Brook Guitars News October 2024

October 2024

Dave picked up his new Clyst as a companion for his Torridge.

Dave and his two Brook Hogs

We made this Tamar for Jeff in Vermont,

Brook Tamar 015 Full Length

It’s an 015 model with abalone purfling and fretboard inlays, bound fingerboard and head veneer,

Figured Mahogany Brook Tamar Top

Figured mahogany top, back and sides

Figured Mahogany Brook Tamar

and gold Schaller tuners. Jeff got in touch – “The Tamar arrived today. More than I expected…beautiful sound.”

Brook Tamar Headstock

We made this nylon strung Cherry for Steve in Dorset, it’s one of the smallest six-strings in our range with a 472 mm scale and tuned A to A. With a European spruce top

Brook Cherry Close Up

And English walnut back and sides.

Brook Cherry Walnut Back

To give you an idea of scale here’s a photo of it with Coda’s new baritone Tavy!

Brook Tavy Baritone and Brook Cherry

The rosewood Tavy has a 678 mm scale and is tuned C to C with a set of 14s.

Brook Tavy Baritone

A more standard rosewood Lamorna here that Andy’s just dropped off to Project Music in Exeter.

Brook Lamorna for Project

Tim came down from Worthing for a tweak of his nineteen-nineties Tavy and his nineteen-seventies Manson Kestrel.

Tim and his Brook Tavy

Finally this month, amongst other repairs, this unusual Japanese Strat needed a set-up and a few adjustments to get it playing comfortably.

Japanese Strat

Brook Guitars News September 2024

September 2024

The bridge has been reinstated. We named ourselves Brook after the brook at the bottom of our lane – the Troney runs into the Yeo that joins the River Taw exiting into the sea at Barnstaple!

Repaired Bridge

This Lamorna‘s going out to Thomas in Austria,

015 Brook Lamorna full length

It’s an 015 model with a European spruce top,

015 Brook Lamorna

English walnut back and sides

English Walnut Brook Lamorna

A swallow inlay on the twelfth fret

Swallow Fingerboard Inlay

And another on the headstock.

swallow Headstock Inlay

Dave asked for an all mahogany Clyst as a little sister/brother to the all mahogany Torridge we made for him ten years ago.

Mahogany Brook Clyst full length

Here’s a close up of the top,

Mahogany Brook Clyst close up

Dave also asked for a rosewood fingerboard, bridge and head veneer.

Brook Clyst Headstock

Andy’s recently took this Taw and Torridge up to Project Music, both have rosewood back and sides and European spruce tops.

Brook Torridge and Taw for Project

This maple and Sitka Torridge is coming up for its twenty-fifth birthday, it’s still in immaculate condition. It was brought in by Martin, the original owner, for its first set-up!

Twenty Five Year Old Brook Torridge

If you recall the Lamorna that was going out to the States last month – Pam’s now got the guitar and got in touch to let us know “The choice of redwood and bocote with full ebony binding, purfling, back strip, rosette and rear headstock veneer, has proven to be an absolute visual success. Thanks again for building this custom Lamorna for me. It’s really very beautiful”.

Pam's Redwood Brook Lamorna

Chris, the owner of one of the few mandolins we’ve made, spends a lot of time on the road so it’s not too surprising that it takes the occasional knock, this time it was a break in the headstock, all back together again now!

Chris' Brook Mandolin

This 2009 Manson Bluebird came in after a run in with a guitar stand and a vacuum cleaner! It came off the worst with split ribs and a broken back brace. Back together again with no sign of the damage.

Manson Repair

See you again next month!

Brook Guitars News August 2024

August 2024

Marcus, who we featured in Babbling Brook issue 5, picked up his new Lamorna.

Marcus with his new Lamorna

This Lamorna is going out to Pam in the States,

Lamorna full length

Here’s a close up of the redwood top.

Lamorna redwood top

The back is old stock Bocote,

Lamorna bubinga back

We veneered the back of the headstock with ebony

Lamorna back view

And fitted gold Shertler tuners.

Gold Tuners

When we heard Elliot Smith’s Le Domino guitar sold recently for $35,000 it reminded us that a couple of years ago we made a Torridge inspired by the old Regal model,

Regal Domino

For ours we made up bone inlays throughout rather than the transfers used on the 1930’s original!

Brook Domino Torridge

Andy carried out a complex head repair on this badly damaged SG,

Gibson SG headstock break 1

Here’s a series of photos of the work involved.

Gibson SG headstock break 2

He also sprayed a butterscotch finish on this Tele.

Butterscotch Blonde Tele

This custom-made Ry Cooder inspired Strat was brought in and required some major adjustments to get it to play in tune and to line up the strings with the neck and pickups.

Blue Strat

Jack’s been working on some delicate swallow inlays.

Jack inlaying a swallow

Anyone wanting to visit the workshop should be aware that the bridge is being replaced so if we have a lot of rain you may not be able to get through the ford,

bridge diversion

Until the work’s completed give us a call before you visit.

Brook Guitars News July 2024

July 2024

A couple of years ago our good friends artists Phil and Anna picked up sticks and left the U.K. to live in Cyprus. Since then they’ve been busy renovating their house in a small mountain village on the island and are now set up to continue with their painting and music, as well as offering courses in complementary therapies and the visual arts.

Phil and Anna in Cyprus

Danny came down to pick up the latest guitars for Intersound.

Danny Collecting for Intersound

Ben came down from London to pick up his new Tavy,

Ben with his Brook Tavy

 

it has a Sitka top, English walnut back and sides and we fitted a K&K Trinity system.

Brook Tavy Close Ups

Andy dropped these two into Project Music –

Lamorna and Torridge for Project

A Torridge and a Lyn, both rosewood and European spruce.

The Backs of Two for Project

By the time you read this these two should be up with Coda –

Brook Newlyn and Blackwater for Coda

A rosewood and Sitka Newlyn and a maple and European spruce Blackwater.

The Backs of Two for Coda

We have a nylon strung short scale Cherry on the go for Steve in Dorset, we thought you might like to take a peek before it went together!

Nylon Strung Brook Cherry

Last month Andy re-sawed the fine English walnut we showed you, I joined and thicknessed it along with a lacewood set, this vintage tight grained wenge and two sets of twenty five year old Palo Escrito, a species of rosewood.

Some Guitar Wood Options

In for repair: A Taylor with split ribs and a Santa Cruz with a severely bellying top,

Taylor and Santa Cruz

A PRS with a chunk out of the headstock, here’s the before and after shot,

PRS Headstock Damage

And yet another Gibson with a headstock break, this time an SG – it’s a tricky one that someone has previously had a go at repairing.

Broken Gibson SG

We also had this Rory Gallagher Strat in for a fret dress – better mask it up well to avoid marking it!

Rory Gallagher Strat

Quite a few guitars went out this month, before they disappeared to their new homes we took a photo of them on display.

Rack full of Brooks

More next month!

Brook Guitars News June 2024

June 2024

Plenty to show you this month – Marcus came up from Brixham for his Newlyn,

Marcus and his Brook Newlyn

It has a torrefied Adirondack top,

Brook Newlyn Adirondack Top

And old stock mahogany for the back, sides and neck.

Brook Newlyn Back

Ivan sent us a photo last October of himself in a mask with his Torridge, when he donned a mask again while collecting his new Lamorna we asked what it was about. Here’s the inspiration!

Ivan Mask

The Lamorna has a Sitka top,

Brook Lamorna Sitka Top

Maggie inlaid at the twelfth fret in mother of pearl, snowflake inlays up the fingerboard

Lamorna Fretboard Inlays

And a nice wild grained set of Indian rosewood.

Indian Rosewood Lamorna Back

Barry picked up this second-hand Lyn recently, he wrote ” it’s absolutely amazing to play, listen to, and admire – especially the beautiful Madagascar rosewood back, a truly stunning guitar” Here’s his partner Sharon playing the Lyn, along with Lily getting in on the action!

Sharon and Lily with Brook Lyn

Unusually – the second Marcus this month – Marcus Corbett, who we featured in the article East Meets West in the fifth issue of Babbling Brook. Marcus spends a lot of time in India and brought back the set of Indian rosewood we used on his new Lamorna.

Marcus Corbett New Brook Lamorna

It has a similar inlay to the Taw we made for him nearly twenty years ago.

Marcus Brook Lamorna

Two guitars here for Intersound – a European spruce topped Taw and a cedar topped Lyn,

Two Intersound Brooks

Rosewood back and sides on the Taw and red gum for the Lyn.

Rosewood Taw and Red Gum Lyn

Christian sent us this message with a photo! ” It has been a few months now and a few thousand miles as I have taken the Weaver up and down the land in my truck. This guitar fits perfectly for staying in a truck all week. I am so pleased with what you have done to create a small left-handed nylon guitar. It looks, feels and sounds wonderful. Thank you for such a beautiful instrument.”

Christian and his Brook Weaver

Here’s the current state of Jeff’s latest addition to his Brook collection over in Vermont – an 015 Tamar in figured mahogany.

Brook Tamar 015

Nice to see this twenty year old koa Tavy again, in for a set-up.

Koa Brook Tavy

We’ve just got in this nice set of Lacewood for anyone who might be interested in home grown timber – other options of course would be cherry, sycamore or walnut.

Lacewood

And for those interested in reclaimed timber – Jools brought down this vintage table for us to re-saw into guitar sets.

Jools Mahogany Table

Amongst the repairs this month – we repaired a few dings in this Les Paul,

Les Paul Repair

And added position markers to the fingerboard of this Mayones.

Mayones

As Jack’s been feeding the birds regularly on the windowsill it’s been attracting another furry friend!

Squirrel at Brook Workshop

Brook Guitars News May 2024

May 2024

Colin came down from  Berkshire for his new Taw,

Colin and his Brook Taw

Here’s the guitar,

Colin's Taw Full Length

And a close up

Taw Close Up

With Jack’s otter inlay,

Otter Inlay on Brook Taw

The back is spalted sycamore from a local village.

Spalted Sycamore Back

Talking of otters here’s David Jones’ koa Otter, our slope-shouldered dreadnought model, at The Courtyard Theatre, Hereford.

David Jones Otter

Will Riding sent us his excellent new CD Man Drawer, all played on his Torridge, we’ll be interested to see if the following album includes any songs played on his new Weaver! Will’s got a busy schedule gigging this year.

Will Riding CD

We’ve had quite a few repairs this month, firstly this early ’60’s ES330 for a refret.

Gibson ES330

This Hofner violin bass was brought in with a broken neck, check out a previous adaption to the case for the non-standard tuners.

Hofner Violin Bass

While the bass was in we thought we’d get a Hofner family photograph and gathered our collection together along with a Levin and Harmony arch-top on the bottom row.

Hofner Collection

Yet another Les Paul headstock break,

Gibson Repair 2

And back together again!

Gibson Repair 1

Largely due to the number of repairs we’ve had in this month we haven’t got many new Brooks to show you so I took a few shots around the workshop to give an idea what’s going on. Jack’s working on a new batch, the backs, soundboards and sides are in the humidity controlled drying room along with the sides and struts.

Workshop 1

Andy’s just made up the necks for this batch and part way through spraying a previous one,

Workshop 3

I’ve been putting together, fretting and gluing the bridges on half a dozen guitars which will be ready for next month’s news.

Workshop 2

Brook Guitars News April 2024

April 2024

Danny came down from Gloucestershire to pick his Clyst 12string, it’s long scale, he’s tuned it all the way down to an A and is busy working out Blind Willie McTell songs!

Danny and his new Brook Clyst 12 string

He brought down Intersound customer Ross to see where his Little Silver was made!

Ross and Danny Outside Brook Guitars

Nick is planning to come down from Somerset to collect his new mahogany Torridge.

Nick's Mahogany Brook Torridge

It has a Venetian cutaway and is made from old stock Honduran mahogany.

Nick's Mahogany Torridge Front and Back

This Torridge is off to Tony in Australia.

Brook Lyn Bound for Australia

Tony called in to the workshop last year while he was visiting England and ordered this guitar constructed of non-tropical woods. He asked for a longer scale but the bridge to remain in the normal position – this required the unusual twelve and a half fret body join.

European Spruce Brook Lyn

With bog oak fingerboard, bridge and head veneer, a European spruce top, English walnut back and sides, a yew centre wedge and sycamore binding.

Brook Lyn Walnut and Yew Back

Christian ordered this left-handed, nylon strung Weaver

Brook Weaver Left Handed Nylon Strung

With a cedar top and English walnut back and sides.

Nylon Strung Brook Weaver Front and Back

Dave came down from Swindon for the rosewood Taw we featured in last month’s news.

Dave and his new Brook Taw

A rosewood and Sitka spruce Lamorna for Coda

Brook Lamorna for Coda

And a rosewood and European spruce Taw for Project.

Nearly twenty years ago, for a college project, Matt produced the short  film of our workshop you can see on our YouTube page. He’s still playing the Teign he bought back at the time – currently with the Celtic band Glasta. Here he is with his dog Ruby!

Nick, Ruby and Brook Teign

Since those early days Matt’s become an award winning documentary filmmaker based in Vancouver!

Matt's Brook Teign

Banjo player extraordinaire Rob Murch called in to pickup the banjo we’d recently repaired and treated us to a couple of tunes. He’d just returned from a short Northern tour with Geoff Lakeman.

Rob Much in the workshop

Tim picked up his early 1900s Fairbanks parlour we’d had in for repair.

Fairbanks Parlour

This harp guitar had seen better days, we reattached various struts, re-glued the front and the back, restrung it and returned it to its happy owner.

Harp Guitar

Part of a new shipment of Indian rosewood tucked away for future use.

Indian Rosewood

We returned the refinished Telecaster to Richard in Market Harborough.

Richard's Silvery Sunburst

As for the Martin binding issue –

Andy's Binding Heating Tool

These are positively the last two we have time to deal with.

Bloody Martin Binding

Andy and I commute to the workshop from opposite directions, earlier in the month we both had the same idea of taking a photo of the snow over the moors as we were travelling in – here are our results.

Snow over Dartmoor

Andy’s  cycling group dropped in one Saturday earlier in the month and Julia took this photo by the workshop door.

Bike Photo Outside Brook Guitars Workshop

That’s all for this month!

