar makers and past customers and had
a great weekend in the grand settings of the Cheltenham Town Hall.
So here are some of the highlights…
Alister Atkin and Simon sharing a joke before the show opened
Here’s Andy, Simon and Graham Coxon. Graham had seen this koa Taw
on our site, bought it and came along to the show to pick it up
While he was here he couldn’t resist trying out Simon’s uke
Here’s Amrit Sond trying out a baritone of ours. Amrit’s a terrific
player, check out his stunning clips on You Tube
Hopefully the show gave some people the chance to try out a range of
our guitars for the first time
Here are some of Alister’s guitars with Andy Manson’s mermaid guitar
in the background
Here’s our favourite player and good friend Dave Wood playing for us
out in the corridor
Lastly – how the hell did we get all these in the one car?
The answer, of course, is to put the uke in last !
PS. Mustn’t forget – thanks to Dave Smith for the excellent Dorset fruit
cake he bought up for us
We’ll look forward to exhibiting at the show again next year
September 2007
First we should mention that we are going to be on the road this month…
On Sat and Sun the 8th and 9th of September we’ll be attending
“The Acoustic Guitar Show”
Town Hall
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire
We hope you can make it along. There will be lots of
gorgeous guitars and some great players around to demo them. We’ll be
sure to bring a fine selection of our best loved models and maybe a
few surprises…
***
This month we’re also making the most of the late summer light to get
some fetching shots of our customers in the orchard with their new guitars
Here’s John Golding from South Devon with his lacewood Tavy
While John was waiting for us to complete this guitar he managed to
get hold of a second hand Brook to keep him going…
Some people just can’t wait to get their hands an a Brook!
Pete Johnson (below) picked out out a spectacular set of Rio for his
top-of-the-range 015 Teign which
he enjoyed playing in front of one of our plum trees!
And Rory King also seems very happy with his own new Rio Tamar
He has a Strat neck he particularly likes and he bought it down for
us to replicate when we carved the neck – this is just one of the many
options on a custom-made instrument like this.
August 2007
First off for August, here’s Tony Kerry, Simon and Andy, along with
Polo, making the most of the sunshine and playing part of Tony’s increasing
collection of Brooks!
Tony wanted something to remind him of the Brook workshop on his latest
Rio Tavy so Jack inlaid a buzzard
and a sparrowhawk on the headstock.
Marcus here is a superb guitarist with a really distinctive style
He came to us last year with some top grade rosewood he’d bought on
his travels in India and asked us to build a guitar for him out of it.
This beautiful Taw is the result!
Now wasn’t that worth going the distance for?
July 2007
We’ve been dodging the rain this month to take some photos of our customers
out in our orchard
First up is Tracey Curtis who’s a great young singer songwriter and
releases her CDs on Robb Johnson’s ‘Irregular Records’. Robb pointed
her in our direction and she fell for the red gum Taw
we had in stock
Here’s Garry Wall from Oldham with his own new red gum Tamar,
Garry’s a regular at the RMMGA meetings that we try and get along to
every year in Buxton
Here’s a photo of the gorgeous wood on the back
Last but not least we have Mark Walters from Grimsby
Mark ordered this cutaway Torridge
in Walnut after seeing Stuart Ryan perform with his
That’s a nice reverse view showing off the Walnut in all its glory
June 2007
Our Lyn models have been popular
this month – here’s John Gourlay from Plymouth picking up his rosewood
& sitka 010
John Scoble also dropped by and intercepted this beautiful reclaimed
Rio 015 Lyn on its way to the online
Shop
This one came with a custom Headstock inlay
And some top quality Rio on the back which
justifies another view
Woody Mann invited us to bring along some guitars to
his blues workshop weekend at Totnes recently and liked this Tamar
so much he played it throughout the course
Brook owners were well represented there and you may see some familiar
faces in the crowd.
And here’s one of Woody suggesting that Simon lets him keep the Tamar
…
Of course we had to politely decline. That Tamar is now in the Shop
as well
May 2007
This is a close up of a custom 12th fret inlay we’ve just finished for
Jud who comes from Ireland
Take a step back and you can see that it’s
a beautiful birds eye maple Taw
The 12th fret job wasn’t the only inlay Jud requested…
He also wanted this Celtic knot inlaid on the headstock
We like putting these individual touches on our guitars to personalise
them for players and make them stand out even further from the crowd
But if you are the kind of player who simply can’t wait while we do
the tricky fiddly inlay stuff and you want to get your hands on a Brook
TODAY!…
… then you could do a lot worse than make your way to Intersound
in Dursley…
…That’s where these three are destined for. From the top that’s a
Teign
(dreadnought) a Torridge
and a Tamar.
