Myself on the left with Antonio Manjón. photo by Marco A. Pérez

What is a craftsman, also known as an artisan? I like the word artisan because on the one hand it contains the word art and has a direct spanish translation and on the other hand it is gender neutral. Craft in my mind doesn’t quite have the weight of the spanish “artesano”. Handmade also has a series of problems associated with it so here I will be talking about artisanship, artisans and artisan guitars.

I am back on this subject because I just took some shoes to the cobbler to have them repaired. Lately I buy the same brand and style of shoe as a replacement when the old ones wear out but over the past few years the quality has not been the same (where have I heard that before?) I spoke to my artisan shoemaker and he told me how they used to make the thread for his work using hemp fibres and a mixture of wax and animal fat. The proportion of wax to animal fat varied according to the job at hand and it was mixed by the cobbler. Well of course you can’t get the things you need anymore from the suppliers and now they sell him a “better” product which is nylon with some sort of oil on it to give it the same feel. The problem is that it doesn’t stand up to the flex of a shoe and that is what is happening to my shoes when they wear out before their time. These are not cheap shoes by the way.

Something similar is happening with guitar-making as the glue manufacturers convince the makers that synthetic glues are “better” and the wood suppliers tell us that we don’t need to season our wood. Synthetic glues are not better and seasoned wood is essential. There are some very good makers using synthetic glues but through personal experience I have seen that they could make even better-sounding guitars if they would use hide glue. Not to mention the thousands of clearly sub-par makers that could also improve their work if they would take the time to learn the traditional ways of working and the reasons behind the traditions like using hide glue and naturally seasoning your wood.