Brook Guitars News March 2024

March 2024

This highly customised Torridge was made for Tommy from Wigan,Brook Torridge Tinted Top

He asked for a tinted front, purfling surrounding the fingerboard extension,Oak Leaves InlayA falling oak leaf inlay on the fingerboard.Falling Oak Leaves InlayThe headstock inlay was in memory of Tommy’s son, dragonflies were a favourite of his.Brook Torridge Dragonfly Headstock InlayBog oak back and sides,Bog Oak Brook Torridge BackThe 5300 on the heel cap is the age of the bog oak through carbon dating!Bog Oak Brook Torridge HeelcapLooks like Tommy’s set out to discover if the smallest room has the biggest sound!Tommy Playing His Torridge Around The HouseThis Taw‘s waiting to be collected by Dave from Swindon who’s coming down next month,Brook Taw Full LengthEngelmann spruce top, belly bridge and a wider abalone rosette,
A fine set of rosewood back and sides, flamed maple bindingDave Taw Close UpAnd gold Sta-Tite tuners.Dave Brook Taw HeadstockThis Lyn cutaway is on its way to Paul in Bath –Paul's Lyn Full LengthEuropean spruce top with a belly bridge,Paul's LynMadagascar rosewood back and sides with koa binding.Paul's Madagascar Rosewood LynNow for some customers: Roel got in touch from Belgium to tell us he’s still very happy with his Tamar and sent us this photo of himself playing a concert in Ghent.Roel And His TamarPhil McKnight from Australia thanked us again for the Becka we made for him a couple of years ago and sent this photo from a show in Mudgee, a small wine growing and mining town in New South Wales. The Becka‘s a slightly larger version of Andy Manson’s Ian Anderson model named after Becka Brook on Dartmoor.Phil And His BeckaRichard came down to the workshop for a set up of his Clyst and made the most of his time down here, spending a couple of days in East Prawle!Richard And His Brook ClystAnd Paul sent us this photo of himself with his Holly and his Weaver.Paul, His Holly And His WeaverThis Phil Davidson mandola had a personalised inlay on the headstock so Dave Smith, its new owner, asked if we could replace the head veneer and inlay it with his own personal choice – the Uffington Horse.Mandola Uffington Horse Head VeneerDave also brought a nice piece of English walnut down, we’re just trying to work out if we can get more than one guitar out of it, or whether it’s too risky.English Walnut Brook Guitars WorkshopWe completed this Sitka and rosewood Taw for Project and Andy delivered it to the shop.Brook Taw Sitka Top For ProjectAndy has been asked to replicate this unusual sunburst on a TeleSilver SunburstAnd, whilst we’re in the spray room, here’s a glimpse of the batch you’re likely to be seeing here strung up next month.Brook Spray Room March

Brook Guitars News Febuary 2024

February 2024

It’s that time again – here’s the annual photo of the snowdrops in the orchard.

Snowdrops in front of Brook Workshop

Michael with his new Lyn and his 2013 maple Tavy.

Michael and his two Brooks

Here it is –

It has an Englemann top with English walnut purfling and custom rosette,

Walnut Lyn with custom Rosette

Along with English walnut neck, back and sides,

Brook Lyn Walnut Back

 

Michael asked Jack to replicate the initials from his signature in a loose brushwork style.

Michael's Lyn Headstock

Will came down from Chester to pick up his new cedar and mahogany Weaver,

Will Riding Collecting Brook Weaver

Will’s been gigging regularly at clubs and festivals with his Torridge.

Will Riding on Mic

This Lamorna went out to Pam in the States –

Pam's Redwood Brook Lamorna 2

Redwood top, rosewood back and sides with abalone purfling and rosette.

Pam's Redwood Brook Lamorna 1

Here’s an interesting one – Danny from Dursley asked us to make a parlour Clyst 12 string for him,

Brook Clyst 12 string Full Length

We used the two strings to a peg method we’ve used before to keep the bridge size nice and compact,

Brook Clyst 12 string

Golden Age tuners, the guitar has a longer 678 mm scale and is tuned down to Db to give it a lovely low Leadbelly pitch!

Brook Clyst 12 string Headstock

Rich Madow with his Ian Anderson model entertaining delegates attending a dentist convention in the Opryland Hotel, Nashville!

Rich Madow Conference

Whereas Tim and Stewart sold out the local village hall for a benefit gig in aid of Devon Air Ambulance!

Brooks at Coleridge

Peter got in touch to compliment us on a second-hand 2005 ovangkol Torridge he’s just acquired.

Peter Webster

Simon Moore has been around for a couple of days making a short film about us.

Simon Moore Filming at Brook Guitars

The broken guitar we showed you last month is back together and back in India with Marcus.

Broken Brook Taw Repaired

I noticed in the latest Mojo Beth Gibbons was recording her new album, good to see her Brook is in the studio with her!

Mojo Article

Here’s an interesting contraguitar in for repair, there’s no label on it unfortunately, we’ve found similar guitars searching online but not the exact model, any information most welcome.

Contraguitar

More news next month.

Brook Guitars News January 2024

January 2024

Andy’s commute into work the other day required some of his off-road riding skills,

Andy on the way to work 2

Lucky he chose to come on his motorbike that day!

Andy on the way to work 2

Tim Carter’s delighted with his new Teign,

Tim Carter and his new Brook Teign

With a Venetian cutaway,

Cutaway Brook Teign

A Baggs pickup,

Cutaway Brook Teign Close Up

A buzzard inlay by Jack around the twelfth fret

Buzzard Inlay on Brook Teign

And English walnut back and sides.

Brook Teign English walnut back

To complement the new guitar he brought along this stylish new strap handmade by Kath Eastham of Kirkstone Leathercrafts.

Custom Guitar Strap

This Taw has just gone off to Project Music,

Brook Taw for Project Music

Check out the wild grain on the Indian rosewood back and sides!

Rosewood back on Brook Taw for Project Music

Mick sent us these two photos with his new Torridge accompanying his older twelve string version of the same model.

Mick and two Torridges

Marcus had to cut his latest visit to India short when his Taw was severely damaged by baggage handlers when he arrived. We’ve a two week turnaround on this one as Marcus has already booked his return flight.

Marcus' broken Brook Taw

Chris’ mandolin also suffered a headstock break at the hands of an over-enthusiastic baggage handler on a return trip from Portugal recently, Andy didn’t take long to repair this one and get it strung up again.

Chris' broken Brook Mandolin

Jon played his song By The Wind Sailor to the coastguards at the 130th anniversary memorial service for the crew of the Iota and all who helped with the rescue. Here he is before the event.

Jon in church

Here’s the Bovey we showed in the November News repaired and now back with its happy owner.

Brook Bovey break repaired

Another Martin has been brought in with the binding and purfling shrunk away at the waist, Andy’s heated and glued it all back in place and is in the process of repairing the finish.

Martin binding

Yet another headstock break!

Another headstock break

Early stages in the production of the necks for the next batch of guitars – roughly cut out, planed and the head veneers glued and clamped.

Preparing necks in the workshop

See you again next month.

Brook Guitars News December 2023

December 2023

Jon Woode picked up his cedar topped Lamorna

Jon Woode with his new Brook Lamorna

And dropped off a couple of copies of his latest CD – Into The Waves, recorded on his Tamar! You can check it out here

Jon Woode - Into The Waves

This Tavy just went off to Canterbury for Alister,

Alister's Brook Tavy

It has a European spruce top

Brook Tavy European spruce top

With rosewood back and sides.

Brook Tavy rosewood back

This Torridge will be going up to Mick in Chichester when we come back from our winter break,

Brook Torridge full length

Here’s a close up of the European spruce top with an abalone rosette,

Maple Brook Torridge close up

And the flamed maple neck, back and sides.

Maple Brook Torridge back

Jack Hayter has just released a taster track ‘Lily From Church’ from his forthcoming album, you can listen to it here

Jack's new song

We completed the neck reset on this 1929 koa Martin that belonged to Michael Chapman, also completed the repair work on Bendigo’s 1947 00-18 (behind).

Neck reset and repairs to two Martins

A couple of other repairs this month included gluing the headstock back on this B.C.Rich

BC Rich head break

And a thorough set-up on this Tele.

Tele set-up

It’s the end of another productive year at Brook Guitars so we’d like to wish Season’s Greetings to everyone,

Season's Greetings

We hope to see you all again in the New Year.

 

Brook Guitars News November 2023

November 2023

Just another morning commute to the workshop! Looking over to Cawsand Beacon on the northern edge of Dartmoor.

View Over Cawsand Beacon

We really enjoyed Mark Waistell’s latest CD ‘For A Sonnet Or A Shilling’. Check it out on Spotify, Mark’s playing his Taw and there’s a photo of our workshop on the back cover!

Mark Waistell Latest CD

Also check out Michael Watts’ interview with Wizz Jones. Apart from being fans of both Michael and Wizz, we made Michael’s first custom guitar, a Tamar, and have also worked on Wizz’s beloved Epiphone Texan to keep it in fine fettle. https://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcasts/life-on-the-fretboard-wizz-jones/

Michael and Wizz

David has just started expanding his Brook collection and added a Lamorna to the koa Otter we recently made for him, go to our YouTube channel to see his lovely version of The Mountains Of Illinois.

David and his Brook Lamorna

He sent this photo of the Lamorna‘s first outing – a wedding reception at The Great Barn in The Teign Valley!

Brook Lamorna in The Great Barn

We’re just waiting for a case for Jon Woode’s new Lamorna,

Jon Woode's Brook Lamorna

Cedar with rosewood back and sides, he recorded most of his latest CD using his Tamar……more of which in the December news!

Cedar and Rosewood Brook Lamorna

The Weaver here is for Will Riding  – to complement his Torridge,

Will's Brook Weaver

It has a cedar top with mahogany back and sides. Will’s planning on coming down next month to pick it up.

Cedar and Mahogany Brook Weaver

Another parlour here for Mak, a Clyst with a cedar top

Cedar Brook Clyst

And English walnut back and sides, we’ll be sending it off to the shop when the case arrives.

Walnut Brook Clyst

In the October news we showed the split sides on the acoustic bass, it’s now back together with no sign of the damage.

Repaired Acoustic Bass

This little twenty year old Bovey has had also taken a tumble, you’ll have to come back next month to see how Andy got on with this one.

Broken Bovey

And yet another breakage –

Broken Headstock

Back together again and this twelve year old myrtle Tavy is ready to be returned to its happy owner.

Myrtle Brook Tavy

Three Martins in this month’s news, one with the familiar problem – the bindings coming loose at the waist,

Martin Loose Binding

One for a refret,

Martin Refret

And the 1927 koa one we mentioned last month, undergoing a neck reset.

Martin Neck Reset

We’ll be posting the December News a little early so come back in three weeks and check out what’s been going on here in the workshop.

Brook Guitars News October 2023

October 2023

Mark Robinson came down to pick up this rather spectacular sinker redwood Tavy,

Mark Robinson and his Brook Tavy

Mark asked Jack to inlay maple leaves along the fingerboard

Maple Leaf Fingerboard Inlay

Extending to the headstock.

Brook Tavy Maple Leaf Inlay

Mike will be coming down shortly to pick up this Tavy to add to his Brook collection,

Brook Tavy Celtic Inlays

It  has a Celtic theme with rosette,

Brook Tavy Celtic Rosette

Fingerboard and headstock inlays.

Celtic Fingerboard Inlay

We sent this Weaver up to Steve in Hertfordshire earlier in the month, he got in touch to tell us “It plays like a dream” and sent us this photo taken in his back garden the other day – it looks like his Weaver has a new admirer!

Steve's Brook Weaver

Prompted for a wacky photo Ivan obliged and we thoroughly approve! Ivan is so pleased with his new Torridge he’s planning on coming down to see us and ordering a custom Lamorna next.

Ivan and Brook Torridge

We sent this Tasmanian blackwood Taw off to Neil in Norfolk

Cutaway Tasmanian Blackwood Brook Taw

And this rosewood Lyn went off to Mak’s shop in London.

Brook Lyn for Mak

Walking past the latest batch of guitars Jack is putting together I thought this was worth a photo!

Brook Guitars Rosette

Matt wanted the neck on his Custom Shop Strat reshaped

Custom Shop Strat Neck Reshape

And Richard wanted the same on his Ibanez.

Ibanez Neck Reshape

Bendigo brought down a couple of nice Martins for us to work on – a 1947 00-18 for some minor work on the bridge and setting up. Also this 1927 0-18K for a neck reset. This was one of the late Michael Chapman’s collection that came up for sale recently.

Two vintage Martins

He also gave us this Guild 12 string as a project if we could find the time to fit it in – anyone fancy ‘a project’?

12 String Jigsaw

The side of the bass we finished a few months ago has suffered rather a nasty trauma, Andy has got it back together, is refinishing it and we’re happy to say it’ll have no lasting damage.

Split side on Bass

Andy also refinished the top of this Gibson J-50 and made a new bone nut and saddle for it.

Gibson J-50 Top Refinish

Nice photo here of Tilly and Mike with his nylon strung Lyn at the Tavistock Acoustic Cafe, Mike said he had lots of positive comments about how good the guitar sounded!

Mike and Tilly

To round off the October News Richard and Deb sent us this photo of Richard’s Bovey in an appropriate Halloween setting!

Halloween Brook Bovey

More news next month!

Brook Guitars News September 2023

September 2023

We’ve just completed this little Weaver for Stephen, from Hertfordshire,

Brook Weaver for S.B.

It has a European spruce top, snowflake fingerboard inlays

Brook Weaver Snowflake Inlays

And English walnut back and sides.

Brook Weaver Walnut Back

Jim came down from Somerset to pick up his new Blackwater, he already has a Taw and has promised a photo of it on the famous landmark, Glastonbury Tor!

Jim and his Brook Blackwater

Jeff, in Maine, U.S. has had a flurry of Brook buying and picked up this Sitka and red gum Tamar, a Cyprus and bubinga Blackwater – both from Coda Music, plus a bloodwood and Engelmann Tavy from a private sale in the US. They’ve taken pride of place amongst his fine collection!

Jeff's Brook Collection

Here’s the first and the most recent guitar we made for Richard, both Boveys – the first was almost twenty five years ago, Richard helpfully points out which is which with a tenner tucked into the strings of the latest tenor!

Richard's Two Brook Boveys

Danny came all the way down from Sheffield to try, then purchase the bubinga Lyn in the shop.

Danny and his Brook Lyn

We sent this walnut Lamorna up to Mak’s shop in London

Brook Lamorna for Mak

And Andy took this rosewood Torridge up to Project in Exeter.

Brook Torridge for Project Music

We’ve set up and made saddles for three Collings’ this month, apart from that we’ve carried out repairs on these two mandolas,

Two Mandolas

Stripped and started to refinish this Gibson J50 which someone had attempted previously,

J50 refinish

And also sorted out the frets and set up this rather nice 1960’s Wilson bass.

Wilson Bass

We’ve a couple of interesting guitars to show you next month so come back and see what we’re up to in October.

Brook Guitars News August 2023

August 2023

First off this month we have a five string acoustic bass that we’ll be sending up to Joe in Buckinghamshire this week –

Brook Taw bass

It’s a short scale model on a Taw body, black top with a koa patchwork rosette surrounded by silver rings

Close up of Brook five string bass

A maple laminated neck,

Brook Taw bass full length

Crelicam ebony back and sides and fitted with a K&K bass pickup.

Ebony back of Brook bass

We’ve just completed this Blackwater for Jim from Glastonbury. He was planning to pick it up in October but isn’t sure if he can wait that long!

Brook Blackwater full length

It has a European spruce top,

Brook Blackwater close up

Spalted sycamore we sourced locally for the back and sides.

Spalted Sycamore on Brook Blackwater

Jack inlaid the wagtail and wren,

Wagtail and wren Inlay on Brook Blackwater

We’ll zoom in a little more to show Jack’s use of pearl and wood.

Wagtail and wren inlay close up

Richard James ordered this little Bovey tenor guitar,

Brook Bovey tenor

With its short scale it fits snugly into the baritone uke case,

Brook Bovey in hard case

It has a Sitka spruce top and English walnut back and sides.