You’d best be quick because they tend not to stay there for long.
Good luck
April 2007
Here’s Stephen Singleton’s beautiful new Clyst
made out of local walnut
And here’s a closer look at that bridge
Stephen decided quite a few years ago he was going to get a Brook and
ordered these splendid Rodgers tuners to compliment the walnut burl
veneer on the slotted headstock
And this is a little Creedy
which went out to Tom Whitlow in New York a couple of weeks ago
Tom wrote – “What a pleasant homecoming surprise! The Creedy
is a marvel and I am enjoying it immensely. It looks like a Brook, not
a something else wanna be. In other words, precisely what I wanted”
We also get asked to take on a lot of the more unusual
repair jobs that other people prefer not to tackle. Here’s an example…
These are a couple of resonators which we were asked to fit new necks
for and upgrade the cones on
They turned out pretty nicely!
March 2007
We’ve just finished this wonderful guitar which we’d like to share with
you
It’s a rather exotic Rio Tamar 015
with quite a few custom additions – among them a laminated neck, veneered
back of the headstock and abalone logo, snakewood bindings and Waverly
tuners as well as a stunning set of reclaimed Rio Rosewood
The guitar now resides with James Boon, shown here on the day when he
came to pick it up.
Also here this month was Matthew Miles who was happy to be photographed
showing off this fetching Teign
dreadnought
Matthew came down to the workshop earlier in the year to make a short
film for his college project, we’re hoping to stream it on the site
when it’s completed
We’re also about to put a couple of new guitars up for sale in the SHOP
so watch this space…
February 2007
We’ve had a few visitors at the workshop this month as we’ve just finished
a rather lovely collection of new instruments
First up is Björn who came all the way from Sweden especially to
pick up his second Brook (he ordered this one when he came to collect
the previous one!)
His stunning new Clyst
is made from Grand Palisander
This view shows the exotic lines of this wood. We’d used this wood once
or twice before but it is extremely rare.
Here is a shot of the Clyst
(above) next to a Cedar and Rio Lyn
(below)
Next along was Ben Lewis who came to pick up his new Taw
You can’t tell from the outside but Ben’s Taw
has double interlocking cross braces inside as Ben was looking for a
silky, archtop type sound. this is something we’ve been using on our
Dart
model but this was the first time we tried it on a Taw.
Ben loved the results, which made the top a bit
more rigid and produced a jazzy, top-end flavour to the sound
As well as these indoor types we also had a couple of hardy souls who
chose to brave the Devon weather to get these daylight shots of their
new guitars
Julian Rowe (above) has been round to pick up his new Bovey
to go with the Taw
he already has. The Bovey
is in Yew and the Taw
is Walnut
And next up is a friend who goes by the name of ‘Uke Stanza’. Uke is
playing his new Rio Lyn
(as seen with the Clyst
above) As you can see, he already has one of our resonators so his collection
is expanding.
He will also be performing at the Anti-Folk weekend at the
12 Bar Club in London next weekend (Fri 16th and Sat 17th Feb)
January 2007
We’re just about to finish a fresh batch of guitars so we thought
we’d take this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year and to give
you a quick snapshot of what’s happening in the workshop right now
Here are Kev & Jack in the groundfloor workshop
Meanwhile the two Andys
are upstairs in the sprayroom rubbing down and polishing
and here’s Melissa working on a uke
We thought you might like to see a couple of stages in the Brook
building process so…
…here are a few shots of a guitar we made for Gary in the States who
sent us this beautiful set of bloodwood to build his guitar from
here are the top and
sides ready to go together
along with the completed body
Add a neck and a bit of magic and we have the finished guitar – this
one’s a Tavy
If yu have any exotic woods in mind for your own ideal guitar, let us
know what they are. We like to try new combinations. Especially when
they turn out like this one.
