Roger Williams - Guitar Luthier

From Jet Engines to Classical Guitars -

the story of an English Luthier

At first sight there would seem to be little in common between a traditional Classical Guitar and a modern Jet Engine.  A Jet engine requires precision in design and manufacture, real skill in construction, hand assembly to close tolerances, light weight and a long, reliable working life with low maintenance – hold on, that sounds familiar – so does a Classical Guitar.  I don’t know whether Antonio de Torres, the father of the Classical Guitar, could have designed a Jet engine, but Roger Williams, a chartered engineer, who trained as a jet engine designer with Rolls-Royce, has; and high-fidelity loudspeakers and racing sailing boats, that is until his long-held passion for the guitar, led to making beautiful, sought after, guitars that employ many of the proven, traditional features of the early masters; a skill and craft which live on in this master craftsman today.

Despite its size the Classical Guitar has a very small voice for a modern concert instrument.  Because the strings are ‘plucked’, the vibrating string creates a very small amount of energy, and much of this is lost, even before it makes any sound.  It is important to convert as much of this energy as possible into an audible sound and at the same time create a pleasing tone.  This is where careful, well thought out design comes in.  Converting this design into a thing of great beauty that is musical, takes other skills. Despite the external similarity of all Classical Guitars, the internal design is much less formal and established than the violin, which has remained little changed for over 300 years.  In the Classical Guitar there can be many structural variations and each maker brings his own ideas, skills and experience to the mix as he strives to produce his ‘ideal’ sound.

The use of specially selected, and seasoned timbers, or tone-woods as they are called, is critical to both the sound, structural integrity and beauty of the finished instrument.  These high-grade woods are only available from a few specialist suppliers here in the UK, or in Europe or the USA.  European or Alpine Spruce and Rosewood are the traditionally preferred materials for the front, and the back and sides of a Classical Guitar.  The best woods are hand split from large billets so that the natural ‘flow’ of the grain is retained.  Boards are carefully sawn as ‘book-matched’ pairs and naturally seasoned for a minimum of ten years.  Preparation of this ‘quarter-sawn’ timber is critical so that it is stable and strong enough to create the required life and quality of sound in the finished instrument.

The front, of European Spruce, is planed, scraped and sanded to about 2.5 mm thick; thinner than this at the periphery.  This plate is then supported with fine ‘braces’ of Spruce and formed into a shallow dome to add further strength and rigidity.  Strong crossbars support the area around the sound-hole and underneath the ‘finger-board’.  Most makers vary the ‘bracing’ patterns in order to achieve their particular ‘sound’ and to fine-tune the tone to their liking.  The back of the guitar is acoustically much less important than the top, however it still plays an active role at lower frequencies and can determine the final voice of the instrument.  The neck is made from laminations of Mahogany or Cedar and must be accurately constructed and finely shaped to provide the player with the necessary feel and confidence.  The fingerboard of Ebony is precisely sawn in exact positions to take the nickel-silver frets.

Light weight is crucial to the final voice of a Classical Guitar.  The critical component here is the top, or soundboard, which needs to be as light as possible, yet strong enough to resist the 40Kg pull of the strings with the minimum of distortion.  Light weight allows the top to respond to the smallest vibration of the string and to ‘pump’ air, somewhat like a loudspeaker, when energized by the ‘pluck’ of the string.  One of his early teachers once told Roger “as light as possible, and as strong as it needs to be”; not a very precise definition but one allowing ample room for experiment!  When you think that the all-up weight of a full-size, high-quality Classical Guitar is less than 1.5 Kg. you can appreciate how thin and light the 150 or so individual components have to be.  Too heavy and the sound, especially the higher notes, will be dull and lifeless, while too light and the instrument will have a short life and the structure may not withstand the tension of the strings.  Getting the balance just right on an instrument that is expected to last a few lifetimes is obviously important.

A big challenge for the low volume hand-maker is to consistently produce instruments with a similar quality and sound.  This can be greatly assisted with the use of numerous templates and gauges, which reproduce accurate shapes and alignment.  Although some specialist tools are required, most of the work is carried out with ordinary, but very sharp, woodworking tools such as the plane, chisel and saw.  Some power tools make lighter work of particularly heavy jobs. Accuracy of construction is paramount in the Classical Guitar, more so than with bowed instruments.  The string-length and the finger-board, with its frets, are critical to the final notes that are produced, this can only be achieved with precision measuring tools, of engineering quality, such as calibrated rulers, vernier caliper, micrometer and steel straight-edges.

An assembly work-board is used to hold and align all the components in the correct location while gluing; the front is placed face down, then the neck is glued on followed by the two pre-bent sides.  Small triangular blocks are glued between the top and sides.  When this assembly is dry the sides are carefully contoured to take the already braced and domed back, which is finally glued in place.  Modern glues are used in construction as these allow an extended assembly time and much increased strength and life, over traditional animal glues, which are little used in modern guitar construction.

The assembled body has small ledges cut all round to take wooden ‘bindings’ and decorative ‘purflings which considerably strengthen and stiffen the instrument ‘tightening’ the final tone and providing protection for fragile corners.

Roger maintains that he is simply carrying on the tradition for which English craftsmen have been admired for centuries – skills in fact which anyone can learn.  However there is clearly more than a hint of magic in a craft that combines both art and science to such a degree that a thing of great beauty can also create such a musical sound.  Apart from the skills required, making a guitar to this level of craft requires a high degree of perseverance and self-control as so many things can go wrong at any stage.  The woodwork alone can exceed 100 hours with some 2 months also spent in finishing with up to 30 coats of lacquer or French polish.  This task is clearly not for the faint-hearted or impatient among us.

Roger Williams Concert Guitars are available as personal commissions, or from various dealers around the country, or on the Internet.  For further information call 01543 262543 or contact as below.

Article courtesy Finz Publications. Ltd.