Walnut Brook Bovey back

Patrick just chose this little heel cap feature to personalise his new rosewood Taw.

Patrick's Brook Taw

Phil Taylor called in last month and we sorted out some mahogany scraps to make hangers for his guitar display, he’s made a fine job of them and here they are showing off his two Brooks – a Torridge and a Lamorna.

Brook Torridge and Lamorna display cabinet

A photo of another display here, this time it all the way from Las Vegas, it’s our friend Pat’s guitar collection – the three on the left were made by us!

Pat's display of Brooks

We completed the repairs on a couple of broken vintage Brooks this month – Firstly this rather nasty break on the heel of this 2012 Taw

Brook broken heel

And a courier casualty here – a broken headstock on this twenty one year old red gum Taw,

Clamping up the neck

Good as new!

Brook Taw neck break

We also refinished the neck on this Strat

Strat neck refinish

And set up these two Epiphone archtops.

Two Epiphones

That’s about all this month, look in again for the September news!

Brook Guitars News July 2023

July 2023

David, a superb guitarist, ordered this custom Otter, our slope shouldered dreadnought.

David and his Brook Otter

He opted for plenty of abalone inlay

Brook Otter Koa Top

We used matching koa for the top, back and sides,

Brook Otter Koa Back

There’s a koa veneer on the back of the headstock and an abalone border on the face. Check out how David’s new guitar sounds on our YouTube channel.

Brook Otter Koa Headstock

Danny and Alex came down to pick up the latest two guitars for Intersound.

Danny and Alex with two Brooks

Bob picked up his new Tamar,

Bob and his Tamar

640 mm scale,

Bob's new Tamar

Belly bridge, European spruce top with walnut back and sides

Brook Tamar with walnut back

And Jack adapted a robin, holly and laurel leaf headstock inlay from Bob’s original design.

Robin headstock inlay

Bob sent us this photo of the new guitar accompanied by his other two Brooks.

Trio of Brooks

Nick from the band Pendragon brought over this badly damaged 000-18. Andy did a fine job putting the jigsaw puzzle back together before refinishing the side.

Martin repair

Here’s Jamie Meldau with his Taw playing with Cable Street at The Gold Hill Festival in Shaftesbury earlier in the month. No leopards were harmed in the making of the hat!

Jamie and his Brook Taw

Ian Chatterton now has Michelle’s Torridge and appropriately sent us this photo taken by the river Torridge in Bideford.

Ian and his Torridge by the Torridge

Alan called in for a look around the workshop and for a quick tweak of his two Brooks.

Alan with his Brook Torridge and Lamorna

An excellent photo of Julian in his wild garden in Milton Keynes wearing his Brook tee shirt.

Julian in his garden in his Brook tee shirt

It was great to hear Antony Chipperfield playing some of his songs on his Tavy a few weeks ago,

Antony and his Brook Tavy

Antony owns and runs the excellent Rambler’s Rest on Exmoor – Britain’s highest coastal road tea room!

The Rambler's Rest Tea Room

Megan and Brian from Red, Green and Blue picked up two repairs we’d just carried out on two of their guitars: a new bridge and sorting out the intonation on the Eastman, and mending the split side on the Blondel.

Megan and Brian

Tony popped in the other day accompanied by Pete, Tony had come over from Australia to visit and place an order for a Lyn.

Tony and Peter at the Brook Guitars workshop

Andy refinished this Eric Clapton Strat where the original lacquer was literally falling off.

Fender Strat refinish

With the second display of fine headwear  this month we have Tony proudly showing off his new Brook bucket hat!

Tony in his Brook hat

Brook Guitars News June 2023

June 2023

We’ve just had the solstice and a prolonged period of summer weather, here’s a photo of the hawthorn blossom at the entrance to our lane earlier in the month.

Brook Guitars Entrance To The Lane

We had two of our serious Brook collectors down to pick up their latest guitars. First of all Tony from North West London for his Koa and Douglas fir Newlyn,

Tony and his Brook Newlyn

And John from Sidmouth for his walnut and cedar 12 fret Torridge. Between them they have forty of our instruments!

John with his latest Brook Torridge

One of John’s earliest Brooks was this sunburst Torridge we made in 1996!

1996 Torridge Top

John from Southampton couldn’t make it down to pick up his new Carey unfortunately so we sent it off to him,

Brook Carey Classic full length

He’s now planning on coming down later in the year to have a look around the workshop and we’ll see if the guitar needs a tweak then.

Brook Carey Classic close up

Here’s the reality of a genuine guitar workshop, not the clinical, posed photo with chisel and wood-shavings you see on the ’boutique’ makers’ websites –  maybe we’re just bloody untidy! Anyhow, the main reason for this photo was to show Andy fitting a Baggs system to this J200.

J200

You may remember this Little Silver we completed back in January – Jon was kind enough to get in touch the other day to say –

“I’ve been in possession of my wonderful Little Silver Terz for going on for three months now and I just wanted to say what a fantastic little instrument it is developing into. It is so much fun to play, it’s comfortable and easy and it just sings. I’m very pleased with the appearance too, it was a brave choice, I think, to go with the yellow, but it has been well admired by everyone who has seen and played it. If I could I would have my Creedy remade to the same design. If anyone else out there is thinking about a new guitar that sounds a little different to a standard tuned guitar, I would thoroughly recommend a Little Silver short scale,  and be brave with your design choices, my Little Silver is a totally unique, one of a kind instrument, how amazing is that. Thanks again, Jon”

Lemon Brook Little Silver

Jon Woode got in touch to let us know he’d been featured on The Great American Folk Show based in Fargo and hosted by Tom Brosseau. Jon says “The second song I play is one of my latest, it’s called Hawker’s Request and it is played on my Brook Tamar“. You can listen to the program here. Jon also has a Lamorna on order.

Jon Woode and his Brook Tamar

 

Marcus, from Brixham, let us know he’d bought a Lyn we’d made last year for Intersound. He kindly sent us these two photos, one with his dog Indhi. He also mentioned he’s considering adding a larger Brook to the fold!

Thanks also to Dan from New Hampshire who has a much admired twenty year old cocobolo Tamar, here he is playing an open mic in a local bar!

Dan and his Brook Tamar

We’re refinishing this Eric Clapton Strat in Olympic White after the original lacquer started peeling off.

Fender Finish

We had a little repair work to do on this fairly new Andean charango – it gave us the opportunity to compare it to an old one we were given quite a few years ago. We’re pleased  to see the original style – using an armadillo shell, has fallen out of fashion!

2 Charangos

Tim called in for a K&K to be fitted to his walnut baritone Blackwater and treated us to a couple of new songs he’d composed on the guitar – unplugged!

Tim and his Brook baritone Blackwater

We’ve some interesting guitars almost ready to leave so look in again next month for the latest news from the workshop.

Brook Guitars News May 2023

May 2023

You may remember this dismantleable Taw we made for T.V.

Take apart Taw

During the encore at one of his recent German gigs the strap came off and, as you can see, the guitar came apart in a way we’d not originally planned for – luckily Frank, a local craftsman, was in the audience, he offered to take it back to his workshop, glue it back together and return it to Tim at a following gig.

Broken Brook Taw

Frank did a fine job just leaving us to tidy up the lacquer and fit new strap locks when Tim got back home.

Tim and Frank

Here’s TV’s latest disc, a collaboration with Richard Strange: their original 1978 demos along with new versions of the old songs plus new material.

TV Smith and Richard Strange

Thanks to Will Riding who sent down his new album earlier in the month. Concisely summed up by the excellently named iDreamofPiesPhotography – “Acoustic vignettes of life with its passions, desires and aspirations delivered with wry acerbic wit and wordplay at its foundations”

Will Riding

Richard, who’s fond of a pun, also brought down his solo CD titled ‘Stirring My Torridge‘ …. for obvious reasons!

Rich Foxell - Stirring My Torridge

Mike had a cherry Taw from us back in 2016, his second Brook is this reclaimed mahogany nylon strung Lyn.

Mike and his nylon strung Brook Lyn

Here’s the full length shot,

Brook Lyn full length

And a close up showing the koa rosette and purfling.

Brook Lyn close up

John, who ordered this twelve fret cedar Torridge, has a collection of twenty Brooks!

Brook Torridge top

This, the latest, has a stunning English walnut back.

JG Brook Torridge back

This email came through the other day offering to rejuvenate our building. Andy and I have got to the age where we’ve grown accustomed to our weathered look… and are happy with a workshop to match – what do you think?

Facelift Offer

Paul Downes brought in these four handmade instruments for us to fettle,

Four instruments

Here’s a close up of them. Check out Paul’s site for his latest gigs http://www.pauldownes.com

Four instruments close up

We’ve a rosewood and Sitka spruce Tavy that’ll be with Coda Music by the time you read this,

Brook Tavy for Coda

And a rosewood and Sitka spruce Lamorna which we’re taking up to Project Music.

Brook Lamorna for Project

As for repairs this month, amongst other things, we’ve glued the loose bridge back on this Santa Cruz, re-fretted a Collings, and also fitted a K&K and set-up an Eastman.

Santa Cruz bridge

 

Brook Guitars News April 2023

April 2023

We were offered Roger Williams’ stock of tonewoods as he’s now retiring, we bought the wood and he kindly dropped it in on his way to Cornwall for a Spring break.

Tonewoods

Tony Kerry is a long term Brook supporter and has many of our guitars.This time Tony went for a classic looking Newlyn with a pyramid bridge,

Brook Newlyn

A Douglas Fir top

Brook Newlyn Close Up

And Koa back and sides.

Brook Newlyn Koa Back

About five years ago we made a slim-line Taw in cherry and walnut for Phil.

Fruit And Nut Slimline Brook Taw

He recently came across another that we made for a customer in North Devon  in 2012. It features a couple of Charlie Christian style pickups, a cream paint job, a unique pick guard

Brook Slimline Taw

And Steinberger gearless tuners.

Honeytone Headstock

A couple of years ago Richard bought a 2007 Torridge and just recently found a 2011 Tavy fan fret in Somerset to keep it company!

Brook Torridge And Fan-fret Tavy

James Filkins has a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his third album Cranes In The Moonlight, the first single released features James’ Tamar, you can find out about it here.

James Kickstarter Campaign

We’ve just re-set the neck on this very nice Alister Atkin jumbo.

Alister Atkin Jumbo

We’re going to have to glue up the headstock on this Torridge 015 which must have received a nasty blow!

Brook Torridge Headstock Repair

A Gibson Keb Mo model was on the workbench in need of some attention.

Gibson Set Up

Here’s a brief view of some guitars that are nearly ready to string up – in the spray room

First Coats Of Lacquer

And on the shelf by our fitting up benches, with a bit of luck you’ll see some of these completed next month!

Gluing Necks

Brook Guitars News March 2023

March 2023

Gary came to pick up the two Brooks he’d ordered last year:

Gary with two Brooks

Firstly this 000 sized Newlyn with a moon spruce top

Brook Newlyn

And Crelicam ebony back and sides.

Brook Newlyn Crelicam Ebony

Also a Tamar with an Adirondack top and English walnut back and sides.

Brook Tamar Adirondack Top

Gary asked for the roundel design on the heel cap of each guitar as his dad loved the Who and the mod scene, and his grandad was in the RAF!

Brook Tamar English Walnut

We’ve had Wizz Jones’ 1963 Epiphone Texan on the bench for some work on the frets and saddle. It’s been his working guitar since Ralph McTell saw it in a London music shop and persuaded Wizz to buy it!

Wizz with his Epiphone Texan

Andy’s just delivered Project’s latest two guitars – A Taw and a Lamorna,

Brook Lamorna and Taw

Both with rosewood back and sides.

Brook Lamorna and Taw rosewood backs

This Tamar with a red gum back and sides will shortly be going off to Coda.

Brook Tamar red gum back

Vaughan kindly sent us this photo of himself with his new purchase – a Torridge we made last year. Vaughan wrote “I have owned many hand-made guitars over the years, but this is the best ever. Excellent craftsmanship and a tone to die for”.

Vaughan with his Brook Torridge

We repaired the broken heel on this Franklin.

Franklin in for repair

Lastly this month, here’s the Tele we customised for Matt – we reshaped the neck, gave it a sunburst finish, made up a tortoiseshell scratch-plate and put it back together.

Matt's Tele

More news next month!

Brook Guitars News February 2023

February 2023

Tigger’s looking a little downcast and thinks Tim is paying far too much attention to his new baritone Blackwater!

Tim, Tigger and Brook Blackwater baritone

Bob came down from Weymouth to pick up his new Carey nylon crossover Brook.

Bob and his Brook Carey

Here it is –

Brook Carey full length

Cedar top, 650 mm scale with a pyramid bridge,

Brook Carey cedar close-up

A rosewood back and squared off headstock.

Brook Carey back

Danny came down to pick up the latest Lyn for Intersound.

Danny and Brook Lyn

We fitted a pick-guard to Dave Rich’s Taw. The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed Dave plays his standard strung guitar left handed…. extremely proficiently as well!

Dave Rich and Brook Taw

Misty morning on the way in to work the other week!

Misty morning on the way to the Brook workshop

Jon’s very pleased with his short scale Little Silver and found and SKB300 case to fit the guitar. Useful information for existing and future Little Silver owners.

Little Silver with SKB case

We had an inquiry about a Gibson L – 0 shaped Brook so we drew up a plan in preparation.

L - 0 Plan

George, Andy’s  grandson, has taken an interest in the Bovey Andy built for his daughters twenty five years ago!

George and Brook Bovey

This is an odd one – You buy a reliced Tele, dink the neck and want the damage repaired???

Dinks in relic Tele

Lastly – our annual ‘snowdrops in the orchard’ photo!

Snowdrops in Brook orchard 2023

Brook Guitars News January 2023

January 2023

We’re about to send this Terz style Little Silver off to Jon in York,

Brook Little Silver Terz

Originally Jon was going for a highly contrasting black/white look with the maple, Engelman and ebony but when it got to the spray room he decided he’d like to go for this lemon shade.

Brook Little Silver Back

The guitar has a short 560 mm scale and is tuned G to G, three semitones above standard pitch,

Brook Little Silver Close Up

The black tuners are Schertlers.

Brook Terz Headstock

Tim collected his all koa Lamorna in 2021 and decided to add a baritone Blackwater to keep it company! Here’s a full length shot, it has a 680 mm scale and is tuned C to C.

Brook Baritone Blackwater

A  close up of the European spruce top

European Spruce Top Brook Blackwater

With  English walnut back and sides. Tim couldn’t make it over in time for this post but he’ll get a photo to us for the February news.

English Walnut, Brook Blackwater

Another Blackwater here for Coda, this one with an Alaskan cyprus top

Alaskan Spruce Top Brook Blackwater

And figured bubinga back and sides.

Bubinga Brook Blackwater

Good to see Justin Hawkins playing a Brook on a couple of the Christmas editions of his very popular YouTube channel Justin Hawkins Rides Again!

Justin Hawkins with Brook

Musician John Forrester got in touch to tell us he’d bumped into a couple in a micro pub near Canterbury and after a while the conversation turned to their favorite guitar – which, in both cases I was pleased to hear, turned out to be Brooks!

