HNY to all and we’ll be back in the shop on Tuesday Jan 8th. Here’s a photo of the latest handbuilt endeavour by luthier Kevin John.
Get the most out of your 12-String Guitar
Here are some shots of a job we did on a customer’s 12-string guitar that really highlighted what a 12-string can really be with the special care and attention that these beasts require.
Teton Acoustic Baritone
Typically tuned either A-Standard or B-Standard, and sometimes C-Standard, between the ranges of a standard 6-string guitar and a bass, the baritone guitar brings a versatile and unique tone to your palette. Great for rich rhythm parts and beefy riffs, yet also high enough in range to play melodies and leads.
$949
Top: Solid Sitka Spruce
Back/Sides: Mahogany
Body Shape: Jumbo
Neck: Mahogany
Bridge: Rosewood
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Nut: 1-7/8″ – Bone
Scale Length: 27-1/2″
Electronics: Fishman ISYS+
Cordoba F7 Flamenco Guitar Crack Repair
Both pictures are of the same guitar, two different cracks in the same top. Both have been glued up. The repair in the picture on the right was done before the guitar ever made it to our bench. The photo on the left shows the repair job that was done in our shop. Yes, there is a crack in that picture,
Eastman MD614 Mandolin with Pickup
Top – Solid Spruce
Back and Sides – Solid Flamed Maple
Neck – Maple
Fingerboard – Ebony
Bridge – Ebony
Saddle – Ebony
Pickup – K&K Mandolin Twin
Controls – N/A
Tuners – Geared Tuners
Nut – Bone
Nut Width – 1 3/32″
Scale Length – 13 7/8″
Case Included – Eastman Gig Bag
$1,799
Pressed Laminate Top Eastman Archtop AR405E
The AR405E Eastman’s top tier of their pressed top arch-tops
Features
Top: Laminated Maple
Neck Material: 3 Piece Maple
Fingerboard: Rosewood
Scale Length: 25″
Finish: Nitrocellulose
Neck Pickup: Cream Kent Armstrong P90
Hardshell Case Included
$1,199
Wolfgang Kury 16.5″ Viola
Exceptional craftsmanship on a fantastically responsive and expressive instrument
Made in Cremona, Italy by Wolfgang Kury in the year 2000
Accompanied by a written appraisal of $27,000 from Luthier Geza Burkhardt
Viola Excellent Condition, Case Good Condition
Top – Spruce
Back and Sides – Flamed Maple
Neck – Flamed Maple
Body Size – 16.5″
Case – Bam Viola
$12,000 REDUCED TO $10,000
LUCIO NUNEZ
Handmade gypsy jazz guitar from San Antonio, TX getting a few details addressed then on the wall for sale!
Hand-carved Electric Archtop – Eastman AR503CE
This is the first tier of Eastman arch-tops featuring an all solid, hand-carved top.
Hand-carved solid Spruce top
Flame Maple back and sides
3-piece Maple neck
Ebony on Brass tailpiece
Kent Armstrong HPAG-1 neck pickup
Gotoh Tuners
Nitrocellulose finish
Fitted Hardshell case included
$1,649
Epiphone Emperor Hollow Body Electric
Affordable and a decent player. In excellent condition.
Top: Laminated Spruce
Body: Laminated Maple
Pickups: Neck and Bridge Humbucker
Case Included.
The Magic of French Polish!
We sing the praise of French Polishing often in our little music shop. It makes touching up over almost any type of finish viable, efficient and safe. We also sing the praise of hide glue………….but that’s another post! What is French Polishing?
1950s Silvertone Archtop
What a gem! This guitar has been gently used by its single previous owner. The solid spruce top doesn’t have a single crack, which is very rare for a solid top of this vintage. The fingerboard appears to be Brazilian Rosewood, a wood you won’t be seeing much of nowadays, but was definitely used in many instruments from this era.
Original hardware and electronics are all in working order. The neck is beefy and in great shape, no truss-rod. We’ve made a new bone nut and lightened up the bridge a bit, which we find will almost always open up the sound and produce more volume. Other than that there was a few hours of buffing out the top to its original sheen and a little bit of set-up and she’s off to the races!