Happy New Year from the team at Brook
Guitars
News 2006
News Archive 2006
To scroll use the right scroll bar
Some people like things a wee bit different: amps that go up to 11 for
instance. Likewise for some acoustic guitar players, one soundhole just
isn’t enough…
It doesn’t matter to us if you want half a dozen sound holes: just tell
us where you want them and we’ll see to the rest
One interesting feature this does afford us is the opportunity to take
some pictures from angles most people never see their guitars from
Nothing wrong with the conventional perspective either – this pic below
shows off the wedge-shaped contour on this truly unique cutaway Lyn
made for Kevin Hopper
These are two new custom options we are offering: whether it’s an extra
soundhole or the comfort of the wedge-shaped contour we are happy to
oblige. The wedge is tapered from a narrower upper side down to the
conventional width for the lower side. Playing this guitar in the workshop
has won us over to this new custom design feature
There’s nothing conventional about these beauties either, which are
on their way to the dealers. This Rio Taw
is on its way to Intersound in Dursley
And this cedar-topped Red Gum Lyn
is headed for Ivor Mairants in London
The Red Gum has been popular this month and this Taw
shown below is also headed to Ivor Mairants
And this is yet another Red Gum guitar just off the presses. In this
case it’s a Torridge
featuring a pyramid bridge which has been built for Bob Harris
Get them while they’re hot!
October 2006
Season of mists and mellow tunefullness… Autumn has migrated here
and is turning the countryside various shades of reddish brown. Here
are a few of the latest inspirational arrivals and departures
First up: this lovely couple are worthy of an ode or two surely?
The Lacewood Torridge
in the foreground has flown off to Ivor Mairants music shop in London.
The Lyn
in American Red Gum was last seen at Intersound in Dursley, Gloucestershire
David Perkins here is also taking advantage
of the mild spell to get out and play his guitars outdoors. He now has
added new walnut Tavy Baritone to
complement the Lyn he bought last
year.
We also noted the arrival of this nice little Creedy
in Rio Rosewood
It features a distictive cutaway and some quite
wonderful straight grained Rio
It plays rather beautifully too – but you’ll have
to take our word for that
They never seem to hang around though… one minute they’re here, next
they’ve fluttered off…
September 2006
English woods are becoming ever more popular and are showing up time
and again in our order book these days. It’s lucky we’ve got some good
sources down here in the westcountry.
Nick Kail here has just collected his new Taw
in English Yew. This wood has become so popular that we’re rapidly running
out of stock. The last lot was top notch and came from an estate near
Exeter and we’d better try to find some more before we get down to the
last set
Mick Crook is another who likes to keep it local. Here he can be seen
with his brand new custom Torridge
which is made from English Walnut which we got from North Devon and
cut up ourselves. Mick’s guitar features a lovely cutaway and his initials
inlaid at the 12th fret
This batch of Walnut has been particularly striking and our customers
have appreciated it too. So much so that we’re also going to have to
get hold of some more of that as well.
As well as the Walnut and Yew we’ve also been making quite a few guitars
from Cherry and Lacewood so it would be fair to say that the English
woods are performing pretty well this season.
We’ll let you know when we get some our
hands on some new stock,
so watch this space…
August 2006
This month’s most striking new arrivals are this pair of matching travel
guitars for our German friend, the inimitable ‘Robespierre’
One 6 string, one 12 , both with moustachio bridges, this pair are positively
bristling with custom features, including Robespierre’s initial at the
12th fret…
…not to mention his name on the headstock…
Robespierre has always been a colourful performer but he’ll be even
more unmistakable now he has these eye-catching beauties
Other happy customers this month include Robert Spence and his lovely
Ovankol Taw
with cutaway
Howard Bragen is also perched pretty happily in his tree with his new
Tamar
…And Doug McCarthey couldn’t wait to get out and climb trees so he
is shown here in the workshop making some wonderful sounds with his
new long scale Clyst
parlour model
That’s quite a few satisfied customers this month and we just continue
to get busier and busier: and for that we thank you!
July 2006
We’ve got a lovely bunch of cutaways…
This month we’ve had a few guitars featuring cutaways come to completion.
