stimme

These are pictures of the craftsmanship and creation of my new "Stimme guitar" (a name I chose...Stimme is a German word which means 'voice') by master luthier Barry Murphy of Windmill Hill, Nr. Hurstmonceux, East Sussex...tel: 01323-832388. This small guitar was modelled on my existing small Leyanda guitar and a mould was taken from it. We chose the wood from Sussex's own musical instrument wood supplier Dave Dyke of Horam. This unique guitar has 30 year old African Blackwood (Dalbergia Melanoxlon) back and sides, European Spruce soundboard and to blend the very starkness of those two colours Barry came up with a wonderful wood in Snakewood for the headstock and edging trim to balance the whole look. There is Honduras mahogany for the neck and inner tentalones, Ebony for the fingerboard, bridge and tuning pegs and the lining for the back is willow. Barry has beautifully carved my initials and "Hat" logo in Mother-of-pearl and sunk them in ebony into the headstock. He has also made a fantastic feature of the Rosette which has a hard Whitewood inner, Snakewood and Mother-of-pearl surround. The strings are classical medium gauge and are tuned to my liking in a DADGAD format (actually BF#BEF#B). This wonderful guitar took about 12 weeks to build and I took delivery of it on Christmas Eve 2005. I have been playing my Stimme guitar nearly every day since and it is superb! Thank you Barry for all the blood, sweat and tears you gave in the creation of this unique and amazing guitar. I will treasure it forever! I can thoroughly recommend Barry Murphy as a master craftsman not only for guitars but also a multitude of other instruments especially Banjos and as well as this he makes beautiful chairs, tables and household furniture...see the link to Barry's website on my links page. There are 92 thumbnails below...click on each to enlarge the picture.