John Forrester

Local musician Johnny Fuller brought in this very nice Collings archtop for a fret dress, set up and to fit a Fishman pickup.

Collings Archtop

Andy’s still working on re-fixing those Martin binding jobs.

Martin Binding

He took these photos on his phone on the way to work the other day during the cold spell.

Iced Hedge

Here’s the latest batch of guitars in the spray shop awaiting their final coats.

Brook Spray Room January

Just a reminder that we still have a rosewood Lyn here at the workshop for sale.

Brook Lyn For Sale

See you next month!

Brook Guitars News December 2022

December 2022

Nothing much ready to go out this month as we’re just about to take our winter break so the news is going to be rather brief: I’ll just put up some photos of the workshop and surroundings. Andy’s been polishing so as one batch leaves the spray-room, the next batch I’ve just prepared goes in!

In and Out of the Spray Room

Musician Mandy Woods came down from Glastonbury last week for us to fit a Fishman Infinity in her Little Silver. Despite a mishap on the ice in our lane she headed off home again safely!

Mandy and Brook Little Silver

Entertainer, presenter, author and filmmaker Tony Lidington aka Uncle Tacko left his tenor banjo for some TLC – the celluloid fingerboard is coming loose and breaking up so we’re attempting to glue it back down and replace the broken sections.

Tenor Banjo

Steve Yates brought in the second banjo of the month, this time a vintage five string Barnes and Mullins, in for a fret dress.

Steve and Barnes And Mullins

Andy repaired some finish issues on this Gibson Herb Ellis model.

Gibson Herb Ellis for Repair

One misty morning on the way to work.

Misty Morning

The orchard on a frosty morning a few days later.

Brook Guitars Orchard in December

I’d like to introduce you to our tame seasonal visitor!

Workshop Visitor

We’d like to wish all our customers and visitors to our site Season’s Greetings

Season's greetings 2022

And best wishes for 2023!

Brook Guitars News November 2022

November 2022

We’ll start off with the two guitars we mentioned last month. Firstly Geoff and Dominique  picked up this custom Lamorna. It has a torrefied Sitka spruce top.

Geoff and his Brook Lamorna

The walnut was from a tree felled in Dominique’s family home in France and Geoff brought over a board of it for us to use for the back and sides.

Geoff's Walnut

Jack inlaid these two swallows on the headstock.

Jack's Swallows Inlay

Following that we have George and his left handed Weaver

George and his Brook Weaver

This has Tasmanian blackwood back and sides – it could easily be mistaken for koa!

Tasmanian Blackwood Brook Weaver

Jack inlaid two selections from George’s late wife’s favorite painting, this on the headstock and the following image around the twelfth fret.

Jack's Headstock Inlay

George wrote “I’m thrilled with it. It immediately felt comfortable and the clarity and depth of tone from the small body is outstanding – even on the upper frets. And, with the wood choices and Jack’s superb inlay work, it is a real beauty”.

George's 12th Fret Inlay

Here’s Tony with his new Little Silver – expressing digitally how many Brook guitars he now owns!

Tony and Brook Little Silver

We had a film crew over a couple of weeks ago to interview us for a documentary about our mentor Andy Manson.

Filming at Brook Guitars

Talking of Andy this is the latest of the Ian Anderson model that he designed and we build that’s going out to Jack in the U.S.

Ian Anderson Model in Custom Flight Case

This close up shows the moustache bridge and pearl and ebony rosette.

Ian Anderson Model close up

Andy sprayed an attractive sunburst top on this Lamorna for Richard in Yorkshire.

Sunburst Brook Lamorna

Here’s a close up of the top and the custom shaped slotted headstock. We’re awaiting a delivery of Hiscox cases so we can send this off to Richard.

Sunburst Brook Lamorna plus Slotted Headstock

The same goes for this Taw for Andrew, coincidentally also in Yorkshire!

Brook Walnut Taw

Here’s the Sitka top and walnut back and sides

Walnut Brook Taw Front and Back

Malcolm sent us this photo of Jamie, his fellow guitarist in Cable Street, with Jamie’s brace of Brooks that he uses exclusively (the Martin’s Malcolm’s!).

Jamie and his Brooks

Martin’s an old friend from the RMMGA meetings in Buxton, he brought down the Lamorna he bought from Project Music for us to fit a pickup system.

Martind and his Brook Lamorna

Another sunburst – Andy’s spraying a Tele body for Matt, another old friend!

Andy Spraying Matt's Tele

We had a couple more set-ups for Beth Gibbons – her Takamine and her 1999 rosewood and Sitka Taw.

Beth's Two Guitars

If anyone has bought Brook tee shirts, hoodies or caps and would like to send us a photo we’d be delighted to share them in the monthly news, and if anyone would like to order one just get in touch with Zoe, Andy’s daughter, at oakridgeclothing@outlook.com

 

Brook Guitars News October 2022

October 2022

We’ll start off this month with a couple of tasters for the November news so I won’t tell you too much about them until then! This one is George’s left handed Weaver

George's Brook Weaver

And this Lamorna is for Geoff, they’ll be picking them in a couple of weeks.

Geoff's walnut Brook Lamorna

Ron collected the Carey we featured last month

Ron and his Brook Carey

And Mark came down for a set up on his Lamorna and brought along these very nice American custom Steineggers for us to look at!

Mark and Brook Lamorna

Alan kindly sent us this photo of himself with his Lamorna and his Torridge, The picture was taken at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire.  Any Brook owners who’d like to be included please do send us a photo.

Alan with Brook Lamorna and Torridge

We made a new neck for this yew Lamorna, John had flown over from the States and the neck had been irreparably damaged during the flight.

Broken neck on Brook Lamorna

An interesting story with this ten year old Torridge – Phil took it with him when he moved to Australia seven years ago. A piece of metal furniture fell on the guitar recently and cracked the ribs. Phil was coming over for a meeting in Germany, took a detour to Heathrow and drove down to see us. Andy managed to repair the Torridge while he waited, then Phil drove back to Heathrow and off to his meeting!

Australian Brook

Richard’s building up his collection of Brooks. His series of music books must be paying off! Here’s his latest on Joe Jackson along with the plan of the Bovey tenor guitar he’s just ordered.

Richard's Joe Jackson book

You’ll see we’ve taken our in-house style guru Andy to the glamorous location of his workbench to model one of our new range of Brook merchandising. Should anyone wish to look similarly stylishly attired let us know and we’ll supply purchasing information.

Andy modelling T

More of this nice old stock Honduras Mahogany from Guatemala arrived last week. That should keep us going in necks for several months.

wood for Brook necks

Here’s  a close up of the binding separating from the bodies on the Martins,

Martin bindings 2

One here’s been repaired and going back to its owner, the other’s recently come in for the same treatment.

Martin Binding Repair 1

We built a new bridge for this ‘f’ style mandolin for David.

Mandolin bridge repair

Richard has a couple of our guitars and he’s decided to sell the highly customized bubinga Lyn we made for him last year to help fund a bigger Brook model. If anyone would like to try it it’s here at the workshop.

Bubinga Brook Lyn for sale

A friend brought this around to my house to ask if it were worth us repairing it…..sometimes you just have to say no!

No no no repair

Lastly – a couple of photos of the orchard first thing in the morning

Orchard in mist 1

With the remainder of a very good crop of apples.

Orchard in mist 2

Brook Guitars News September 2022

September 2022

Autumn’s arrived and despite the rain we’ve had recently our local reservoir’s water level is still very low.

Meldon Reservoir

Now, on to guitar things: We’re just waiting for the strings to settle in so we can set up this custom Carey for Ron who’ll be coming over from Dorset to collect his new guitar.

Brook Carey

We inlaid a honeybee on the twelfth fret and a rose on the heel cap for him.

Brook Carey Inlays

We’d like to thank Bendigo for this photo of his Brook collection! – left to right – a Lamorna, two Lyns and a Torridge.

Brook Collection

This baritone Tavy has just gone off to Coda, tuned C to C with a 680 mm scale.

Brook Baritone Tavy for Coda

And this Teign is about to go to Project Music in Exeter.

Brook Teign for Project

Talking of projects, here’s one – we drew up plans for a small bodied five string bass for a customer, he’s chosen the fourteen fret to the body option, we’ll be starting it later in the year.

Taw Bass Plan

We refinished and set up this mandolin for Hannah, a local musician. She inherited it from her uncle who made it along with other instruments.

Hannah Mandolin

Andy’s just re-glued the bindings on this sunburst Martin CE0-7 and touched up the finish. We’ve another of these with the same problem arriving in the next couple of days.

Martin loose binding

For years now we’ve had customers asking for Brook t-shirts and sweat shirts, here’s the first of our samples, we’ll let you know when we’ve worked out the prices and postage.

Brook T-Shirt

We made up this wooden pickguard to cover up some pick damage to the top of this Tamar.

Wooden Pickguard

It was good to see Jim Causley and Trev Munkenbeck with Mariners Away featured on BBC Spotlight recently, Trev was playing his baritone Tamar.

Mariners Away

Brook Guitars News August 2022

August 2022

Kevin came up from Plymouth to collect his new Tavy

Kevin and his Brook Tavy

It has an Adirondack top with rosewood back and sides.

Brook Tavy Adirondack Spruce

Jack inlaid this penguin on the headstock, it was the logo of Kevin’s parents’ shop,
there’s also a penguin on the heel cap!

Tavy Penguin Inlay

The first ever European Fingerstyle Collective Guitar Festival is being held in Exeter
at the Phoenix between 9th – 11th September.

Fingerstyle Collective

It’s not often you get a chance to see this many world class guitarists together over a weekend
so come along and support this event!

Exeter Fingerstyle Festival

This Little Silver is Tony’s third Brook, it’ll be joining his two Tamars, one steel string, one nylon. This one has a rosewood fingerboard bridge and head veneer,

Brook Little Silver

And the back and sides ‘fruit and nut’ – cherry and walnut!

Fruit and Nut Brook Little Silver

This rosewood Taw will be heading up to Gordon in Scotland shortly.

Brook Taw for Gordon

A walnut and Sitka Taw will be travelling the shorter distance to Project Music in Exeter,

Walnut and Sitka Brook Taw for Project

And this walnut and European spruce Torridge is now with Intersound in Dursley. 

Brook Torridge for Intersound

Jacqueline Hemming Urquhart took this photo of Chris Norman playing his Teign in Tavistock.

Chris and his Brook Teign

Geoff and George came over to check how their respective guitars were coming along,
about another four weeks and they should be ready for collection!

Geoff and George

We made this Lyn for stock, if anyone is interested just get in touch.

Brook Lyn for sale

Andy resprayed this Precision bass fingerboard

Andy spraying a bass neck

And put back together this unusual aluminium Peter Kellett Strat after a tricky repair –
replacing the broken truss rod and fingerboard.

Peter Kellett Strat

A personal thanks to Pat for his video greeting on a significant birthday for me!

Pat's birthday greeting

He’s sneaking up behind me but won’t catch me!

Brook Guitars News July 2022

July 2022

We haven’t many new guitars to show you this month as we’re in-between batches but a couple of Lamornas went off to the shops, this one to Coda

Brook Lamorna for Coda

And Andy took this one with an interesting rosewood back off to Project.

Indian Rosewood Brook Lamorna

Paul ordered his walnut Torridge from Project Music but wanted to look around the workshop so came down from Surrey and picked it up from us.

Paul collecting his Brook Torridge

Phil McKnight sent us this photo taken when he was gigging at The Rum Diary Bar in Newcastle, New South Wales, he wrote “Greatly enjoying playing the little Becka you made for me, lots of curious punters after shows have been asking about it!”.

Phil McKnight at The Rum Diary Bar NSW

This Abbey‘s for sale, if you’re interested and would like to come and try it, just get in touch.

Brook Abbey for sale

Richard thought we might like to see how well his twelve fret Taw has aged, you can see how light the sitka top was when he picked it up fifteen years ago!

Richard and his 12 fret Brook Taw

He brought down this Martin for us to repair, the all too common problem of the binding separating from the main body of the instrument.

Martin binding separating

As I mentioned – Not many finished guitars ready to go out this month but here are the latest ones I’ve just put together, fretted and made up bridges for – just waiting to be strung up now,

Brooks ready to string up

While Jack’s preparing this batch for binding.

Jack preparing bodies for binding

You may remember Geoff brought this walnut over from his property in France and we sliced it up. The Lamorna we’re making for him out of the wood is now in the spray room.

Walnut Brook Lamorna

Also in the spray room Andy’s been preparing and spraying this Fiesta Red Strat for James.

Fiesta Red Strat

We’re repairing a few dings on this pretty little Collings mandolin for Tilly

Collings Mandolin

And we’ve just re-set the neck on this twenty two year old custom Torridge for Coda.

Custom Brook Torridge from 2000

More next month!

Brook Guitars News June 2022

June 2022

We’ve been here at Easterbrook for nearly thirty years, several years ago we mentioned how this lime tree had grown, time has gone by and it’s considerably taller…

Lime Tree in front of Brook Guitars Workshop

Here’s the photo of Andy and myself in front it when it was a young sapling. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, we’d like to think we can say the same for Brook Guitars!

Andy and Si

Steve from the Bristol area should be down soon to pickup his new Blackwater.

Brook Blackwater Full Length

It has a European spruce soundboard and Crelicam ebony for the back and sides,

Brook Blackwater

With a sunrise inlay on the headstock and his initials on the twelfth fret.

Brook Blackwater Headstock Inlay

Frank sent over this hard case so we’ve just sent his Abbey over to Germany.

Brook Abbey in Hard Case

We also sent this Lyn up to Paul in Oxford who, we’re happy to say, was quick off the mark when we asked for a photo!

Paul and his Brook Lyn

The Lyn has a European spruce top

Brook Lyn for Paul

With this interesting set of English walnut back and sides.

Brook Lyn Back

We’re about to give this left handed Torridge a final set-up and label it,

Allan's Brook Torridge Full Length

Then it’ll be going off to Allan in Japan, It’s back and sides are from the companion set to Paul’s Lyn in the item above.

Brook Torridge Walnut Back

Ron came down from Dorset to check out how his nylon strung Carey was coming along.

Ron and his Carey

He got in touch later to send us these photos and say” My wife thoroughly enjoyed the tour, it gave her an appreciation of the length of time required to build a fabulous, unique guitar. Thanks for everything”.

Brook Carey Stuts

This Torridge is for a Project Music customer, he asked for this Celtic inlay on the fretboard and is planning on a trip down shortly to collect the guitar.

Brook Torridge for Project Guitars

Another nice set of rippled English walnut for the back and sides.

Brook Torridge for Project Music Walnut Back

This is the first guitar for Intersound for a while, a Sitka and rosewood Lamorna.

Brook Lamorna for Intersound Music

We have this European spruce Lyn for sale,

Brook Lyn For Sale

With rosewood back and sides.

Brook Lyn For Sale Rosewood Back

John came over from the States with his beautiful yew Lamorna which, unfortunately, the airline managed to damage, We thought it might be a matter of just gluing it back up and retouching the finish but the truss-rod fixing has been knocked through the back of the neck so we’re going to have to replace the whole neck.