SOLD
Wickland Banjo – handmade in BC, Canada
Made on Saltspring Island in the Gulf Islands of British Columbia by long-time instrument maker Grant Wickland, with some additional work/customization done by our luthiers here at Mountain Fruit. These include replacing the synthetic head with a real skin one and changing the strings over to nylon, as well as some refining of the neck profile to take comfort and playability to the next level.
So far we have never been disappointed with the improvement in tone that a real goat skin head brings to a banjo.
The nylon strings and the fretless neck give access to micro-tone playing and slides in a very mellow and lyrical tone, but this instrument still plenty of the volume and clarity that banjo players love. This banjo certainly stimulates a new approach to playing banjo!
- Maple-Ebony-Maple three-piece neck
- Ebony fretboard
- Wickland custom-made bridge
- Goat Skin Head
- 11″ Pot
- Grover tuners
$995
“How often should I change my strings?”
While on the one hand this is a matter of personal taste, on the other hand there are some very concrete reasons to change strings often.
Familiar Face
This Gibson J-50 Deluxe was through the shop a few years ago for a major overhaul. A total of about $1200 of work went into it, including a new bridge, bone nut, bone saddle and a custom-fit set of bone bridge pins, New set of Kluson tuners, refinishing the top, a total refret and some fingerboard work, and splints and patches to fill some larger cracks. Oh yes, and this stylish
Vintage B&J Parlour
We had the absolute pleasure and privilege of restoring this parlour guitar c.1910s from the B&J Company.
Aside from some cracks in the top and back and some broken braces this guitar was in pretty incredible shape for being well over 100 years old.
After doing the necessary work this guitar has an incredibly responsive and sonorous voice. There is a real openness to the sound that you don’t find every day.
Properly taken care of she ought to have another many years of playing in her.
Sure going to miss this one, happy playing to the new owner!
International Guests
We have been very blessed over the years to have many talented performers play for us on the old church pew at Mountain Fruit Folklore. This original tune by Steve Lane and his son Kai Lane-U’Ren is certainly no exception.
Enjoy!
Handmade Fretless Banjo $995
Nylon-strung Fretless Banjo. Has a very sweet and clear tone, excellent for Clawhammer style, or a player looking to explore beyond the boundaries of ‘conventional’ banjo playing.
Handmade on Saltspring Island, British Columbia by Grant Wickland
Fine tuning and set-up done in house by Jeremy and Kevin here at Mountain Fruit Folklore Centre
Handmade 5-String Banjo – $1,995.95
Handmade on Saltspring Island, British Columbia by Grant Wickland
Fine-tuning and set-up work done in house by Jeremy and Kevin
Around Here, No Speck of Dust Goes to Waste!
Some might say we are obsessive…
Miscellaneous scraps of wood, containers of dust, and old hardware clutter our shelves…
But when you need a pinch of ebony dust for build up, it sure is nice to have it on hand.
Cleaning and Oiling your Fingerboard
The fingerboard of your instrument takes a lot of abuse, no doubt about it. Like anything that gets that kind of mileage a little TLC every once in a while is a good thing… a very good thing!
Vintage Silvertone Archtop c.1950’s
We see a good number of these Harmony-made arch tops, but rarely do they come to us in such good shape!
This old beauty just came into the shop for a clean up and assessment. Buffing out the
New Website!
We are updating our website…………..dropping the bulk of online sales and focusing on our brick and mortar, web content and building our own instruments, stay tuned!
Kevin and Jeremy
Turn of the Century B&J University Parlor Guitar
The top is solid spruce, neck is Spanish cedar with a hard “V”-shape, the back and sides appear to be birch. It recently had a refret, and a neck set done (not by us) as well as a new rosewood bridge made.
We were very lucky to come across this instrument at a decent price and found that just a bit more work could bring it to the next level.
Solid Acacia Concert Ukulele
The builders over at Cordoba are putting out some very musical ukes, aesthetically pleasing, easy to play, they intonate properly, hold their tuning.
This is their very beautiful 25C, Concert Ukulele in solid Acacia Wood. A very warm, clear, and inviting tone. With the great diversity of each specimen of Acacia, every one of these ukes is uniquely beautiful.
Nut – Bone
Saddle – Bone
Strings – Aquila Nylgut
Can’t you just imagine yourself on stage with this beauty?