Welcome to Fylde Guitars Newsletter

Single Malt Ariel for Sale - SOLD
Clive Carroll and Will McNicol at The Old Crown
Gordon Giltrap and Susy Wall. Fox at Dawn
Nazareth and Sir Toby. All on Cocaine
Joss Clapp
1978 Orsino for Sale
John Hobson. Peaceful Night
Suzy Starlite. Walking the Bass Line
Fylde Guitar Galleries
And more about Alexander's "others"

String Break. "A Celebration of Contemporary British Luthiery"
Remi Harris
Skeet Williams
George Sansome
Fylde YouTube Channel
The Glopitta Gloppita Machine
Workshop latest
John Williamson
Kyntra - Elliott Morris and Henry Webster
The Original Birds Foot Inlay

Single Malt Ariel for Sale

As usual, this guitar has a story. It wasn't meant to be here, and it might be the very last Single Malt guitar we can make.

A customer in the USA placed an order for a Goodfellow guitar made from the "Whisky timbers", and I did warn him that the sizes available might not work out. And I was right, the sides and soundboard were fine, but the back has to be made from the flat "head" of the oak cask. We only get one, perhaps two suitable pieces from one barrel, and we need at least five pieces for a guitar back. Mandolins are going to be ok, but I don’t think I'll have time to find wood big enough for more guitars. Even if I do, the wood needs much more time to dry and stabilise than "conventional" choices.

Just twice over the last twenty years or so, we've managed to make a bigger guitar from these timbers, one of those now lives in San Francisco, but there certainly won't be any more of those.

Back to my story. Having put the initial effort in, it made sense to finish what we had started and complete the only possible guitar - an Ariel, the guitar that started the whole idea. There have been two such guitars sold second hand recently, and both have reached quite impressive prices. That's very gratifying to see, as I've had rather a lot of push back from certain areas regarding the Whisky idea, even though I’ve seen other makers take it up since we first tried it around 1995.

We've made two significant changes over the decades. Originally the soundboards were Oregon Pine washback vessels from Talisker Distillery, with wonderful burns and stains from its immersion in hot alcohol for around forty years, but that supply has gone. I replaced it with Sinker Redwood from California, another timber that has been soaking for a long long time. To keep the looks of the original, we scorch the soundboard a little, using a big old blowlamp, this idea isn’t as far away from traditional instrument making as you might think.

One of the joys of making these guitars was the smell when sanding the soundboards, that can't happen now, but we still get a wonderful aroma when we bend the sides. I tell myself that the water we use to wet them actually becomes Whisky and we try to be careful when we drive home. There is an upside to the lack of Pine - the Redwood produces a warmer sound which counteracts the tight character of the small body. The other change I've made is the fingerboard. Originally it was Oak from the Whisky casks, which was lovely and in keeping with the concept, but otherwise not ideal . We now use Ebony, and the whole guitar has no compromises at all, it's all music.

So here we are.

For sale at £6,600. There's not likely to be another chance any time soon. - SOLD

Click on an image to enlarge ...

Clive Carroll and Will McNicol at The Old Crown

The Ariel that Will plays here isn't a million miles away from the Single Malt available above. Both have a Sinker Redwood soundboard, which is where much of the tone comes from, and from Will himself of course, he is made of tone.

Clive has spent the last few years continually moving around the UK, sometimes on foot. Now that he is based partly in the USA, of course he's more likely to be flying. He never stops, and I've no idea where he keeps all his guitars, one in every port perhaps, Clive?

He is widely regarded as "the best", he mostly uses one of his Ralph Bown guitars but was very keen to help in our 50 years project, and it's lovely to hear what he has to say about his Fyldes.

Will is also "Multi Guitared" He uses guitars made by Tom Sands for much of his work but still needs the contrast of his older Ariel and his Nylon strung Fyldes. He is a special friend of ours and I really value the mutual support that we share with him, and many others.

Interesting isn’t it, that such top line international players are using UK made guitars? There are others - amazing players such as Martin Simpson, Gordon Giltrap, Ben Walker and John Smith also support UK makers. It's not nationalism in any form, and they have a huge choice of guitars from all over the world. More about that later.

Clive has restarted his Sunday evening "Streams", and will be touring the UK later this year, including his extended workshop at Ullapool.