Yew Brook Lamorna

Not quite sure what’s going on with the signposts around here – they appear to be sinking! It’s tricky finding us at the best of times as the sat-nav invariably takes you miles out of the way, also to the wrong location.

Sinking Signposts

However we are on Google Maps and, if you’re familiar with ‘what3words’, ‘implanted.song.lives’ will get you to the entrance to our lane.

what3words to Brook Guitars

Brook Guitars News May 2022

May 2022

We made this Calder for Mick in County Durham,

Brook Calder For Mick

Here are a couple of shots of the top from different angles showing the 12/14 fret body join and the sound-port

Brook Calder Double Shot

And here’s the ebony faced headstock with Schaller GrandTune Hauser style tuners with Snakewood buttons.

Brook Calder Headstock

Mick sent us this photo and wrote “Just to let you know the guitar arrived safely last week and I’m amazed at the quality and sound.  I had a lesson recently from Steve Tilston and was so impressed with his guitar I ordered one when I got home. I can’t say enough about the quality of the sound, the guitar just rings with fantastic bass and treble – what an instrument! The quality and workmanship is absolutely top class. Thanks guys”

Mick And Hid Brook Carey

Frank will be coming over from Germany soon to pick up his new Abbey,

Brook Abbey

Here’s a close up.

Brook Abbey Close Up

Po had a Taw from us back in 2016, here’s his second Brook – a nylon strung Carey,

Brook Carey

With a matching rosette and tie block,

Brook Carey Close Up

Thai rosewood back and sides

Brook Carey Thai Rosewood Back

And these elegant tuners with custom engravings of the Chinese and the Welsh dragon on either side.

Brook Carey Custom Tuners

This rosewood Weaver went up to Coda.

Weaver For Coda

I forgot to photograph this one before it left the workshop so thanks to Lee from Project Music for this image of their latest Lamorna!

Brook Lamorna in Project Music

We’ve spent a while resetting the neck, making up a new bridge and generally renovating this Vega for a customer.

Vega Repair

Andy fitted a K&K pickup on this Lyn.

Andy Fitting A Pickup On A Lyn

We’re replacing a broken truss rod on this unusual Peter Kellett Strat with a rosewood neck, an aluminium body and this custom paint job.

Truss Rod Repair

See you next month!

Brook Guitars News April 2022

April 2022

Kristi drove down from South Wales to pick up her custom nylon strung Carey,

Kristi and her Brook Carey

Rosewood back and sides,

Custom Brook Carey

With an elevated fingerboard,

Custom Brook Carey Close Up

Sound-port and arm rest.

Brook Carey Front and Inside

Another nylon strung Brook here for Alan from Somerset,

Alan with his Brook Carey

This time a Carey fourteen fretter with a cutaway,

Brook Carey Close Up

A Sitka top, a very old set of Cocobolo for the back and sides,

Cocobolo Brook Carey Front and Back

With a rounded off plain slotted headstock.

Alan's Brook Carey Headstock

Here’s a new model that’s just gone off to Phil McKnight in New South Wales,

Brook Becka in Flight Case

It’s actually a slightly larger version of the Ian Anderson model we make for Andy Manson, Phil asked for this specific size, we’ve named the model the Becka after the diminutive Becka Brook on Dartmoor.

Brook Becka back

Ivor picked up the mahogany Lyn we featured last month

Ivor and his Mahogany Brook Lyn

And Chris collected his cutaway Tamar, also featured last month!

Chris and his Brook Tamar

Mandy Woods, a singer songwriter from Glastonbury, bought her Little Silver from Coda Music and brought it over to have a Fishman pickup installed. She wrote a blog about her visit and the Little Silver here

Mandy and her Brook Little Silver

Charlotte picked up this Gibson archtop with an authentic Charlie Christian pickup & her ES 330 which were in for various repairs.

Two Gibsons

It was good to catch up with our friend Dave Carless the other week who brought over his twenty year old Taw for us to fit a Fishman Rare Earth Blend pickup.

Dave Carless and his Brook Taw

TV’s latest album features acoustic versions of some favourite songs, there are photos of his two Taws – in various states of repair!

TV Smith Acoustic Sessions 2

Lastly – over the previous months we’ve shown the snowdrops, primroses and daffodils, this month it’s the turn of this healthy carpet of bluebells!

Bluebells

Brook Guitars News March 2022

March 2022

Ken here, with his trio of Brooks, came over from North Cornwall to pick up his new Blackwater,

Ken with his new Brook Blackwater

And George drove down from Milton Keynes for his new Lyn, his fourth Brook!

George and his new Lyn

This time with a Venetian cutaway,

Cutaway Lyn

A moon spruce top, rosewood back and sides, pyramid bridge and a K&K pickup.

Cutaway Brook Lyn

This Lamorna has just been carefully packaged and is on its way to David in New South Wales, Australia,

Brook Lamorna

Here’s a close up of the Sitka top and the dark reclaimed mahogany back and sides.

Brook Lamorna front and back

Ivor is coming down from Surrey next week to pick up his new Lyn,

Mahogany Brook Lyn

Again it’s reclaimed mahogany, though from a different source than the previous guitar.

Mahogany Lyn close up

Chris is also travelling down from Surrey for his Sitka topped, 12 fret Tamar,

12 Fret Brook Tamar

He asked Jack for a maple leaf design inlay on the fingerboard

Maple Leaf Inlay

And chose this exotic ebony set for the back and sides.

Exotic Ebony Tamar Back

I was really pleased to get this note and the latest CD from American outsider legend Michael Hurley. He has a little Bovey we made for him and brings it out now and again to record with!

Michael Hurley's Note

Gareth Hedges brought a Bert Jansch Foundation guitar round for a tweak before he recorded with it. This is one of a couple being passed musician to musician for ‘Around The World In 80 Plays’.

Gareth Around The World In 80 Plays

Gareth’s in good company, he picked up the Yamaha from Sarah McQuaid, just a few of the  guitarists who’ve already signed this one include Richard Thompson, John Smith and Michael Watts!

Bert Jansch Guitar

Talking of Yamahas – Bluesman Jeff Horsey brought his vintage one in for us to replace the bridge and give it a well deserved set-up.

Another Yamaha

Repair Department: Andy did an extraordinary job getting this J200 back in pristine condition – and yes we did put the pickguard back on, I just forgot to do it before the ‘after’ shot!

J200 Repair

Nature Watch: The blossom’s coming out, along with primroses and daffodils, we’re hoping the cold spell coming up isn’t going to affect this year’s apple crop.

Daffs in the Orchard

We’ll find out later in the year.

Brook Guitars News February 2022

February 2022

A little late this year but It’s that time again – the snowdrops are back in the orchard surrounding the apple trees.

Brook Guitars Workshop February 2022

Ken, from North Cornwall, will be popping over in a couple of weeks to collect his second Brook, a Blackwater.

Brook Blackwater Full Length

This one has a European spruce top, a snowflake fingerboard inlay,

Brook Blackwater Close Up

Lacewood back and sides

Lacewood Brook Blackwater

And a stag inlay on the headstock.

Brook Blackwater Stag Inlay

Julian came down from Castle Cary to pick up the second lacewood guitar this month, a short-scale Lyn,

Brook Lacewood Lyn Back

It had a wider 46 mm nut and we fitted a K&K Pure Mini pickup.

Brook Lacewood Lyn

Here’s the lacewood back.

Brook Lacewood Lyn Back

We had a nice spread in February’s Countryman magazine.

Countryman Article February 2022

Our friend Martin Bell did a great job the other evening faced with the unenviable task of supporting the superb Clive Carroll at Alstonefields Village Hall. They also played a few numbers together, Martin was playing his bubinga Cary.

Martin C.C. Support

I’ve a soft spot for the old Hofners and have a collection of them so it was nice to see this 1959 Hofner Congress come in for some TLC!

Hofner Congress 1959

We’ve had a few emails about these guitars being sold under the Brook name. It should be fairly obvious but we would like to reiterate – the range, made in China, are not our designs or associated with us in any way.

Fake Brook

To get to the broken braces and splits in this Oakwood mandola Andy found the best way was to sacrifice the back and make a replacement after repairing the damage to the top.

Oakwood Repair

More news next month!

Brook Guitars News January 2022

January 2022

On the way home on our first day back after our winter break I came across this interesting view over the moors.

Sunset January 2022

This Lyn‘s going over to Skip in Florida,

Brook Lyn January 2022

It has a European spruce top with a pyramid bridge,

Lyn European Spruce Top

English walnut back and sides,

Walnut Lyn

And Waverly tuners on the squared off slotted headstock.

Brook Slotted Headstock

This 640/680 mm scale fan fret Tavy is for Steve in East Devon,

Brook Tavy Fan Fret

It has an exotic ebony back and sides with a maple laminated neck

Ebony Tavy Back

And gold 510 machine heads, Steve asked for the last of the old logos to match his other Brooks.

Brook Fan Fret Headstock

Pat from Las Vegas sent us this photo of himself with the tallest Christmas tree and the shortest guitars on the fourteenth anniversary of the twins arrival!

Pat and the Twins

Three Martins in for set-ups.

Three Martins

I’m sorry to say we can’t take on any more repair work until we clear some of the backlog, if you can be patient for a while we’ll aim to open our doors to this side of our business a little later in the year.

Cases

One of our customers brought this spalted walnut back from France, we’ve just sawn it into sets so he can choose one for his new guitar.

Spalted Walnut

Woody Mann 1952 – 2022

Woody Mann

It’s with great sadness we say goodbye to Woody, we met him first back in the nineties after he’d demonstrated our guitars at the NAAM show in the States. When he was gigging over here he called us and we picked him up from the local station and brought him out to the workshop. We made two guitars for him and kept in touch, and met up occasionally over the years. He was a genuine gentleman as well as being an inspirational musician.

Brook Guitars News December 2021

December 2021

No wonder no-one can find us!

Broken signpost

We sent this little bubinga Holly up to our friend Richard in Market Harborough, our shortest scale six string.

Brook Holly six string

He kindly sent us a copy of his latest book –

Status Quo book by Richard James

And wrote ‘To help customers judge the size of this lovely new instrument you can inform them that it is approximately the length of one Russian Blue kitten. Please note – kitten is not at full extension and objected to being photographed without prior consultation’!

Holly and cat comparison

I’ll add another, nearly festive, size comparison – The Holly and The Tavy.

Brook Holly And Tavy

This is Richard from Bristol’s third Brook, an abalone and pearl decorated Lyn

Abalone border on bubinga Brook Lyn

With bubinga back and sides and a figured mahogany laminated neck. Succinctly and to the point Richard wrote ‘Thanks for the Lyn – outstanding’!

Bubinga Brook Lyn

Pete came over with the Taw we made for him earlier in the year to pick up an inlay he’d commissioned from Jack of his last black lab.. here it is resting on his guitar.

Brook Taw and Jack's Inlay

Nearly every customer featured this month has more than one Brook – so to add to the roster this 613 mm, short scale, walnut Creedy went up to Keith in Greenwich, his second of our guitars!

Cedar Brook Creedy

We’ve still more repairs here than we’d really like, Andy sorted out a tricky problem with the wiring on this Gibson bass

Andy wiring a Gibson bass

And repaired yet another Les Paul headstock break. The customer was delighted with the result.

Les Paul Headstock Break

Season’s Greetings to everyone

Season's Greetings from Brook

And Best Wishes for the New Year. We’ll be away from the workshop for our winter break until the 5th January.

 

Brook Guitars News November 2021

November 2021

We’ve been lucky to avoid the bad storms that have caused so much trouble in the North but with the colder spell early last week the early morning frost brought out this herd of deer,

Deer at Brook Workshop 1

We haven’t seen them in these sort of numbers so close to the workshop for a while!

Deer at Brook Workshop 2

We seem to have been making a lot of nylon strung  crossover models recently. We’ve just completed this rather striking Lyn,

Nylon Strung Brook Lyn Full Length

Very much with a black and white theme – it has a European spruce top, ebony binding, fingerboard, head veneer and custom ebony bridge,

Nylon Strung Brook Lyn Top

Along with this lovely maple back, sides and laminated neck,

Nylon Strung Brook Lyn Back

Complemented by these Schaller tuners.

Nylon Strung Brook Lyn Headstock

The second nylon strung guitar this month is this Taw with a tinted Sitka top,

Nylon Strung Brook Taw

The customer also asked for a pyramid bridge and this coda sign on the heel-cap.

Brook Taw Top and Heel Cap

Thirdly we have another European spruce and maple short scale Lyn,

Nylon Brook Lyn

This one with tinted back and sides and another of our custom shaped bridges.

Maple Brook Lyn Back And Top

Les here came up from Portsmouth to change the tuners for some chrome 510s on his twenty one year old rosewood and Adirondack Tamar.

Les and his Brook Tamar

Two smallish guitars for Coda Music this month: a Little Silver in front and a parlour size Clyst behind,

Brook Little Silver and Clyst 2

Sitka tops on both of them, the Silver has English walnut back and sides, the Clyst rosewood.

Brook Little Silver and Clyst

David Harsh, who writes for a U.S. music magazine, chose a Brook Taw amongst other items in his ‘Writer’s Picks’ column!

American Review

James in Michigan is so happy with his new Tamar he’s decided to sell his 2011 Taw to fund another possible build. It’s highly customised with a four piece back of Vietnamese rosewood and Tasmanian blackwood, the top’s Siberian cedar. You can contact James at james@jamesfilkins.com

J F Taw For Sale

This ad for a card game arrived this morning in our email. I don’t think we have to build this guitar to tell you the design isn’t going to work very well, don’t get any ideas guys!

Card Game

We’ll see you next month for the final news update of 2021!

Brook Guitars News October 2021

October 2021

On the way in to work earlier in the month I took some photos of this impressive rainbow.

rainbow

We sent this Lyn up to Stephen in Kent,

cutaway walnut Lyn close up

Here’s a full length shot – Engelmann top, cutaway, pyramid bridge,

cutaway walnut Lyn

English walnut back and sides

Lyn walnut back

And a walnut head veneer with Gotoh 510 tuners.

walnut head veneer

Stephen sent us these photos taken in front of the venue of his niece’s wedding in Norwich where he played the following day. He said the guitar sounded great!

Stephen and his new Lyn

This baritone rosewood Tavy has just gone up to Coda,

It has a 670 mm scale length, we strung it with D’Addario EJ-18s and tuned it C to C.

baritone Tavy full length

Martin came down from Worthing for pickup installation a set-up on his 2007 Teign. He took this photo while I was lowering the bridge

And one of his cavapoo Django amongst the autumn leaves in the orchard!

Django

As always, nice to have some interest in the local woods with a lacewood Blackwater and Lyn, and also an English walnut Lyn getting their first coats of lacquer in the spray-room!

Local Lacewood

After a hard day at work wiring up a couple of electric guitars Andy took a day off….

Andy at his workbench

To take on the challenge of repairing the wiring his wife Anita’s MX5,

Andy car electrics

While Jack worked at home on his latest inlay.

Jack inlaying at home

Sometime after being persuaded to part with my Lamorna – and the standard turnaround time, I now have a very nice rosewood and spruce Taw!

