LogoFret
Workshop

Awards & Recognition

2023

Guild of American Luthiers

Excellence

2022

Healdsburg Guitar Festival

Best Steel-String

2024

Holy Grail Guitar Show

Juror's Choice

2021

Guild of American Luthiers

Merit Award

2019

Healdsburg Guitar Festival

Innovation

47 instruments built.

0 returned.

A one-person workshop in Northern California. Spruce tops tap-tuned by knuckle. Rosewood bridges hand-fitted to thousandths of an inch. Raw timber turned into instruments that outlive their players.

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Tap-tuned tops✦Hand-fitted bridges✦Nitrocellulose finish✦Custom neck profiles✦European spruce✦Indian rosewood✦Scale length to order✦Northern California✦Tap-tuned tops✦Hand-fitted bridges✦Nitrocellulose finish✦Custom neck profiles✦European spruce✦Indian rosewood✦Scale length to order✦Northern California✦

01 / Setup

3.2mm

at the 12th fret

Action set for fingerstyle players who dig in — measured with a feeler gauge, not a guess.

Every neck leaves this bench with relief dialled to 0.010″ and action confirmed at the 12th fret before the nut is cut. Most production guitars ship at 4mm or higher. The difference is whether you fight the instrument or play it.

0.010″Neck relief at 8th fret
3.2mmBass-side action, 12th fret
2.4mmTreble-side action, 12th fret
Close-up macro of guitar saddle slot with precise measurement marks on rosewood bridge

Saddle slot routed to 0.001″ tolerance on a hand-ground chisel

Stacked European spruce tonewood billets in humidity-controlled workshop room with visible grain

Spruce stack, humidity-controlled room — 2015 harvest

02 / Tonewoods

11 yrs

aged before carving

European spruce cut in 2015, stickered in a humidity-controlled room at 45–50% RH. Wood that hasn't finished moving has no business becoming a soundboard.

Tap-tuning isn't mysticism — it's listening for the Chladni patterns that tell you where the plate wants to flex. A top with the wrong tap frequency fights the bridge; one that's right amplifies frequencies the player can't even hear consciously, but their body feels.

45–50%Storage relative humidity
≈180 HzTarget tap-tone, top plate
6.5 lbsFinished soundboard weight range

03 / Neck

0.820″

neck depth at 1st fret

The profile your fretting hand remembers from that one guitar you played in 1987 and never found again. Asymmetric C-to-D taper, bass side slightly deeper.

No two necks here are identical because no two hands are. A commission starts with a hand tracing and a conversation about repertoire — fingerpickers get a different profile than strummers. The carve is done in passes with a spokeshave, checked against a radius gauge, and refined until it disappears in your grip.

0.820″Depth at 1st fret
0.890″Depth at 9th fret
1-11/16″Nut width, fingerstyle spec
Luthier hands carving guitar neck blank with spokeshave tool showing wood grain and shavings

Neck blank in progress — mahogany, asymmetric C carve

Guitar body under nitrocellulose lacquer finish showing amber grain and light reflection in workshop

Nitro lacquer — coat 7 of 12, drying in the booth

04 / Finish

4 thou

finish thickness

Nitrocellulose lacquer applied in 12 coats, levelled between each. The finish is thin enough that the wood still breathes — a guitar isn't furniture.

Thick polyester finishes are fast and durable. They also damp the top's vibration and make every guitar sound slightly encased. Nitro takes three weeks to cure properly. It checks, it ages, it develops a patina. It also gets out of the wood's way and lets the instrument become itself.

0.004″Total finish thickness (cured)
21 daysFull cure time before levelling
12 coatsApplied with HVLP gun

Free Resource

The Buyer's Guide to
Handmade Guitars

34 pages covering wood selection, scale length trade-offs, tap-tone basics, and the 11 questions to ask any luthier before you commission an instrument. Written in the same plain language you'll find on this page.

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