The advantage of specialization is that it can lead to advanced refinement of a basic design, and many builders today choose to limit themselves to a few standard models or styles—dreadnoughts, classicals, archtops, vintage re-creations, ultramodern designs, etc.—of which they build custom variations for individual clients. This allows their guitars to be clearly defined for potential customers, who have an increasingly wide range of builders to choose from. Yet some guitar makers have bucked this trend toward a smaller catalog by accepting commissions for a wide variety of guitars and even other stringed instruments. Building a diverse lineup of guitars allows them to maintain interest in their craft over a long career, build more spontaneously to suit specific clients, and even discover building techniques and design quirks they might not have found by focusing on one or two main designs.

I recently talked to five luthiers—Bernie Lehmann, Alan Perlman, Allan Beardsell, Stephen Marchione, and Aaron Andrews—who collectively build a huge variety of instruments (including flattop steel-strings, classicals, archtops, electrics, and harp guitars). In addition to offering multiple styles of guitars, some of these builders have set themselves apart by showing a preference for radical designs or unusual instruments. Whether it’s a design influenced more by Selmer, Kay Craft, or the Larson Brothers than from Martin, Gibson, and Olson, or whether it’s a detail like a lute-style back or custom harp-guitar setup, chances are that an instrument built by one of these luthiers will stand apart both visually and tonally.

Diverse in background, experience, and geographic location, these five craftsmen believe passionately that the lessons they’ve learned in building and repairing multiple kinds of instruments have helped them tailor their guitar designs to their customers’ specific needs and desires.

BERNIE LEHMANN
Rochester, New York.
Flattops, archtops, classicals, Gypsy-jazz guitars, and other designs.
lehmannstrings.com.

Left: Lehmann offers a lute-style back on several of his models. Right: Lehmann’s Eclipse model Gypsy-jazz guitar.

Photos credit, Bernie Lehmann

The first guitar Bernie Lehmann ever built was a 000-size steel-string, but he’s moved on to taking a fearless approach to building virtually every type of fretted and bowed instrument during his 35-plus years in lutherie. Infused with a lifelong passion for stringed instruments by singing Burl Ives songs around the campfire with his family, he created one-of-a-kind designs like a purple, metal-flake electric dulcimer and a harpsichord-guitar while attending Syracuse University in the early 1970s. Lehmann, who hangs his chisels in Rochester, New York, credits Owen Shaw with teaching him traditional lutherie skills when they set up shop together in Boston in 1972. Further study in lute making in 1975 with Joel van Lennep at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts deepened his understanding of instrument construction.

While he enjoys making early instruments like the bowed rebec, vielle, plucked and bowed psalteries, Baroque guitar, and vihuela for their sophisticated construction methods and time-tested designs, the steel-string guitar is Lehmann’s preferred instrument. “I enjoy making the steel-string flattop and understand this model the best through being a player for so long,” he says. “I like doing detail work like carving and inlay, and it’s a challenge to make an ornate instrument that is not overdone or too flashy.”

Lehmann is also known for his Gypsy-jazz guitars and archtops, and he’s no stranger to building classicals—whether with standard dimensions based on Hauser and Ramírez designs or custom-designed with narrower necks, cutaways, and other features. “I think of stringed instruments as falling into broad categories; plucked or bowed or glued bridge or tailpiece,” Lehmann says. “Within these parameters, a mandolin and an archtop guitar are the same except in form; the rules for soundboard graduation and neck angle are the same for a lute and a flattop guitar except in degrees. The way sound moves across a soundboard is the same whether large or small, plucked or bowed, flat or arched.”

One of Lehmann’s more unusual designs combines a 000-size steel-string body with a ribbed and arched back constructed like that of a lute. “I’ve been inspired by Baroque craftsmen who were able to engrave ivory, inlay it into tortoiseshell, and make a guitar that weighed only two pounds,” he says. “Because the back is constructed with arched and scalloped ribs that are steam bent, they’re less than ¹/₁₆ inches thick but very strong.”