Si latest Taw

Brook Guitars News September2021

September 2021

All the repair work we’ve taken on over the last few months has rather upset our routine and we’ve ended up with a couple of batches together in the spray-room

Spray Sop 2

Consequently we’ve not many finished instruments to feature this month.

Spray Shop 1

Fortunately our customers have been sending us photos: Paul came down with his cutaway rosewood Taw

Paul

And Chris sent us this one of himself in his garden in Oxford with the Torridge he picked up from Oasis Music in Ringwood.

Chris

We sent this 12 fret Tamar out to Michigan last month, James sent us this shot of himself with the new guitar and his Taw tucked in behind on the sofa.

James

Nigel came down from the Cotswolds to pick up his sunburst Lamorna,

Nigel

Our friend Richard James’ latest foray into the world of musical publishing is this fine book covering every recorded track by the late, great Tom Petty.

Tom Petty

We asked him if he’d like us to accompany this unabashed plug with a suitable moody photo of the author so he sent us this one – not sure that’s the correct location for the ear plugs Richard!

Richard

The last guitar we made for Rob Garner was a little Creedy made from a chestnut tree that was in his garden. Recently a cherry tree had to come down, we’ll wait and see what Rob has in store for that!

Two of Beth Gibbons’ guitars came in this afternoon, Beth’s 12 fret Tavy for a set up and restringing and this 1888 Martin parlour guitar – in great condition with the original case!

Two Repairs

Finally, as we’re rather short of news, we have a couple of photos from a forthcoming article about Brook Guitars – more of which next month. Firstly Andy and me at our respective work benches,

Andy and Si

And lastly a view of the dusty collection of assorted instruments in our display room.

Collection

Brook Guitars News August 2021

August 2021

Graham came over to the workshop from Tavistock with his partner Gail to pick up his new Tamar, they treated us to a medley of Nick Drake songs!

Graham and his Tamar

Graham’s figured English walnut and European spruce topped Tamar featured a shorter 630 mm scale length for ease of playing.

Short Scale Brook Tamar

We had two new guitars for Coda: This figured mahogany Taw

Mahogany Brook Taw for Coda

And this sunburst top Lamorna,

Sunburst Brook Lamorna 2

A customer visiting the workshop the other week took a fancy to the Lamorna and arranged with Coda to buy it, then pick it up from us when it was ready. Hopefully we’ll get a photo of Nigel collecting it for next month’s news.

Sunburst Brook Lamorna 1

This little Clyst is going off to Russ in Oklahoma,

Brook Clyst Full Length

Here’s a close up of the traditional looking tinted Sitka top with abalone purfling and rosette and a pyramid bridge,

Brook Clyst Close Up

And here’s the torch inlay on the headstock.

Torch Inlay

Phil and Keith came down from Somerset for quick tweaks on their two Brooks.

Phil and Keith with their Brooks

Now – just some of the ever-increasing repairs we’ve been acquiring: a new bridge for this McAlister, a Martin D18 neck re-set, a Kinkead with multiple splits, and general repair work on this National . We are going to have to turn down some of the repair work before too long as it’s starting to interfere with our main job – making guitars!

Four Repairs

Here’s the little jig we made up for cutting the fret slots on the latest fan fret Tavy we have on the go.

Fan Fret Jig

We were kindly given these sections of an old mahogany table to re-saw as guitar sets.

mahogany tables

 

 

Brookguitars News July 2021

July 2021

Louise has been waiting for a long time to come down and personally pick up her new Blackwater!

Louise Loft

Like Louise’s last Brook it was customised to her specifications, this time with lunar inlays,

Brook Blackwater Top

And exotic ebony back and sides with a figured maple centre strip,

Ebony Brook Blackwater Back

She was brought up in New Zealand and chose the Southern Cross as a pick-guard inlay!

Brook Blackwater Pickguard

Another rather interesting Brook is going off to James Filkins in the U.S. in a couple of days – a twelve fret cutaway Tamar,

John's Soundboard

With koa back and sides, padouk neck and binding,

John's Koa Tamar Back

African blackwood for the fingerboard, bridge and head veneer, with a mixture of these woods for the rosette.

John's Rosette

Along with inlays of James’ design on the headstock

John's Headstock Inlay

And fingerboard.

Dragonflies and Sun

Owen sent us this photo of himself and his new Lamorna at the Boilerhouse Gallery in Corfe Castle along with the message ” Please find the attached photo of me with the best guitar I have ever played”. Excellent, thanks Owen!

Owen and his Lamorna

Here’s Pete picking up the Taw we made for him, we featured the guitar in last month’s news!

Pete and his Taw

Rosa Rebecka gave a spirited performance at our local music day with the Lyn we made for her ten years ago out of local yew.

Rosa Rebecka 1 Rosa Rebecka 2 Rosa Rebecka 3

Thanks to Dave Rich, for all the hard work that went into organizing the thirty acts
who played at the various venues throughout the town.

Dave Rich

This walnut and moon spruce Taw went off to Rob in Leeds, he’s promised us a photo for next month’s news!

Brook Taw

Lastly a couple of Gibsons in for some attention: first off – a fine 1920 ‘F’ style mandolin that had suffered some serious damage, Andy got it back together and improved on a previous, less sympathetic repair.

Gibson Mandolin Repair

It’s never a great surprise when we get one of these in – yet another Les Paul headstock break!

Les Paul Head Break

Andy did a fine job on this, you can hardly see the join!

Brook Guitars News June 2021

June 2021

French singer songwriter Julie Blasco sent us these two photos of herself with the Creedy she’s just acquired!

Julie Blasco

We made this back in 1998 for another French artist. Check out a video of Julie playing the Creedy on our YouTube channel and for more information about Julie go to https://www.blasco-official.com

Julie Blasco and her Creedy

Coincidentally we have a second 1998 vintage Brook featured this month – this Okement that we’ve just re-set the neck on.

Brook Okement

David and Bryony called in for a set-up on David’s resonator we made in 2015.

David and Bryony

Here’s the latest Lamorna for Project Music,

Project Music Brook Lamorna

Check out the wild looking figured English walnut!

Brook Lamorna Walnut Back

And this is the latest figured mahogany Lamorna for Coda.

Figured Mahogany Lamorna

Richard sent us this fine photo, taken whilst musing about the mysterious confluence of the Torridge and the Avon!

Avon and Torridge

Pete from Yelverton ordered this Taw which will be ready for collection shortly.

Brook Taw

It has another set of striking English walnut back and sides, a walnut neck and lace-wood binding,

Brook Taw Walnut Back

Along with a few personalised inlays on the headstock.

Taw Headstock Inlay

Another vintage Brook here, this time a 1999 Torridge 015. Bernard, the owner, asked us to retro fit a sound-port in the ribs.

Brook Torridge Sound Port

Bob bought this Lyn from Coda and brought it along for a free first set-up while visiting the area.

Bob Brook Torridge

Steve has several fan fretted guitars of ours and we’ve just drawn up a quick plan of the latest for him with a slightly more extreme 640/678 mm scale, we’ve just started work on it.

Steve Fan Fret Plan

Will Adams was spotted busking with his Lamorna in Weymouth.

Will Busking

Repair Shop: Disappointing to see a virtually new Martin in need of a neck reset so soon after leaving  the factory.

Martin Neck Re-set

We repaired this huge acoustic bass

Big Bass

And scale-wise, at the other extreme, we’ve been sympathetically renovating this uke and an Italian mandolin, coincidentally both were owned and played by the respective owner’s fathers!

Uke and Mandolin

All visitors to the workshop please beware of potholes, I took these photos along a short stretch of road on my way out here one morning recently.

Potholes

Drive carefully!

Brookguitars News May 2021

May 2021

This May, as the expression goes, ‘it’s been raining cats and dogs’. Although of debateable origin it does allow us a tentative link to the photos following these Dartmoor shots of West Mill Tor and Yes Tor I took last week –

Three Dartmoor Shots

Tim’s delighted with his new koa Lamorna and, by the look of it, Tigger’s relaxed with the new addition to the family!

Tim and Tigger

T.V. has been playing live request shows over the lockdown as his intense gigging schedule came to an abrupt halt. Over the period he’s played 250 of his own songs – without repeats!

TV Live Stream

One viewer sent in these photos of a couple of TV’s new online feline fans.

TV Cats

Dave came down from North Devon to pick up his new Blackwater.

Dave and his Blackwater

He got back to us later “Just wanted to say thank you – to be part of the creation makes it even more unique and personal, the way the natural colours of the wood have come out are just stunning and it sounds and plays beautifully”……Thanks Dave, we appreciate the kind words!

Brook Blackwater May 2021

Owain’s new Weaver joins three other Brooks in his collection – a Torridge, Lamorna and a Cary. The Weaver‘s back and sides are made of an old mahogany school bench top Owain brought over to the workshop last year.

Owain's Weaver

John, from Bath, brought in his 2017 Lyn and we fitted a K&K Pure Mini pickup.

Lyn Cutaway with a K&K

Brian called in with his slightly older Okement. He bought it in Hanks, in Denmark Street, way back in 1998 and it’s served him well ever since. It was the first time Brian had visited the workshop so we honoured our normal offer of a free first set-up!

Brian and his Brook Okement

Apologies for the slightly shorter news this month, as you can see from the case collection, we’ve been inundated with repairs and we’re attempting to work our way through them one by one……

Cases

Including extensive work on this rather battered 1964 Gibson Dove.

Dove Repair

Brookguitars News April 2021

April 2021

Firstly, this month, we have this spectacular Koa Lamorna.

Koa Brook Lamorna

We bought the wood from a local furniture maker who regularly visits Hawaii sourcing the timber,

Koa Back and Front

Koa purfling to match.

Brook Koa Close Up

It’s great to be able to include customers again in our monthly news update now we’re able to invite them back into the workshop and I think it’s fair to say Tim was delighted with his guitar!

Tim and Koa Lamorna

Another Lamorna left the workshop with singer songwriter Will Adams who records under the name Graffiti,

Will and Brook Lamorna

Here are two previous recordings, Will’s planning on writing a Lamorna song inspired by the instrument.

2 CDs by Graffiti

The third Lamorna of the month, a rosewood and Sitka one, was collected by Kevin from Milton Abbot in West Devon.

Kevin and Brook Lamorna

David sent us these photos of himself with his Engelmann and black walnut Taw in his parents’ garden in New South Wales, just south of Sydney.

Torridge in N.S.W.

He’s just put in an order for a reclaimed mahogany and Sitka Lamorna.

D.H. Torridge

Stewart came over and we fitted a pickup on his new Abbey, he brought over his sunburst Lyn which will be coming up for its tenth birthday shortly.

Stuart with Abbey and Lyn

James managed to navigate the lane in the largest motor-home we’d had up here for a quick set-up on his fifteen year old cocobolo Torridge.

J.H. and Brook Torridge

Bob bought the rosewood Taw we had in the shop, we were delighted to see the slightly serious face offset by the very fine fez!

Bob and Brook Lamorna

A pair of Torridges here for Coda,

Two Brook Torridges

Sitka tops, one with a figured mahogany back and sides and the other with rosewood.

2 For Coda

Amongst the repairs this month perhaps the most interesting was this neck narrowing and reshaping on a guitar for Matt, a fine guitarist and classical guitar teacher in Exeter.

Re-shape Neck

That’s all we have for you until next month!

Brook Guitars News March 2021

March 2021

Rick Camp wrote to let us know that the Clyst model we originally made for him back in 2001 was now 20 years old, it’s been gigged extensively, here are a couple of photos of Rick and the Clyst in action!

First Brook Clyst

Regular visitors will be aware that this is our new website. We’re still tweaking it, let us know what you think. We’re really pleased with the way it’s turned out – we’ve nodded our heads to the style of the old site and improved the information on the different models and their relative sizes.

New Brook Home Page

We made this 12 string Tavy for Andrew in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. It has a Sitka top

Brook 12 string Tavy

And English walnut back and sides, Andrew was after one similar to the one we made for Ant Phillips.

Brook 12 string walnut back

Since the first lockdown and the ending of any live musical activity, our old friend, musician Richard James has taken to writing! His latest book is about the rock band UFO and, like buses, he has three more coming along shortly, celebrating Tom Petty, Status Quo and Joe Jackson. We promised Richard we’d give him a special author’s discount when his sales catch up with previous Brook owner, author Kazuo Ishiguro.

Richard and UFO

We had some stormy weather the other morning,

Stormy Morning

Andy discovered the lane blocked by a fallen tree and had to take a detour to the workshop.

Andy's Bike

Spring is in the air and Jez took the opportunity to take this little un to the park! He wrote “Thanks so much for your hand in my present! We’re setting a pattern here with the Lyn for my 40th, Holly for 50th….”

Jez and Brook Holly

Jack started making up some mahogany linings

Brook Linings

So Andy thought it may be time to overhaul the jig he made up to slot them on the bandsaw!

Andy mending the lining jig

I started roughing out the padauk neck for James in Michigan, as always with padauk there’s a lot of bright orange sawdust!

I thinned out the neck and narrowed it a little on this classical guitar for Matt from Exeter,

reshaping a classical guitar neck

Here we have the first coats of lacquer on James’ Tamar and Matt’s classical.

Two in the spray room

Megan and Brian from the duo Red, Green and Blue came down for set-ups on their guitars and treated us to an impromptu concert!

Brian and Megan outside the workshop

We’ve just reset the neck on this twenty one year old Taw

Taw neck reset

And this Gibson LG-0, we also replaced the cheap plastic bridge with an ebony one.

Stay safe as we start to come out of lockdown.

Brook Guitars News Febuary 2021

February 2021

Steve Tilston latest album ‘Such Times’ has just been released on Riverboat Records, it’s a generous helping of fifteen fine songs and tunes and we heartily recommend it.

 

Steve Tilston Such Times

Steve used his Calder on all but one of the tracks!

 

Such Times back cover

We’ve just completed this rosewood Taw for our shop,

 

Brook Taw Shop February
Here’s a close up of the Sitka spruce top.

Brook Taw Close Up February

Two here for Mak in Rathbone Place –

 

Mak's Two Brooks

An English walnut and cedar Torridge and a bubinga and Engelmann spruce Taw.

 

Brook Taw and Torridge

Every year we post a photo of the snowdrops in the orchard so here’s this year’s array,

 

Brook Workshop Snowdrops

Along with a scattering of snow on the pond.

 

Snow on Pond

Woody Mann emailed recently – “I’m just getting in touch to let you know that the guitar you made for me way back is sounding great and is so comfortable to play.  A different voice from my other instruments…I’ve been playing it a lot lately. Reminds me of my visit to your shop years ago.” Thanks Woody!

 

Woody

Here’s Andy grafting a strengthener across a tricky break on an Atkin headstock.

 

Andy Grafting

Anyone for a nice set of cocobolo?

 

Cocobolo

And finally – a quick shot of some of the guitars we’ll be putting together and stringing up shortly.

