Ervin
Somogyi leads first annual "Masters Class"
| Our first annual Master Class was held at John Timblin’s home in Arlington. We were honored to have Ervin Somogyi as our guest. Ervin has been making acoustic guitars for over thirty years and is widely acknowledged as a modern master builder. The topic of the class was a step-by-step look at how to evaluate and select tone wood for use as guitar tops. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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course started at 9:30 Saturday morning and went well past the dinner
hour. On Sunday we once again started early and concluded in mid afternoon.
We had 19 members attend. At the end of each day's sessions the members
were able to sort through a selection of Sitka Spruce tops that Chris
Jenkins had LMI send us. LMI sent us nothing but primo sets, no doubt
because they knew that Ervin was our presenter and didn’t want
him seeing any junk tops. Over seventy tops were purchased by our
members at the very reasonable price of $19 each. Ervin started the day by discussing the nature of wood. His syllabus broke down the tone wood selection process into a series of simple question and answer steps. Each exercise involved examining sets of wood that he had brought for the process. In fairness to Ervin I cannot reproduce his questions here, but just as an example here is one of the early questions. Examine plates #5,6 visually. You may pick them up, but don't flex them, tap them, etc. What three qualities or properties can you identify by just holding the wood and looking at it? Are there more than three? More than ten? More than twenty? List as many as you can. I personally came up with five characteristics. This is Ervin’s answer to the question: |
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| After
going though a series of exercises that involved touching, flexing,
and tapping we went outside where there was better light to answer
specific questions about several sets of wood. This is an example
of the probing nature of these questions: Examine plates #425, 421, 422 carefully, as though you needed to select one to build a guitar for a jazz player. Which one might you choose? Why? Which one would you reject? Why? |
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| When asked to handle the teaching top sets, Ervin asked us to be gentle and not break the top. I am sorry to report that LINT now holds the record for the number of broken tops in a single day. Here is Ervin repairing some of our handy work |  |
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| By the end of the first day many off us had gained new skills that made tonewood selection less of a mystery. Many stayed late into the evening to test their new knowledge on the Sitka tops from LMI. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| We concluded the event with some LINT business. Don Chesser was elected president for 2002 by acclamation. Ervin was presented with an Ebony Monte Blanc style pen that was made by member Sandy Cheatum. |  |
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| Members John Fitzgerald and Steve Mayo each showed recently completed guitars. Steve’s instrument is a walnut/cedar dreadnaught with Martin style scalloped bracing. Soundhole and fingerboard inlays are abalone. It is his first guitar "from scratch", actually the third one I've built. The finish is satin Tru-Oil. It’s it the first guitar he made a commission on! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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John
Fitzgerald's instrument is a classical acoustic/electric with
cutaway and 14 frets to the body. The top is sitka spruce; back
and sides are Indian rosewood; the binding, headpiece veneer,
and rosette inlay are padouk. It was built for Dale
Clark , lead guitar player for Max
Stalling. |
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