Popular Woodworking 2007-06 № 162, страница 62

Great Woodshops

peacefulness of it," he says.

After the guitar is fully constructed, it's removed from the template and French polished. ""No oil on raw wood - ever," says Clark. "I think that would deaden the sound."

The last step is to mark each guitar as a Guy Clark original; Clark has a unique way of going about it. He pricks his little finger, smears the blood on his thumb, then presses a bloody thumbprint onto a card. After the thumbprint is dry, Clark signs through it and numbers it. "That label is on the inside of every guitar I've built," he says. It also serves as the album art for The Dark, which Clark released in 2002.

But you won't find too many of those labels; a handcrafted flamenco-style Guy Clark guitar is a rare commodity. Of the 10 he's made, he's given only three away - one each to Jamie Hartford, Rodney Crowell and Lyle Lovett. And as far as Clark knows, Hartford is the only one to record while playing a Clark guitar, on ""Magdalene" off Clark's latest album. Clark himself plays a Martin guitar on all of his recordings.

A Mystery in Sound

While he's certainly an expert at making the tones that come out of a guitar sound great, Clark says he doesn't actually know the secret of building a guitar that sounds great. That is, he can't explain how it's done; there's certainly

A hand-carved Mayan-inspired headstock is a signature design for Clark's guitars. But perhaps the best way to confirm a Guy Clark original is to run a DNA test. Each guitar is labeled with his signature handwritten through his thumbprint inked in blood.

a little bit of luck and magic involved in the process, as well as skill, he says.

"That's one of the neat things about building guitars ... at some point you just have to string it and start playing it to see how it sounds. It's fun to make them. But the minute you fall in love with them, they break your heart," he says. Clark admits that the prettiest guitar he's ever made really didn't sound too good. So now it's in pieces in his shop as he figures out how to make it sound better.

It's a delicate process, carefully planing the top to reshape the edges where it meets the

Clark took this photograph as he was working on his latest guitar, m idway through the construction process.

Clark displays his planing chops on a neck blank.

sides. The thinnest slice can change the sound of the instrument, he says. And, of course, the wood species has a lot to do with it as well. Clark finds stock selection to be the most mysterious part of making a guitar. And he doesn't necessarily buy into theories of wood stiffness, or what note the raw wood sings. He's says he's just experimenting to see what sounds best. Usually, he opts for rosewood and sitka spruce for his guitar bodies; "Mahogany's sound is just too soft," he says.

Clark is glad he has the time to play around with the sound of his instruments, and not have to meet a deadline. ""It's not like a competition: 'Man, how good can you do it?' I just love doing it. But I couldn't make a living building guitars," he says. ""I build guitars so I can write songs on them."

Each of these pursuits serves Clark as a welcome break from the other, though writing music is his day job, as it were. He feels guitar building and songwriting fulfill a necessary left-brain/right-brain workout that helps him achieve more with both. When he's home, Clark says he tries to log time in his workshop every day pursuing both of these passions. "It's a dream come true, to be able to build guitars and write songs in the same room," Clark says. PW

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Popular Woodworking June 2007