 

Brook Spray Shop

Brook Guitars News January 2021

January 2021
This beautiful all koa Lyn went off to Coda,Koa Brook Lyn
Here’s a close up of the back, the wood came directly from our supplier in Hawaii.Brook Lyn Koa Back
The headstock is fitted with Schaller Grand Tune tuners with snakewood buttons.Grand Tune Tuners
A Lyn and a Lamorna went up to Mak at Mak’s Guitars in Rathbone Place.Brook Lyn and Lamorna for Mak
The Lyn‘s walnut and Engelmann, the Lamorna‘s rosewood and Sitka.Walnut Brook Lyn and Rosewood Lamorna
Two more Taws for Project:

Two Brook Taws for Project
One rosewood and Sitka and the other walnut and Engelmann.

Rosewood and walnut Brook Taws
Andrew has a Lyn he bought some years ago, he couldn’t resist the Lamorna in our shop. He wrote  “the guitar sounds wonderful, it’s a superb instrument. As requested here’s the Brook siblings, about 20 years separating them I think!”.

Andrew and Two Brooks
Andy did a fine job again getting John’s damaged Torridge back in working order.

Broken Torridge
He’s been preparing some custom necks out of maple, walnut and paduak along with some standard ones out of our old stock mahogany

Brook Workshop Making Necks
Meanwhile I’m carving necks for this batch, then preparing the guitars for lacquering.

Pre Spraying
Mark Robinson sent us this photo of the Tamar we made for him nearly twenty years ago. He’s running a songwriting workshop on Zoom on February 17th.

Mark R Tamar

We’re still busy redesigning the website, we’ve been looking through the archives and thought we’d add some models we’d initially made as one-offs to our range,

we hope to have the new site up and running to coincide with the February news update.

New Model Brook Plans
Coincidentally while all the plans were around a little Holly came in for a set-up. This one’s the guitar model on the uke body.

Brook Holly Travel Guitar

Stay safe.

Brook Guitars News December 2020

December 2020

It’s the winter solstice, the shortest day today, there have been some spectacular skies on the drive to and from the workshop every day. Here are two morning photos,

Morning Drive 1

Morning Drive 2

And an evening shot.

Evening Drive
John picked up his nylon strung Taw to join the other Brooks in his collection

John and his Nylon strung Brook Taw
And Stewart bought the Abbey to join his Lyn.

Stewart and his Brook Abbey
Bernie Baines sent us these photos, he snapped up the figured mahogany Lyn we’d made for our shop.

Bernie Baines and his Brook Lyn
We’ve drawn up a plan for another small parlour guitar for a customer in the States, this one’s sized between the Abbey and the Creedy.

Another Brook Parlour Plan

TV’s latest album contains a series of songs written and recorded at home in the period after the first lockdown when he discovered he’d contracted Covid-19 whilst supporting Stiff Little Fingers in the weeks before the country closed down.

Lockdown Holiday

We received these five rather battered boxes of rosewood, walnut, maple, spruce and ebony from Spain this week to add to our substantial stock of wood.

Wood for Brook Guitars

Talking of woods – I discovered an old memory card for the camera with some photos of Chris at National Bee Supplies in Okehampton cutting up some bubinga and walnut for us.

Exeter Bee Supplies

Andy and I were sent a massive box of delicious Indian snacks and teas – thanks Dev!

Indian Snacks

Andy had to make up a special tool to adjust the truss rod on this Walden baritone.

Walden Baritone
Two interesting guitars came in for a neck reset and other work: A nice old Weissenborn and a Stella.

Two Vintage Guitars

This Gibson came in for a neck reset and the plastic bridge lifting from the front, we’ll replace it with an identically shaped ebony one, the bridge resting on the top is one we took off a previous Gibson with a similar problem.

Gibson Plastic Bridge

Season’s Greetings to you all, stay safe.

Seasons Greetings

Let’s hope that we have a better year in 2021!

Brook Guitars News November 2020

November 2020

One of the problems of the lockdown is that our customers can’t come down and pick up their guitars. This nylon strung 12 fret cutaway Taw is for John from Somerset who has several other Brooks.

Brook Nylon Taw The top is Sitka spruce,

Nylon Strung Brook Taw Top
The back and sides are Crelicam ebony with bubinga binding,

Crelicam Ebony Taw Along with Schaller GrandTune machines with ebony buttons and black barrels. Hope to get a photo of John with the guitar for next month’s news.

Nylon Brook Taw Headstock
Dev has now got his Lamorna and send us these stunning photos taken in the beautiful Ambapur stepwell!

Dev And Brook Lamorna 1

Dev And Brook Lamorna 2

Dev and Brook Lamorna 3

This ovangkol and European spruce Little Silver and is about to be sent to Keith in London,

Brook Little Silver
It has a 595 mm scale, it’s strung as a Terz and is tuned G to G.

Brook Little Silver Terz
This mahogany Lyn and rosewood Taw have just gone up to Coda

Two Brooks For Coda
And these two, a rosewood Torridge and Lamorna, are off to Project this week.

Two Brooks For Project
This fine piece of English walnut has just been chosen by a customer for a Taw.

Waltut Brook Taw Soon
You may remember – this red gum Taw had been left outside in its case on a Middle Eastern airfield by airline staff for a considerable amount of time. The Hiscox case took the brunt of the excessive heat and we managed to get away with just re-topping the guitar.

Red Gum Brook Taw Re Top
This month brought in a couple of headstock repairs: This Gordon Smith

Gordon Smith
And a rather nice Heritage.

Heritage Repair
This Torridge has had a rather nasty knock, we’ll see what we can do to get it back on the road again.

Broken Brook Torridge
Unless you’re lucky enough to live in Cornwall or the Isle of Wight you’re going to still be under a fairly strict form of lockdown like us. Let’s all be patient, stay safe, then hopefully next year things will return to a form of normality!

Brook Guitars News October 2020

October 2020

Dev was featured in a previous issue of our occasional magazine Babbling Brook.

Dev and his Brook Torridge

He was hoping to come over to pick up his second Brook, this Lamorna, but because of Covid that’s obviously not on for a while so we’ve just sent it over to him by courier.

Dev's New Brook Lamorna
This time Dev went for rosewood with an Adirondack top.

Dev's Lamorna Close Up
We’d made this little Abbey for our shop,

Brook Abbey For Sale
It’s has a 595 mm  scale, European spruce top, a pyramid bridge

Brook Abbey close up
And rosewood back and sides. If you’re interested in this guitar just get in touch.

Rosewood Brook Abbey
Jack’s been busy converting some old mahogany boards brought in by customers into guitar sets.

Jack Resawing Matt’s was stored for years in his father’s carpentry workshop and is going to be a Lamorna. Owain’s, rescued from old school benches, will be shortly be used to make a Weaver!

Mahogany Guitar Sets
I’ve been making up a new set of bending forms, we’ve been using the old ones for twenty five years and were getting a little worse for wear!

Brook Bending Forms

We were rather pleased to come across an honorary mention in Andrew Cartmel’s book ‘The Vinyl Detective – The Run-Out Groove’!
“Look at that.” He nodded at the guitar.
“Very nice,” said Nevada.
“Hand made,” said Erik, “by Brook in Devon. Beautiful guitar. Much too nice for that silly sod. He’s got ten thumbs. He should be playing a plastic banjo.

The Vinyl Detective

Norman came down to collect his Taw back in 2007, he came back recently because he wanted our pearl logo instead of the original transfer. You’d be wrong in thinking there’s only one Brook in the photo, here’s the story:

“When I originally collected my guitar from Andy’s house,  I was with Greg my partner and Nelson my Jack Russell, sadly neither are with me now but on instructions from Greg in his will I have now a wonderful 18 month old Jack born only hours before Greg passed away and born only a mile from where he was born…..her name is BROOK”

Norman Brook and Brook

Andy took this Taw and Torridge up to Project Music,

Two Brooks For Project

The back and sides on the Taw is English walnut and the Torridge is ovangkol.

Taw and Torridge for Project

We’re starting work on a new design for our website, we thought we might use this screenshot of the workshop from Google Earth!

Brook Guitars Easterbrook

This Strat had a relic finish and the owner asked for us to get rid of all the artificially created dinks and scratches and refinish it in Fiesta Red nitro.

Strat Respray
Here’s Rob from Bristol’s vintage Gibson ETG-150, we gave the neck a sympathetic refinish recently.

Gibson ETG 150
Two Martins in for neck resets: the first is a new 000-15, it’s disappointing that a company with such a reputation lets guitars with fairly major faults like this get through quality control, then shows no interest in remedying the problem.

Martin Neck Reset The second is a three year old D18 with the same problem.

Neck Reset 2 This fine mandola made by Kai Tönjes came in for some work on the frets and to lower the action.

Mandola

Take care during these difficult times.

Brook Guitars News September 2020

September 2020

We’d like to advise our customers that workshop visits are by appointment only now.
If there’s a  sure sign that Autumn’s almost upon us it’s the dew on the cobwebs in the morning in the orchard.

Brook Guitars Orchard

We forgot to photograph the rosewood and Sitka Torridge before Andy took it up to Project Music earlier in the month.
So they sent us these two of the guitar in the Exeter shop,

Torridge Project 1

Thanks for the photos guys!

Brook Headstock

On the subject of Project  Music – Alan and Hugh came down to the shop and they each bought a Taw.

They popped into the workshop a few weeks ago to have a look around and check out where their guitars were made!

Alan and Hugh at Brook Guitars

Two new stock guitars this month:  This figured mahogany and Sitka Lyn

Figured Mahogany Brook Torridge

And this  rosewood and Sitka Taw.

Rosewood Brook Taw

Michelle sent us a copy of her very fine collection of songs chosen from her wide repertoire:  from traditional material to a Lowell George classic – all skilfully accompanied by Bonz.  We thoroughly recommend it.  Michelle has a cherry Torridge.

Michellle CD

Here’s a photo of Tulley with his new Lynher by the Yellowstone river and another taken at Albertsons Market with a few pals. He wrote “Can’t thank you enough for the beautiful work you do!”.

Tulley with his Brook Lynher

Tom Schultz from Colorado is using the guitar we made for him in 2015 for the video and recording of this well known Shakespeare sonnet.

Tom Schultz

And appropriately here he is in front of Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Tom Shultz in Stratford Upon Avon

We’ve started drawing out the plans for 12 fret options for the Tamar and Lamorna to help James Filkins from Michigan choose his new Brook.

Lamorna and Tamar Plans

Sam and George had a musical get-together, pooling the four Brooks they have between them.

Sam George and 4 Brooks

John sent this holiday snap, good to see John taking his Teign out for an airing!

John on Hols

Gareth sent his twenty year old yew Bovey down to us after it had taken a rather severe knock. Not an entirely invisible repair but everything’s back in place, the broken braces have been repaired and it’s playing perfectly again.

Broken Bovey

Stay safe.

Brook Guitars News August 2020

August 2020

We’ll start off this month with a new model, the Lynher, which we developed for Tulley in Montana.

Brook Lynher model

As you can see – it’s a parlour size, left-handed, fourteen fret, nylon strung instrument.

Brook Lynher close up

The back and sides were constructed from solid mahogany, the back’s carved into an arch making back braces and linings unnecessary. The top’s braced as we would a classical guitar. The instrument is surprisingly loud and we’re really pleased with the way it’s turned out. We can offer this thinline option on any of our models.

Brook Lynher thinline

Jack inlaid this snowdrop design on the fingerboard. The guitar is off to the States next week and hopefully we’ll have a photo of Tulley with his third Brook to add to the September news.

Snowdrop Inlay

Another left hander and another going to the States, this one’s off to Massachusetts. The Abbey is a 595 mm scale small parlour model.

Brook Abbey

Our customer is a Jethro Tull fan and asked for a replica of the one we made for Ian Andrson.

Brook Abbey close up

As you can see by this mountain of cases, the repairs have been coming in thick and fast:

Repairs

It seems to have been Martin month:
Brian McDonald of the duo Red, Green and Blue called in for a proper set up on his Martin, due to Covid their tour has been postponed and, along with most musicians, performances have come to a standstill for the time being.

Brian

This one came in for a refret with Evo Gold fretwire,

Martin Refret

This Martin came in with the common fault – the plastic bindings were coming away from the body, Andy re-glued them and refinished the problem areas.

Martin Bindings Problem

This twenty year old Teign came in after a severe knock to its tail block, Andy glued it back together, re-sprayed the back and sides and it’s as good as new!

Vintage Brook Teign

We re-fretted this Watkins Rapier, in the early 1960’s American guitars were hard to get your hands on so lots of musicians over here went  for this, the English equivalent of the Strat! Anyone of ‘a certain age’ will remember these from the Bell’s mail order catalogue way back in the 1960s.

Watkins Rapier

Matt brought in another ’60s classic for some TLC- this Gibson J-160E, the John Lennon model. The originals were sunburst but like Lennon’s, this one has had the top stripped at some time in its life, the serial number is forty two away from its famous counterpart!

Gibson J-160E

Andy reset the neck on this Taylor, which, we have to admit, is a much simpler job with their unique neck joint.

Taylor Neck Re-set

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. The makers of these Chinese guitars spuriously claim they are Brook’s ‘New Series’. I don’t think we have to worry too much about the competition, take a look – if you can see any similarities between these and the real thing apart from the fact they are vaguely guitar shaped let us know.

Fake News

Julian Bream
15 July 1933 – 14 August 2020

J.B.

Brook Guitars News July 2020

July 2020

Kev Aram asked us to make a tribute to the cowboy guitars of the 1930’s and ’40’s,

Kev's Brook Lyn

Back then they were cheaply made and often stencilled displaying the cowboy legends from the films of the period.

Brook Lyn Cowboy Guitar

Our Lyn certainly isn’t cheaply made and maybe not to everyone’s taste but we absolutely love it!

Brook Cowboy Guitar full length

Adam came all the way down from Scotland to pick up his Blackwater 12 string.

Adam and his Brook Blackwater

We showed you the headstock inlay last month, here’s the rest of the guitar,

Brook Blackwater

Adam provided the Huon pine top

Huon Pine

And the cocobolo back and sides.

Cocobolo Back

George didn’t have far to travel from Bridgwater to collect his nylon strung Cary,

George and his Brook Cary

Here’s the full length photo

Brook Cary lefty

And close-ups of the Sitka top and Crelicam ebony back.

Brook Cary Top and Back

George in Battersea ordered his second Brook, this time a cedar and walnut Tavy cutaway, it’s off with the courier to him this week.

George's Cedar and Walnut Tavy

Bob came over from Dorset to pick up his new rosewood Tamar, also his second Brook! he wrote “The guitar sings, it’s wonderful, many thanks”.

Bob's Brook Tamar

Michael sent this photo from the mountains of Colorado. “I don’t think I’ve ever owned an instrument with an Engelmann top – it sounds fantastic and I love it already”.

Michael and Brook Torridge

Last month we mentioned Phil Beer, this month it’s Steve Knightley’s turn! On the wall behind him in his recent videos there’s one of our more unusual instruments – the Ash.

Steve Knightley Video

It’s a reproduction of the instrument we made for Billy Connolly for his 60th birthday nearly twenty years ago!

Billy Connolly Brook Ash

Matt from South Devon brought up some outer cuts of a tree that had had been stored for years in his dad’s workshop with the hope we could use them to build a Lamorna.

