News

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!

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!

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.

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

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

One misty morning on the way to work.

The orchard on a frosty morning a few days later.

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

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

And best wishes for 2023!

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.

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.

Jack inlaid these two swallows on the headstock.

Following that we have George and his left handed Weaver –

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

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

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”.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Here’s the Sitka top and walnut back and sides

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!).

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.

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

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

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

 

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

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

Ron collected the Carey we featured last month

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

With the remainder of a very good crop of apples.

September 2022

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

August 2022

Kevin came up from Plymouth to collect his new Tavy

It has an Adirondack top with rosewood back and sides.

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!

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

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!

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

Andy resprayed this Precision bass fingerboard

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!”.

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

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!

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.

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,

While Jack’s preparing this batch 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.

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

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

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

More next month!

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…

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

The Lyn has a European spruce top

With this interesting set of English walnut back and sides.

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

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.

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

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”.

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.

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

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

We have this European spruce Lyn for sale,

With rosewood back and sides.

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.

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.

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.

May 2022

We made this Calder for Mick in County Durham,

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

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

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”

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

Here’s a close up.

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

With a matching rosette and tie block,

Thai rosewood back and sides

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

This rosewood Weaver went up to 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!

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

Andy fitted a K&K pickup on this 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.

See you next month!

April 2022

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

Rosewood back and sides,

With an elevated fingerboard,

Sound-port and arm rest.

Another nylon strung Brook here for Alan from Somerset,

This time a Carey fourteen fretter with a cutaway,

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

With a rounded off plain slotted headstock.

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

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.

Ivor picked up the mahogany Lyn we featured last month

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

March 2022

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

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

This time with a Venetian cutaway,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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’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!

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.

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!

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.

We’ll find out later in the year.

February 2022

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

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

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

Lacewood back and sides

And a stag inlay on the headstock.

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

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

Here’s the lacewood back.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

More news next month!

January 2022

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

This Lyn‘s going over to Skip in Florida,

It has a European spruce top with a pyramid bridge,

English walnut back and sides,

And Waverly tuners on the squared off slotted headstock.

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

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

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

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!

Three Martins in for set-ups.

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.

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.

Woody Mann 1952 – 2022

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.

December 2021

No wonder no-one can find us!

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

He kindly sent us a copy of his latest book –

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’!

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

Season’s Greetings to everyone

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

 

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,

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

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

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

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

Complemented by these Schaller tuners.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

October 2021

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

We sent this Lyn up to Stephen in Kent,

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

English walnut back and sides

And a walnut head veneer with Gotoh 510 tuners.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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

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

While Jack worked at home on his latest inlay.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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,

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

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

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

And this sunburst top Lamorna,

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.

This little Clyst is going off to Russ in Oklahoma,

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

And here’s the torch inlay on the headstock.

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

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

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

 

 

July 2021

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

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

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

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

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

With koa back and sides, padouk neck and binding,

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

Along with inlays of James’ design on the headstock

And fingerboard.

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!

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

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.

June 2021

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

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

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

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

Here’s the latest Lamorna for Project Music,

Check out the wild looking figured English walnut!

And this is the latest figured mahogany Lamorna for Coda.

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

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

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

Along with a few personalised inlays on the headstock.

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

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

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.

Will Adams was spotted busking with his Lamorna in Weymouth.

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

We repaired this huge acoustic 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!

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.

Drive carefully!

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 –

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

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!

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

Dave came down from North Devon to pick up his new 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!

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.

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

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!

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……

Including extensive work on this rather battered 1964 Gibson Dove.

April 2021

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

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

Koa purfling to match.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

A pair of Torridges here for Coda,

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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.

We had some stormy weather the other morning,

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

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….”

Jack started making up some mahogany linings

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

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,

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

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!

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

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.

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 used his Calder on all but one of the tracks!

 

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

 

Here’s a close up of the Sitka spruce top.

Two here for Mak in Rathbone Place –

 

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

 

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

 

Along with a scattering of snow on the 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!

 

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

 

Anyone for a nice set of cocobolo?

 

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

 

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

One rosewood and Sitka and the other walnut and Engelmann.

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!”.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Stay safe.

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,

And an evening shot.

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

And Stewart bought the Abbey to join his Lyn.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Season’s Greetings to you all, stay safe.

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

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.

The top is Sitka spruce,

The back and sides are Crelicam ebony with bubinga binding,

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.

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

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

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

This mahogany Lyn and rosewood Taw have just gone up to Coda

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

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

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.

This month brought in a couple of headstock repairs: This Gordon Smith

And a rather nice Heritage.

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

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!

October 2020

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

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.

This time Dev went for rosewood with an Adirondack top.

We’d made this little Abbey for our shop,

It’s has a 595 mm  scale, European spruce top, a pyramid bridge

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

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

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!

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!

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.

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”

Andy took this Taw and Torridge up to Project Music,

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Take care during these difficult times.

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.

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,

Thanks for the photos guys!

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!

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

And this  rosewood and Sitka 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.

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!”.

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.

And appropriately here he is in front of Shakespeare’s birthplace 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.

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

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

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.

Stay safe.