Lehmann, whose prices start at $3,000, feels that it’s important for the customer to be involved in a guitar’s design and construction. He has created videos for clients such as jazz guitarists Rodney Jones and Steve Greene and fingerstylist Kinloch Nelson to show them their instruments in progress, and he says that most buyers like to add something personal, whether a special inlay or piece of wood they’ve selected. “I act as a guide to make sure everything works together well,” he says. “Every instrument I build is a sum of my past instruments and a new growing experience.”

ALAN PERLMAN
San Francisco, California.
Flattops, classicals, multi-strings, harp guitars.
perlmanguitars.com.

Left: A Perlman 11-string classical with eight harp strings. Right: A Perlmann 000-size Stahl replica.

Photos credit, Dutch Treat Productions

Alan Perlman primarily builds classical and flattop steel-string guitars (both of which he plays at performance level), but he’s also developed a reputation for his ability to tackle unusual projects such as steel-string flattops with sympathetic strings, baritone 12-strings, 11-string classicals, harp guitars, and Baroque-influenced guitars. Perlman’s zeal for all things strings stems from playing blues and folk music while living in Vermont from his late teens into his 30s. A well-thumbed copy of Irving Sloane’s Classic Guitar Construction plus astute guidance from mentors such as pioneering builder Michael Gurian and an apprenticeship with luthier Clark Voorhees helped launch him on a career building instruments in 1972.

Guitars like his arch harp guitar (a small-bodied 11-string with a removable harp section he developed for guitarist James Kline) prove that he’s willing to buck tradition, but Perlman’s designs tend to start with proven construction details. “The traditional X-bracing on steel-strings and fan bracing on classicals is a wonderful starting point for designs,” he says. “There are numerous modifications that can influence tone, but my favorite instruments still utilize these bracing patterns.” And Perlman’s extensive experience repairing vintage instruments has taught him important lessons about which construction methods to avoid. “Aliphatic and polyvinyl resin glues will soften and creep at relatively low temperatures, around 120 to 130 degrees, which a guitar can easily reach in a few minutes in a hot car,” Perlman says. “But hide glue is ideal for most guitar construction and repair. It doesn’t creep in the presence of high temperatures.”

After nearly four decades of tweaking his designs and building instruments for fingerstyle players, flatpickers, and classical guitarists, Perlman prefers smaller instruments “for their balance, projection, and clarity.” For steel-strings, Perlman favors 00 and 000 sizes or the slightly smaller, differently proportioned Larson Brothers designs. Perlman describes the Larson guitars as “ahead of their time in their concepts of soundboard doming, use of laminated braces, and vibrant tone with quick response, clarity, and complexity.” Similarly, Perlman favors the smaller bodies of the Torres, Hauser, or Romanillos lineage over the large Madrid-style guitars for his classicals.

With all his instruments, Perlman has a sound in mind before he even touches the raw wood. “I’m looking for a sound, or a range of sounds, that will evoke an emotion in both the player and listener,” he says. “I like a fairly complex sound, rich in overtones but with those overtones in control, never overwhelming. The guitar must respond well throughout the entire dynamic range. I like to be able to sit in the back of a well-designed hall and appreciate the guitar’s ability to focus over a surprising distance.” Perlman, whose instruments start at around $8,000, says that the different styles he builds inform each other and that this has helped him build better guitars. “I’ve developed ideas of what works acoustically and what doesn’t, at least for my tastes, and what methods of building will result in a fine guitar that will stand the test of time.”

ALLAN BEARDSELL
Vancouver, British Columbia.
Flattop steel-strings, nylon-strings, archtop electric, mandolin, harp guitar.
beardsellguitars.com.

Beardsell’s harp guitar (left) and Flamenco guitar (right).