Timber1

To be honest they didn’t look too promising but a few hours work removing the bark and re-sawing revealed some beautifully figured dark mahogany!

Timber 2

Dawn, our post-lady, makes model buildings in her spare time so we gave her a bag of our workshop off-cuts, she showed us this photo of her latest project – the local church made from guitar remnants!

Dawn's Model Church

Please mask up, maintain social distancing and stay safe over the summer.

Brook Guitars News June 2020

June 2020

Here are the latest two guitars for Coda Music – a rosewood Lamorna and another figured mahogany Lyn.

Brook Lamorna and Brook Lyn
Our thanks to Phil Beer for mentioning us in the first of his YouTube lockdown gigs on 30th May. Our friend David Oddy made his very last guitar for Phil, we lacquered it after David died and Chris Billings completed it.

Phil Beer Lockdown Gig

Here’s  a photo of Adam’s newly strung Blackwater 12 string headstock, Adam supplied the original shadow photo of his family as the basis for the design of the inlay.

Adam's 12 string Brook Blackwater

Tony Skinner is a welcome addition to the Brook fold, amongst other things he’s written over 100 guitar education books, contributed to 250 issues of Total Guitar and had three quarters of a million hits on his YouTube channel!

Tony Skinner and his Brook Lyn

Wendy’s Lyn has been repaired and is ready to collect.

Wendy's Brook Lyn

We’ve just completed two new guitars for our shop: This rosewood and European spruce Lamorna

Stock Brook Lamorna

And a mahogany and Sitka spruce Lyn.

Stock Brook Lyn

We’ll be getting in touch with Bob from Weymouth shortly to let him know his new Tamar‘s ready.

Bob's Brook Tamar

Richard narrowly missed entering his lockdown photo in the April and May competition but we thought it deserved a spot this month!

Richard's Bovey
Two almost opposite causes of guitar damage here: firstly this Taw, much to its owners annoyance, was left in the searing heat on an airport runway in the Middle East for a long period – we’ve at last been given the go-ahead to re-top it.

Taw Damage
Whereas this Martin has suffered from over-humidifying and the back has sprung off in places – hopefully not quite such a major repair job needed for this one.

Martin Damage
John, an old friend and Brook collector from Somerset, came down to order a nylon strung Taw, to help fund it he’s put up for sale this rosewood and Sitka 2013 Lamorna. This one’s still labelled an OM as it was the first of this model we made, it comes equipped with a Fishman Infinity pickup system and is in ‘as new’ condition. If anyone wishes to try it get in touch, it’s here at the workshop, John’s asking £2,100 for the guitar.

Brook Lamorna For Sale
Lastly, a preview of our tribute to the cowboy guitars of the 1930s and ’40s, we’re making this for Kevin Aram.

Brook Lyn Cowboy Guitar

We’re still taking the Covid threat very seriously so if you’re thinking of visiting please be prepared to wear a mask, sanitise and maintain social distancing.

Brook Guitars News May 2020

May 2020

We’re back at work at last. Initially just the three of us, Andy, Jack and myself because of the difficulties in social distancing in our fairly compact workshop. We hope Yasmin and Jake will be able to join us again later in the year. We’ve only been back a week so there’s not that much to show you in the way of finished guitars but we’ll walk you through what’s going on:
Jack’s putting together the next batch of bodies

Jack Putting Together Guitars

Including this left handed Abbey for a customer in Massachusetts

Brook Abbey

And this thin-line nylon-strung new and, as yet, un-named model for Tulley in Montana. This one’s also a lefty.

Nylon Strung Brook

Andy’s in the machine shop preparing necks for these guitars.

Andy Preparing Brook Necks

I’m upstairs fretting and preparing the bridges for the next batch to be completed including this figured mahogany Clyst for Coda

Si Putting Bridges On Brooks

And this twelve string Blackwater for Adam in Deanston, Scotland.

Adam's Brook Twelve String

Now for the latest customers’ lockdown photos: Roel sent us this photo from his home in Ghent, Belgium.

Roel In Ghent

Pat, from Las Vegas, sent us his second contribution, this time featuring the twin six and twelve strings we made for him back in 2007.

Pat With His Twins

Dave Smith’s mahogany Torridge seems perfectly happy in hog heaven!

Brook Torridge In Hog Heaven

Mike sent us sent us this one on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of picking up his Taw, he says “The tone has only got better as the guitar has aged. It still looks like new, Thanks again for producing such a wonderful instrument “. Good to hear, thanks Mike!

Andy, Mike And Si

Tony sent us this ‘Darby and Joan’ photo of his pair of cutaway Tamars – a steel string on the left and nylon strung on the right.

Darby And Joan Brook

Here’s a first – Su sent us this ode to her Taw between a series of photos she’d taken during the lockdown.

Su's Poem

Wendy’s Lyn came in for a neck refinish after someone hadn’t thought to remove their thumb ring before some rigorous playing!

Wendy's Butterflys

This was an interesting coincidence – these two Boveys arrived at the workshop separately the same week and according to the records they were the first two of this model we made twenty five years ago!

First Two Boveys

Even older – this Manson Dove from 1990 came in for repair.

Manson Dove

A few days in, a few slips of a blade and my hands are back in the same state as before their enforced healing period.

Bad Hands

Ah well – it’s good to be back, all the same!

Brook Guitars News April 2020

April 2020

We’re still on lockdown and unable to use the workshop for the time being unfortunately. Luckily music-wise there plenty to keep us amused in the way of living room sessions and live content on YouTube and Facebook: Interesting videos from Richard Thompson, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Steve Earle, Howe Gelb, Mark Mulcahy, Jack Hayter, Jorma Kaukonen, Neil Young, Laura Marling, Joan Baez, UOGB, Toyah and Robert Fripp amongst many hundreds of others!

Back to the news – Andy managed to get these two guitars, a Taw and a Blackwater, packed up and sent off to Coda in Stevenage.

Two Brooks For Coda

And now for the competition:

We asked for some photos of our customers with their Brooks while unable to leave their respective houses, so….. here’s Jez with his Lyn, he’s using his time to start work on a koa 00 sized guitar,

Jez and his Brook Lyn While Steve’s in lockdown in the attractive surroundings of downtown Mystic, C.T. with his custom Creedy he’s starting to put together a custom Tele.

Steve and his Brook Creedy in Mystic

Howard’s been busy up in Norfolk putting together this fine photo.

Howard Brook Logo

Pat’s masked up in the isolation of his drum studio in Las Vegas, must be a welcome break from all those drums!

Pat's Drum Studio

Chris is playing in his back garden, fine shirt there Chris!

Chris F

Tulley’s in seclusion in Montana with his Cary and his Ash.

Tulley's Two Brooks

Andrew Blackburn’s relaxing on his balcony with his Tamar.

Andrew and his Brook Tamar

Here’s Ronak with his Taw in Ahmedabad, India, working his way through the pieces in Dev’s ‘Fingerstyle Etudes’ book.

Ronak with his Brook in India Quite a few of our customers have found the time to record videos: Jon London wrote and recorded ‘The Brighton Rag’ on his Teign!

Jon London with his Brook Teign

Amit has been recording in his kitchen with his new Bovey.

Amit and his Brook Bovey

Robbie sent this Brook social distancing photo and has been very busy composing and recording,

Robbie's Photo

And Nigel recorded his Lyn in his garden! Check our YouTube channel for these videos.

Nigel Recording in his Garden

Now – a fine effort, as we would expect, from Richard James, who sent the message ” luckily I was able to jet off to my private island for the photo of my Bovey in lockdown”

Richard's Tropical Island

And fabulous as the panorama of Richard’s tropical island is – this month’s winner has to be Howard – after all that effort with a tiny coping saw and a huge stack of plywood! If you keep on sending the photos we’ll repeat the competition next month!

One advantage from all this time away from work – for about the first time in my working life my hands are relatively grime and split free after the years of in-ground ebony dust, plus cuts and splits have taken their toll…… still not particularly well manicured admittedly but their current condition certainly benefits the guitar playing!

Rough Hands

We lost one of our greatest songwriters this month.

John Prine

RIP

John Prine

October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020

Brook Guitars News March 2020

March 2020

Well……things have developed rapidly since last month’s admonitions

to wash our hands thoroughly. We started with notices asking people not to

visit if they showed any symptoms of the virus to ‘Strictly No Visitors’ –

then the government’s total lockdown for non-essential businesses. It goes

without saying that the workshop is closed during the current crisis. We’d

like to apologise to all of our customers, in particular those who’ve

ordered and are going to have to wait a little longer for their new

guitars: Louise, Adam, George, Bill, Tulley, Kev, Dev, Jack and also of

course Coda, Project and Intersound.

No Visitors

Andy’s taking care of the Facebook page and I’ve set up office at home

to keep on top of the email and the website.

Si

Brook Home Office

So – not much to show you this month but Andy managed to deliver a

rosewood Torridge and Taw to Project Music in Exeter.

Project Music Taw and Torridge

We set up this Les Paul, re-glued the bridge and repaired the finish on

the Santa Cruz and did a neck re-set on this eighteen year old Torridge that had been exposed to some

humidity issues sometime in its life.

Les Paul Santa Cruz Brook Torridge

Caspar was evidentially pleased with Andy’s set-up on his vintage

Hofner bass.

Caspar and Hofner Bass

Chris bought his Lyn from Coda

Music, he sent us this photo taken in his hometown of Rye, he said

“The Lyn’s great, it just falls under my fingers, I love the feel of

the 12 fret set-up and the action is really good!”.

Chris and his Brook Lyn in Rye

I took the opportunity before our

enforced break to take a few photos of the empty workshop.

Empty

Brook Workshop

I’m afraid next month, for the first time in the twenty years we’ve

been keeping you up to date with our latest news, we’re going to be rather

short of news items so – all you self-isolators out there – how about some

photos of yourselves with your Brooks

to fill out the April news? The wackiest photo wins a set of Elixirs!

Competition

We realise that a large proportion of our customers, like us, are

likely to fall into the high risk category so we wish everyone well,

Stay in, stay safe and keep in touch.

Brook Guitars News Febuary 2020

February 2020

We’ll start off the February news with a couple of little ‘uns and a

proud dad! Here’s young Jay, Amit and his new Bovey.

Two Jays

Amit’s a fine player, he came down from Birmingham to collect his Bovey, one of our range of travel

guitars.

Brook

Bovey

He asked Jack to inlay a Jay on the headstock (for obvious reasons!)

Check out Amit’s album on Bandcamp, we’ll hopefully get some video

featuring the new guitar soon.

Brook Bovey with Jay Inlay

Charlie McKeon borrowed my Lamorna

for a recording session with renowned producer John Wood whose credits

include John Martyn, Nick Drake and Sandy Denny. Charlie’s a talented young

artist from Liverpool, he’s going back to complete the album with John next

year.

Charlie McKeon and Brook Lamorna

Trevor didn’t have far to come

from Sidmouth to pick up his 015 cutaway Lyn,

Trevor and Brook Lyn

It has an Engelmann spruce top, rosewood back and sides, lacewood

binding with the custom 015 abalone purfling,

Brook Lyn close up

Bound headstock and gold tuners.

Brook Lyn Headstock

John bought his Lamorna from Coda in Stevenage and came all

the way down from Lincolnshire to have a K&K pickup fitted and to see

where his guitar was made! John’s in the folk band Between The Lines.

John

and his Brook Lamorna

Andy picked up the Madagascan rosewood and Adirondack Lamorna we featured last month, it looks like

it was worth the wait!

Andy

and his Brook Lamorna

We fitted the second K&K this month on this Weaver and made up a koa pickguard for this

partscaster for our old friend Richard James.

Brook Weaver and Partscaster

Last week we had a couple of visitors

down from London: Sam for a set up on his Taw and George to check out the progress of

his second Brook, an English walnut Tavy.src= Sam and George

Down here we’ve managed  to avoid the worst of the floods that

ravaged the rest of the country so here’s the annual photo of the snowdrops

in the orchard with the workshop in the background.

Brook Guitars Workshop and Snowdrops

Here are the latest two for Project, top to bottom – a rosewood and

Sitka Lamorna and and rosewood and

Engelmann Tavy.

Brook Lamorna and Tavy for Project Guitars

Andy hand-made the brass tailpiece for this Fylde bouzouki for Norman,

another of our regular customers.

Brook Tailpiece for Fylde

If you’re travelling to the Middle East don’t leave your guitar for

hours on the runway in the searing heat – this is what it did to the Hiscox

case, the guitar fared slightly better but will need a new top!

Too Hot Hiscox

We’ll show you the results in future news updates.

Brook Guitars News January 2020

January 2020

This is the forthcoming album by the excellent Pete Berryman, it’s a

fine mix of Pete’s songs and exquisite guitar playing. We’ll be

interviewing Pete in the next issue of Babbling Brook.

Pete

Berryman Distant Shore

Tony picked up this crossover nylon strung Tamar as a sister to the steel string one we

made for him last year.

Brook

Tavy Nylon Strung

Classical style headstock and bridge,

Nylon String Brook Tamar

European spruce top with rosewood back and sides.

Nylon

Brook Tamar

Talking of nylon strung guitars here’s Paul Esslement busking in the

Tottenham Court Road underground with his nylon strung Weaver!

P.E.with his nylon Weaver

This custom Lamorna is awaiting

collection, it has an Adirondack spruce top, three ring rosette, an abalone

border,

Adirondack Brook Lamorna

Madagascan rosewood back and sides

Madagascar Brook Lamorna

And headstock with an abalone border and Waverly tuners.

Brook Lamorna

Headstock

In case you haven’t seen it yet Steve Tilston has just posted a fine

new song ‘Crying Shame’, check it out on our YouTube channel.

Steve Tilston Crying Shame

Tom was quick off the mark when he heard

his Taw was ready to collect, he came

over from Minehead the following day and picked it up!

Tom and

his Brook Taw

Here’s our latest model in the ever expanding selection, it’s loosely

based on the early Gibson 180 body shape with a shallower body depth and a

640 mm scale length. We’re making a highly customised one of these for

Louise Loft. Louise has named it the Blackwater, a tributary of the river Axe!

Brook Blackwater

This has an Engelmann spruce top and rosewood back and sides. If anyone

is interested in this particular one just get in touch.

Brook Blackwater close up

Anthony from Surrey bought this Tamar we’d recently converted  as a

left-hander and he’s very happy with the result!  It’s become his main

instrument in his work as a musician in care homes and for people with

learning disabilities!

Brook Tamar lefty

We reset the neck on this 1926 vintage Martin for Andy from Modern

Music in Truro, it now has a nice low action now and plays beautifully and

still has the original bridge and saddle.

Vintage Martin neck reset

We’ve just repaired the broken headstock and sorted out some damage to

the top of this Taylor belonging to Chris Hallsworth.

Taylor Neck Break

Luckily he still has his two Brooks

handy when he gigs with folk band Celtic Heartbeat,

Celtic Heartbeat

Here he is at Evolution Recording Studios with his Taw.

Chris

at Evolution Studios

We’ll be delivering this mahogany and Sitka spruce Lamorna to Project music next week.

Lamorna for Project

That’s about all for January!