Above is Bob’s Rio Okement
which also features some fancy inlay work
And this one is a nice drop cutaway on an Ovankol Taw
which belongs to local player Robert down here in the westcountry
This is an American Red Gum Tamar
which is now on its way to Daniel in Sweden
We also do a nice Venetian style cutaway (which is more rounded than
the ‘sharp-looking’ Florentine cutaways seen here. Maybe we’ll have
one of those to show you next month
June 2006
This is our friend Chris Ayliffe who comes by regularly to our workshop
and sometimes walks off with a new guitar – but not before entertaining
us with his bluesy fingerstyle picking
On this occasion he was here to pick up his new 12 string Lyn
which is now part of a double act as Chris already has the 6 string
version (behind)
Proof positive that one good thing can lead to another
Talking about good things, Jack has just added this lovely inlaid dolphin
to a fine grand palisander Tamar
for Mike Keogh
Often it’s the little touches like these which make an instrument stand
out from the crowd
Also this month, we’re very proud to get a mention in the credits of
the new Scritti Politti CD which has just reached the shelves
Green Gartside took one of our guitars into the studio at the start
of this project and it features quite a lot throughout the CD
It’s rewarding to hear our guitars play a part in the gorgeous Scritti
Politti sound
May 2006
This month has been hectic and we apologise to regular visitors for
the late posting of the monthly news bulletin
This has been due to time constraints forced on us by so many of you
who have been on the phone hoping that your guitars are ready
All is now well in the Brook workshop now that these guys have their
new guitars in their hands and smiles upon their faces – Above is Richard
James sporting his brand new nylon strung Little
Silver which he has just taken home
And this is Richard Clough who now owns a lovely new Tamar
but couldn’t wait to get it home and began playing in the garden here!
And Tony Burger here is now in possession of his new walnut Torridge
and he too felt the need to sit on the grass and get to grips with it
You lot have certainly kept us busy this month but being great believers
in fine attention to detail, that’s the way we like it. We’re happy
to spend the time it takes to get you the guitar that you want and that
means we do a whole lot of listening
John Bell is seen here discussing wood choices and the finer details
of the guitar he wanted us to make for him
He decided to get himself a nice Clyst
in Yew and we think he’s pretty satisfied with the results. Yew is such
a strikingly coloured wood and more and more people are opting for this
as their own preference
We look forward to a busy summer and hope to see a lot more of you sitting
on the grass in our garden
April 2006
Seems we were a bit premature and optimistic with the last bulletin,
declaring winter to be over…
This was the scene here a couple of weeks ago… Brrrrrrrrr!
Still, come inside and warm your fingers on this nice bit of Rio which
we’ve turned into a lovely Tavy
That’s quite heartwarming isn’t it?
It looks warm, it feels warm and guess what…
It sounds as warm as well
Hopefully in a couple of weeks we’ll be sitting outside on the grass
doing some ‘open air testing’
March 2006
Winter is drawing to a close and Spring will be with us shortly
We have not been in hibernation though and this shot of the business
end of the workshop is testimony to our application through the dark
months
Just as the guitars are finished though, people tend to turn up and
take them away from us – like Nick McCooke here who initially bought
a Tavy
from Ivor Mairants shop in London and then subsequently liked it so
much that he came to us directly for this Lyn
in birds eye maple and Bovey
in walnut
Then there was Paul Downing who came and relieved
us of this lovely fretless Otter
bass
And then one of the finest Taws
we’ve ever made (in Sequoia and Rio) was taken home by Marcus here,
who obviously appreciates the view from the back of this guitar
The Sequoia on the top is pretty nice too we thought…
…And that’s not to mention the headstock veneer…
…But we have to admit that the back is worth
another look…
It’s been a struggle getting to our isolated workshop
on some days this winter, what with all the snow down here recently
but I’m sure these pics willl help connoisseurs of fine guitars appreciate
that it’s all been worthwhile
February 2006
We’ve been having a ‘small is beautiful’ theme this month
Here are a few of the results…
From the left that’s a steel string Holly,
a Holly
Tiple, a nylon string Holly and
a slightly larger Bovey
The Holly
Tiple here is going to be despatched to Greece to meet its new owner
We’re really happy with this little lot and I
think the clients will be too
January 2006
We would like to announce the arrival of a newcomer to the virtual high
street:
Brook Guitars: the virtual shop has landed and is open for business
Basically the thinking behind this is that we receive a lot of calls
from people who are in a hurry and want a guitar immediately – without
waiting for the 9 months it can take to build a custom instrument.
So we’ve begun to make some guitars without actually having a buyer
in mind.
This means that from now on we will usually have
a small number of completed guitars in the workshop at any time so that
clients can monitor this shop section and call us to see what we have
and what’s coming along shortly
First on the list is this custom Lyn
015
This model is in Spruce and Brazilian Rosewood and is a delight to play
Look in the shop for
more details