Clive's Website

Will has just issued his latest newsletter, he is massively busy and productive. Of course, he will be at Ullapool again this year, after a sabbatical in 2024

Will's website

John Smith is about to start this year’s touring.

John’s Website

Gordon Giltrap and Susy Wall. Fox at Dawn

This is beautiful. I'm sure Gordon is getting better and it's such a lovely boat!

Gordon's Website

Nazareth and Sir Toby. All on Cocaine

I'm so pleased that I found this. I love my job, but none of it is easy and it does help massively to get some encouragement.

You might remember the Twoford video about a 1978 Falstaff that I mentioned in November. That video now has 53,000 views and hundreds of nice comments. One of those comments took me by surprise - it was from the ex-guitar tech for the Scottish Heavy Metal Band Nazareth. How didn't I know that they used a Fylde Sir Toby Acoustic Bass?

I wish they were easier to make, they have such a good sound, and I'd like to see them used a lot more.
Here are some top players that I know about who have owned a Fylde Bass: Bill Wyman, Stanley Clarke, Jimmy Nail, Ritchie Blackmore, Nigel Kennedy, Mark Egan, Pat King, Jon Entwistle and Dave Bronze. From other music worlds, Stu Luckley, Phil Murray, Barnaby Stradling , Jon Thorn, Ruari McFarlane, Chance Wilder Onody and Joss Clapp. I'm sure I've missed some out, and I know some other players share them because they are so big and expensive.

Joss Clapp

A nice link here to Joss's music, he isn't just a bass player. Joss might be the only one of my customers that has played a Fylde at BBC's Last Night of the Proms, with Kathryn Tickell.

Hopefully I will receive hundreds of emails telling me about others?

1978 Orsino for Sale

And that's another perfect link, Joss's guitar is an Orsino of a similar age to this.

The Orsino has probably been our most successful model in terms of numbers. Also of course, it was the model used by Nic Jones on one of the "best ever acoustic guitar tracks " of those memorable years. It was because of that track that Bob Dylan acquired his own Orsino.

Here we have rather a nice one, made in 1978, the same era as Nic's.

We've done very little to it, some fret work and minor scratches etc. It plays beautifully and sounds rich and full.

Ideally, I’d like a prospective customer to visit and see this guitar to appreciate it fully, it is 47 years old after all, but really, you won't be disappointed.

For sale at £2,400

Click on an image to enlarge ...

John Hobson. Peaceful Night

Another tune that I wish I'd had for my Christmas Newsletter.

John's guitar is the Leonardo that was advertised in December.

My record from newsletter to actual sale currently stands at two minutes, but it wasn't John, he took at least an hour.

Suzy Starlite. Walking the Bass Line

Now is a good place to talk about acoustic Basses a bit more.

Here we have Suzy, with her King John bass that used to belong to Joss Clapp and Suzy's latest article for Bass Musician Magazine. 'Walking the Bass Line #3'

Plenty to read and study for anyone interested in all things Bass.

Link to article

Suzy and her Partner Simon Campbell have just relocated to a stunning location in Foz do Arehlo, Portugal, where they will be reopening their residential recording studio on March 31st - rebranded to the 'Supertone Sonic Laboratory'. It overlooks the Obidos lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean - stunning - and a perfect place and experience to record music. It looks amazing.

Link to SUPERTONE

They are also working on an acoustic duo project (Simon has three Fylde guitars). If all goes well, their next video will be featuring those lovely things all together. Watch this space.

Fylde Guitar Galleries

In November I linked to Gallery 1 on the website, it's a great way of showing you just what we can make. This time, its Gallery 3. "Alexander and others" If I ever feel as if I'm making no progress in guitar making, it helps to look at such things. Even I am impressed, and sometimes, I'm reminded of a guitar I had forgotten about.

Link to Gallery 3

Link to Gallery 4

And more about Alexander's "others"

You didn't expect that did you? Robin Gibb had a Goodfellow at one time. I wonder what happened to it.

It's only just occurred to me as I check this over, that the "Goodfellow" character in Shakespeare was actually "Robin Goodfellow". Maybe that's why he bought it?

String Break. "A Celebration of Contemporary British Luthiery"

This fits in rather well with my comments earlier, I'm continually amazed by how many new makers there are nowadays. Fifteen of them are taking part in this, and I know of a lot of others.