Photos credit, Art Turner

Although Canadian luthier Allan Beardsell builds a wide variety of instruments, he has figured out a way to apply his highly original design—inspired by forms found in nature—to his entire range, which includes steel-string, flamenco, and harp guitars, as well as mandolin and electric banjo adaptations.

Beardsell first became enamored of custom instruments in the early ’80s while tagging along to his brother’s guitar lessons at luthier Bill Lewis’s shop in Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite limited woodworking experience, Beardsell built a five-string solid-body electric violin at age 17, and by 19 he was splitting his time between gigging professionally in Toronto (on both violin and guitar) and building unusual one-of-a-kind instruments for himself. “I was the player that required instruments that couldn’t be easily found or acquired,” he says. His early instruments for fellow musicians included an electric cello, left-handed solid-body electrics, and tenor guitars. In 1997, he participated in a class with luthier Sergei de Jonge, and the experience solidified his interest in building guitars full time.

Beardsell’s instruments share a unique, somewhat Selmer-reminiscent body and original headstock design. But Beardsell says that his design was less influenced by the designs of French Gypsy-jazz guitars and more by shapes of nature. “The headpiece is the stylized silhouette of a flower,” he says. “Originally, I didn’t include a soundhole on the top of the guitar, just sideports. I decided that this simply looked wrong, so I copied the shape of the sideport back on the top, to be consistent, and I thought it looked cool.”

Beardsell currently builds three sizes of steel-string flattops: 2G, 3G, and 4G, which roughly correspond to OM, auditorium, and jumbo dimensions. These body shapes are offered with a 12- or 14-fret neck, slotted or solid headstock, and dual sideports with an optional side door. Beardsell also builds two models of side-ported nylon-string guitars (models 9C and 9F), which include innovative details like a thumb ledge for complete access to the upper frets and a raised fretboard that obliquely angles the strings toward the top and bridge. Beardsell says that the raised fretboard changes the mechanical action of the top from the twisting and torquing motion of a standard guitar bridge to the push/pull of a concert harp. Beardsell’s acoustic guitars start at $6,000.

Asked how building unusual designs such as his 13-string harp guitar influences his six-string guitars, Beardsell says, “Working on the harp guitars, and realizing that strength ratios can be altered with miniscule adjustments in brace height influenced the way I was making acoustic guitars. The way I construct the guitar rims using triple-laminated solid-wood liners, instead of kerfing, makes for incredibly stiff rims, in the same way that a drum rim or a banjo rim is stiff in order to project sound with maximum efficiency.”

Beardsell describes his clients as a diverse bunch that includes jazz players, fingerstylists, singer-songwriters, “free” musicians (Henry Kaiser), noise-ists, punkists, rock stars (Lou Reed), and Djangophiles. “All of my instruments are in some way a collaboration,” says Beardsell. “My clients dictate what I build, and I end up building things I never thought of doing.”

STEPHEN MARCHIONE
Houston, Texas.
Archtops, classicals, flamencos, solid-body electrics.
marchione.com.

Marchione’s 18-inch archtop (left) and a Marchione classical. (right).

Photos credit, Stephen Marchione

Archtop and classical guitar builder Stephen Marchione became fascinated with stringed instruments while living in Italy as a child. Passing a luthier’s studio each day on the way to school, he says that he often could barely tear himself away from the window. This initial spark kindled a fire that culminated in an apprenticeship and full-time building position at Pensa-Suhr Guitars in Manhattan in the early 1990s. Working with accomplished luthiers John Suhr and Mas Hino for three years, Marchione learned a variety of lutherie skills necessary to meet the exacting demands of the shop’s clientele, which included players such as Mark Knopfler, Wayne Krantz, and John Abercrombie. “I developed a keen and precise understanding of the ergonomics of the instrument and the overriding importance of a great setup and intonation,” Marchione says of his time in New York.

