Coleman Acoustic Guitars

Copyright ©1999 Howard Coleman

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Design and Construction

The type of guitar I have developed and found ideal for my style of playing is similar to the Martin 000 or Orchestra Model (OM size). This style is widely recognised to be ideal for fingerstyle guitar. I would go futher than this and say that it is also ideal for flatpicking because of its well balanced tone but flatpickers traditionally go for dreadnought size guitars.

I have made several changes to the Martin design that I consider to be improvements. I will list the major ones.

• High quality European spruce for the tops (the "Swiss Pine" used by the Cremonese violin makers in Stradivari’s time).
• Rigid necks that do not require a truss rod - the old Martin philosophy. They are of Brazilian mahogany and are reinforced with a bar of an extremely stiff aluminium alloy.
• Scalloped top bracing.
• Catalysed finish giving a very thin but tough clear protective layer.
• Brazilian mahogany back bracing. This is more stable than spruce.
• Wood for bindings and purflings, and abalone for rosettes rather than plastic. No ivoroid, ebonite or ‘mother-of-toilet-seat’.
• I can produce any neck profile and scale length required.
• The guitars' sound speaks for itself - strong clear bass, sweet treble and enormous dynamic range. The strings I use are light gauge (0.012 - 0.053") 80/20 bronze, ie brass wound. There is no need to use phosphor bronze to get more brilliance of tone and I never have to change strings due to loss of brilliance.

Method and Philosophy

Although I can build guitars to order I am not a full-time luthier. I do it mostly as a labour of love. Watching my progress, to me, is like a pregnancy (well almost) and finally seeing an instrument born is a great thrill. There is also something about creating lots of shavings, and noise - not to mention sweat, that appeals to me. I concentrate on hand-crafted instruments of the highest possible quality. I realise that it won't get me anywhere financially, because lutherie never does but I will continue to produce in this way because I enjoy it. I don't want to compromise the quality or production methods in order to compete with the larger markets for beginners' and intermediate guitars.

I make to a design that I believe in, based originally on the old Martin OM style. I don't make guitars named after battleships or elephants and I don’t follow the latest fashion. I tend not to stray too far from my standard design as I am interested in the effects of various "tweaks".

I specialise. The advantage this gives me is that I get more of an insight into the acoustic effects of changes in thickness, bracing, materials etc than I would if I allowed too many variables to change at once. This is precisely how I think the master violin makers of old achieved their success. (More on that.) In doing this I am trading a bit of excitement for valuable experience.

I have a fascination for trying out numerous ways of carrying out the various operations involved - always looking for something better in some way. This invariably means making new jigs or special tools, even jigs to make jigs.

I'll show some of my work here in the near future so please watch this space!

Contact ... Howard<AT SIGN>acousticnotes.org.uk

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Last revised: June 24, 2007.