I've obviously watched the progress of guitar making in this country for a long time. There was hardly any back in 1973. Compared to other countries we are at a massive disadvantage, as everything has to be imported, we have few resources and very little history to refer to. But - in terms of human skills and craftsmanship, UK makers are as good as any.

Being a "small business" in today's world is very hard and guitar making is particularly difficult. I probably know that better than most, so I hope this event helps them all find their best route through.

Link to STRING BREAK Tickets

Link to SPRING BREAK on Instagram

Remi Harris

Remi never disappoints. I've not yet recovered from missing most of his last show near here due to an unadvertised massive road diversion.

His latest gig list doesn't bring him anywhere near us this time round. Boo.

Remi's Website

Skeet Williams

I'm going to claim another link here, as one of Skeet's guitars is another 1978 Orsino. The other is, er, an Orsino, but a custom model, made in 1982. I did tell you that we made a lot of Orsinos.

I didn’t know Skeet had an identical twin, and I’m not quite sure but I think they have identical shoes. I also really appreciate them going to the trouble of painting the Fylde Logo on their mantelpiece .

Skeet often invites us to a special restaurant he has connections to. I wish we could get there.

Skeet's Website

George Sansome

I could keep this link idea going for a long time, as George's first Fylde was also an Orsino, but this time he's playing his new Custom Bouzouki, double tracked. As I was watching this, I kept expecting George to whip off the second capo to change key, but then I realised it's not a capo, it's just a damper to restrict the unused part of the strings.

It's a tune called Boxing Day by Granny's Attic bandmate Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne. George just missed our Christmas newsletter with this, but I'm not going to wait another year to use it

George's Website

Fylde YouTube Channel

Bit by bit, we are adding more videos to the Fylde YouTube channel. There are 57 at the moment. Sign up to the Channel and keep (almost) up to date.

I'm still learning how this sort of things works, and I'm adding better descriptions to each one.

As well as the Fylde Channel, there are already lots of videos of players which I plunder whenever I find the time, but I want to show a bit more of what happens in the making process, without it being too artificial. There is also a lot more we could say about the customer and artist relationships as well, it's such a big part of what we do but it all takes time and resources. I'd rather be making guitars.

Link to Fylde's YouTube Channel

The Glopitta Gloppita Machine

One of the comments on this video likened Paul and myself to Wallace and Gromit, cheek. Which is which anyway? And any suggestions for Alex?
We had a good friend come to help about twenty years ago out and he christened my little machine. It's still going strong after something like two million cuts.

Every guitar maker has to make "Linings" to form the gluing area between the sides, front and back. There are lots of ways of doing it, all of them take a long time and my little contraption is the envy of all who see it. A lot of what goes into making a guitar will never be seen again once the assembly is finished. Nevertheless, it’s a mark of pride and workmanship that everything be neat and tidy, inside as well as out. You need to have a certain type of patience to give that amount of attention to something that will remain unseen.

I often describe guitar making as "engineering in wood", and I really enjoy the tool making part of my work, which of course, is mostly in metal. It took a long time to make this device, no drawings, just making it up as I went along. I don't get enough time for this sort of thing nowadays, and I have a big list of things I want to do. Plus, I have to admit, rather a lot of things I have started and haven't finished. One day, who knows?

Workshop latest

This is one such device that I actually did finish recently. Largely courtesy of Mr Eb and Mrs Ay plus a little cunning. I won't try and explain it, it’s very simple but I'll keep the mystery. I will say that it should solve a difficulty, and I'm really pleased with it.
You can guess if you want to but I'm not promising to say yes or no!

John Williamson

Have I used this before? If so, I’ve used it again. It's an excellent advert for our mandolins, particularly the Signature model. Thank you, John.

Kyntra - Elliott Morris and Henry Webster

We don't see so much of Elliott since he became a family man. I am enjoying this new duo project, they seem to work very well together and I'm hoping they will play at the same venues where we've often seen Elliott - Zefferelli's in Ambleside, where we can get beer, pizza, music, and a good seat.

Elliott's last news was that he had a piece of guitar lacquer embedded in his thumb, and he sent me pictures. He must have been playing a different guitar.

Elliott's Website

The Original Birds Foot Inlay

I'll just walk over there and ask him to move. No? I'll just turn around and go away again then, and I'll be very careful where I put my feet.

That's it for now.

Happy New Year, and all the best for 2025

Roger Bucknall