After establishing his own brand and working for several years in New York, Marchione is now based in Houston, Texas, where he builds the entire family of guitars, which currently start at about $5,900. His primary instruments are archtop, classical, flamenco, and solid-body electric guitars, but Marchione occasionally also builds an electric bass, flattop steel-string, or mandolin.

Marchione has also studied privately since 1994 with Manhattan-based violin maker Guy Rabut, and says, “I try to build one violin a year to keep my chops up.” He also says that building classical guitars and violins broadens his understanding of top thicknessing, tap tuning, and surface preparation. On the other hand, building electric guitars has taught him the importance of the fretboard in a player’s appreciation of a guitar. “Any discrepancies in the trueness of the fingerboard or frets will greatly compromise the ring, sustain, and tone of the strings,” he says. “I take the time to make sure all of my acoustic guitars have the same level of fingerboard and fret work [as my electrics] to ensure that they achieve their maximum resonance and tone.”

Although he has built seven archtop and classical instruments for jazz guitarist Mark Whitfield, Marchione doesn’t have an ideal customer in mind. “I work for each customer to create what they want,” he says. “Whether it’s a professional guitarist, collector, or individual who shares my passion for the guitar, all are welcome in my studio.”

AARON ANDREWS
Seattle, Washington.
Archtops, flattop steel-strings, solid-body electrics.
andrewsguitars.com.

Left: An Andrews dreadnought. Right: A Kay Kraft-inspired Zorzi model archtop

Photos credit, Andrew Guitars

Aaron Andrews enjoys building a variety of guitars, but his passion is for adapting the designs of lesser-known vintage archtops to create contemporary instruments. Introduced to the magic of hand-built instruments through childhood violin lessons at Spokane, Washington’s Lundins Violins (which is now located in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho), Andrews’s interest later shifted to guitars, eventually leading him to the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, from which he graduated in 1992. After a stint servicing and refurbishing a variety of new and vintage instruments as a repair tech at Seattle’s Trading Musician, Andrews set up shop to build guitars in his garage.

Unlike the classic Martin and Gibson designs that inspire many builders, several of Andrews’s guitars, which start at $3,200, are based on more obscure 20th-century models. His Eclipse series is based on the Slingerland-built May Bell No. 74 and is available in archtop Style A and flattop Style F. The uniquely asymmetrical body of Kay Kraft’s Recording King inspired his Zorzi model, a Venetian-style small-bodied acoustic archtop. He also builds a 16-inch oval-hole archtop called the Aurora, which he likes to build with rosewood back and sides. While Andrews’s instruments borrow design mojo and shapes from these rare instruments, they are modern guitars in that they’re built with solid woods and craftsmanship that far exceeds the older models they are based on. “My Style A Eclipse has more color and sustain than you usually get in a traditional jazz archtop, so it can span a wide breadth of playing styles,” he says.

Andrews also eschews the de facto tonewood for many archtops, maple, believing that it sounds “ordinary” until an instrument is an antique. He finds exotic, dramatically figured alternative woods such as Mexican katalox, koa, cocobolo, and other rosewoods both aesthetically and tonally more pleasing right off the workbench.

While Andrews also builds steel-string flattops, archtops, electric basses, and even mandocellos, he strives for cohesiveness in all his instruments, regardless of style. “I try to use some similar elements throughout,” he says. “Acoustics, archtops, and electrics are all functionally and structurally different, but each family of instruments I build has elements that define them as Andrews guitars. I’m not into gaudy or ostentatious ornamentation. I prefer clean, spare lines, and strive for a look of confident, understated elegance. My favorite shape is the spiral because it is found throughout nature and mimics the course of life.”

KEEPING IT FUN

Stephen Marchione may well have articulated a mantra for all five luthiers when he said, “Building a variety of instruments ensures that unlocking my studio every morning is exciting! It keeps my work fun, challenging, and interesting while keeping me versatile and offering me endless directions in which to grow and develop as an artist.”

Andy Volk is a freelance writer and musician based in Needham, Massachusetts.