Update or Die

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lww3k6YI4Ms&feature=related[/youtube]

É o que Joshua Gayou da Smokehouse Guitars faz! Tudo 100% customizado para apenas 12 clientes por ano, mais exclusivo impossível, certo? Troquei alguns emails com o Josh no processo de encomenda de uma Montecristo Model (foto ao lado) e ele gentilmente respondeu duas perguntas sobre o trabalho na Smokehouse (entrevista depois do jump).

Smokehouse no YouTube e Flickr.

How did you get this idea?

The cool thing is that this isn’t my idea. The first appearance of cigar box guitars (that we have documented proof of anyway) came about in the mid 1800′s. The cigar box guitar, as far as we can tell, is the invention of poor Americans who had a driving need to make music but no money to buy a conventional guitar. Back in those days there were no factories turning out guitars at affordable prices (the Industrial Revolution hadn’t even happened yet) so everything was hand made at one level or another. A good quality guitar was no joke back then and represented a significant investment of time and money. Obviously, an obstacle like this won’t get in the way of someone who really feels a need to make music.

It was around this time that cigar makers moved from selling their product in crates or 100 or 200 to boxes of 25 or 50. Due to the wide popularity of cigars at the time it was very easy to find empty cigar boxes just laying around, even discarded in the street next to buildings along with the daily garbage. Humans of all types have a natural ability to innovate, so the really industrious figured out how to run a stick through the box and string it up with wire (in fact, a lot of folks in the deep south would use wire from their screen doors to string up their new guitar).

Now today, about 150 years later, you have guys like me that have taken the art form to the next evolutionary step. Many people today build them in the traditional sense in that they are making simple instruments with no frets and sort of limited playability but there are a few guys like me that are building studio quality pro-grade instruments with cigar boxes for bodies.

What is the process to make a Smokehouse Guitar?

Well since all my guitars are custom made, it really starts with the customer. Each customer that comes to me has his/her own set of requirements. It’s very, very rare that I get someone who asks me to make them a copy of something that I’ve already done. Everyone who chooses me to make them an instrument seems to recognize the fact that they have an opportunity to work with me to design their dream guitar from the ground up. Often this has to do with a certain look that they want the instrument to have (they prefer a certain set of hardware or want exotic or figured woods). In other cases, which I tend to enjoy more because it’s so much more of a challenge, they describe a specific sound that they want the guitar to have and it’s my job to design something that will match that sound.

From that point we may discuss ideas and options back and forth or we may even come up with new ideas. The customer can be as involved as they want to be during the process. Some customers are heavily involved every step of the way and some others aren’t so interested in what it takes to make an instrument as they just want the completed product in their hands so that they can start making music. Either attitude is just fine with me.

Once we’ve agreed upon the terms and I’ve got the money I need to get going, I order everything I need to make the guitar (hardware, wood, etc). To make the guitar itself, I’m basically following the same process that other guitar makers follow aside from the fact that there are tricks and ideas that I’ve picked up up along the way that make a cigar box body work well for the instrument. The cigar box is different enough to a solid body electric guitar that you have to engineer something that still has the capacity to deliver outstanding tone and feels good to play. Outside of that, everything else is made just like a traditional guitar. I carve all my necks by hand starting from raw pieces of wood, I do all my own fret work and hardware installation, I do all the wiring, and final setup, and all the other hundreds of steps that are involved. It takes a lot longer for the customer to get the instrument (at least a month and a half to two months of solid work) but no one really seems to mind since they’re getting something that is designed specifically for them and that it was made 100% by hand using traditional old school methods.