I make stuff. Lot’s of different stuff. I’ve been doing it a long time. A really long time… I have websites you can look at. This is one of them. So are these:

www.charlesfreeborn.com

www.freebornboxes.com

See for yourself. Feel free to chat me up. My wife says I talk too much… She’s probably right.

This is a sticky wicket… for some…But not for me. I approach guitars in a rather pragmatic way. I grew up playing, fixing, breaking and making guitars. When I was a teenager I was a stock boy in a music store in Wilmington Delaware. I’d gather up discards from the repair department and cobble together solid body electric guitars. It was a need based activity – I didn’t have money to buy them done so I’d make do with what I could scrounge.

As my life and career progressed I went down the path of a “maker” From basic carpentry to cabinetry to boats to fine furniture, but always guitars. There were some long gaps in between, but I always had a soft spot for guitars.  What all of my other pursuits brought to the table was a wide range of skills in an equally wide range of materials. I didn’t fall for any number of the trends “du jour” in any of those fields. Et oui, je parle un petit peu Francaise. Mon pere nee Bretange.

For a while on the west coast in the 80’s there was a whole herd of lemming woodworkers trudging down the Japanese woodworker / tool path. Well, okay, those tools are cool. A bit of a pisser to sharpen, but yeah, they work well… so I did that, but I sure as shootin’ didn’t get rid of all my Stanley planes. I use them all to this day. It’s a big tent and I range around in every corner of it.

Power tools? You betcha. Point A to Point B. Whatever gets me there the best and fastest way. I do not have CNC or laser. Sometimes I’ll hire it out, but I don’t want to be slave to the machine. They have their place, but for me and my methods, I’ll stick to old school router templates and hand tools.

In spite of my sometimes out there design ethic, under the hood my guitars are quite traditionally built. If I were to name two builders that I hold in the highest regard for their construction methods, design ethos and unparalled quality and tone they would be Alan Perlman and Ed Claxton.

I consider myself extremely lucky to know them both and try my best to learn from their vast knowledge.

I highly recommend you check out their instruments. There are none finer and their prices reflect just that.

A lot, and I mean a LOT of noise goes into “tap tone”, 4A, “shimmering highs from the Brazilian Rosewood” blah blah blah…  I’ve cut, built, chainsawed glued, screwed and tatooed literally tons of wood in my lifetime. I’m not exaggerating… tons. What have I learned from it all? A good stick is a good stick. Period. Nothing to do with color, look and even sometimes grain orientation. I pick the right piece for the right job. Sorry if that isn’t zen enough for some people, but as I see it a guitar is a tool to make music. If it works, it works. Another period…

As for all of the hoo hah about “the tree” and what the effect back and sides has on the tone of the guitar – In my opinion the top is 85% of the sound. How the builder braces, voices and treats the top is, well, 85% of the battle. Screw that up and it’ll never be a great guitar.The remainder is pairing the rest of the components to truly let the top sing. There are “go to” combinations that I, and many other builders use, because they just work. But the real magic is in assessing all of the components, along with a clear vision of what I want to accomplish and going forth with confidence, experience and sometimes a little bit of whimsy.

Hoo boy, here we go.  For a professional working musician putting a pickup in an acoustic guitar is more often than not a necessary evil. If you’re playing gig after gig with who knows what sound reinforcement at the next club, yes, a pickup is probably the best way to get a consistent sound. Take you own pre-amp / DI box so you have at least a little control, but you’ll probably have to throw your fate to the gods in most houses.

That said, if you’re not in the above situation, a guitar with a pickup played through an amp is going to sound like the pickup, not the guitar. So if you have to have one, get a good one. We can talk about that, as I do have some preferred choices, but long story short, if you don’t REALLY need to play loud, don’t do it. If you just want to play a little bit louder than that dang fiddle or mandolin next to you at a jam circle consider a reso guitar. Them rascals bark!

Another Hoo Boy…  My opinion? Meh, non issue. I happen to be an old school joinery guy, so I love cutting dovetails. The elegance and simplicity simply appeal.

I do also happen to love what Jeff Beck does with a Stratocaster, so there you go. I’ve been developing a bolt on system that will soon be integrated into a shallow body “stage” model guitar. My opinion is that if you’re going to use hardware it should do more than hold on the neck. It should provide at least 2 axis adjustability to the neck joint and the set up of the action… film at 11

French Polish is the cats ass. No question. The best finish for pretty much any musical instrument. But… do you want to re-work it every 20 hours of use? FP originates in the earliest history of furniture making. Back when people wore wigs and used the backstairs to get it on with the help when the missus was on the fainting sofa with a case of the vapors… but I digress…Speaking of the help, they had kits they toted around, with pure alcohol and shellac flakes and constantly touched up the furniture. When some douche duke from the next city state had a few too many and put his congac glass down on the sideboard – and it left a mark, the help would rub it out the next day… fill in your own entendre there…

So… guitars… yep, FP is beautiful, but .. for all practical purposes Nitro Lacquer is the next best thing. Spray it thin, buff it gently and it’ll look good for a few hundred hours. Then, re-spray as needed. Lacquer re-melts the finish under it and you’re good to go for another couple of hundred hours.

Modern poly finishes will go for several hundred hours, but when they’re done it’s a complete strip and re-finish. Not necessarily a terrible thing, just different. I don’t spray it on account of it’s highly toxic and I don’t like to kill the birds that are flying by my shop when I’m finishing – especially if they’re the same birds that I just put food out for in feeders. That just seems cruel.

Water borne finishes are the way the whole world is going – and for good reason. Far less toxic to the person applying it, the living creatures in the vicinity of the person applying it, and ultimately the planet. The drawback is the look, feel and longevity. WB finishes have a slightly milky hue to them. They’re getting better every year, but side by side with a good nitro lacquer and you’ll see the difference. Tonal differences? Frankly, the thickness of the finish- regardless of what type is the biggest factor in dampening the tone of the top.