A visit to ...
Steve Jarman http://website.lineone.net/ ~steve.jarman/
steve.jarman@lineone.net
1, Longleigh Lane
Bexleyheath
Kent DA7 5SL
England
TEL ++44 181 311 6883
Steve Jarman guitars
Steve Jarman is a guitarbuilder who lives with his wife and their two kids in Bexleyheath, Kent (to the south-east of London). Although I have never met him in person – we met via the Internet and kept in touch by sending each other the odd e-mail - Steve was kind enough to send me a few photos as well as some information which I'd like to share with you here and now.
Steve works in London where he installs computer systems. In his spare time he builds and repairs instruments. Besides that, he also plays drums in his own band “KUDOS”. Among his clients are some London session and country musicians.
Steve learnt about working with wood from his father and then taught himself how to build instruments by reading books and learning by experience. He feels very indebted to the English guitarbuilder David Cammish from whom he learnt a great deal. When he was only 12, he built his first electric guitar from the wood of an old school-desk. Steve told me that that first guitar of his, though being a bit uncomfortable to play, still looked pretty good. After that he built a bass and a double-neck guitar. Because he didn't have enough money at the time, he would use the same hardware on all his instruments – these could therefore never be played all at the same time! The first order he received was for the body of a double-neck guitar; this was followed by orders for repair jobs, refretting or refinishing. The first complete instrument he built was a bass for the bass player in his band. Through his job in London he met different guitar players for whom he was happy to fulfil their wish to have a ”personal” instrument. Steve's guitars cost roughly £1,000, but unusual requests are obviously more expensive.
In his garden Steve built his own 12-square-meter (4m x 3m) workshop. In front of it he has a strong compressor in a weatherand soundproof casing for supplying the workshop with compressed air.
When building his guitars he tries to do as much as possible himself. He even designs and builds the electronics of his guitars
himself, tailoring everything to the individual needs. Although most of his clients order copies of well-known models, Steve's guitars are always tailor-made to the individual. The client is invited to come and play on the guitar after it has been testassembled for the first time and Steve marks all the areas that feel uncomfortable during playing with a pencil. Then he disappears in his workshop to work on the neck, and when he returns the procedure starts all over again. With a bit of luck these individual adjustments can be made within two to three hours and a very pleased client will leave, “grinning from one ear to the other”, as Steve says.
Such a standard of service would obviously not be available when buying an off- the-peg instrument.
Les Paul copy
(1) The electronic channels are cut
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before the top is glued on. |
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(2) Template screwed down at the |
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front-pickup position for cutting |
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out the neck pocket. Note that the |
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template has been raised on one |
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side by inserting a shim. |
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(3) The neck is glued into the body |
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before the fingerboard is glued on. |
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(4) Steve at work scraping the |
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fingerboard binding flush with a |
knife. |
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PRS copy
(1) (2) The neck consists of several strips glued together with the help of several clamps.
(3) Drilling dowel holes into the sides of the body-top halves. The dowels facilitate positioning the two halves when gluing them together.
(4) Cutting the electronic channel before gluing on the top with the help of plenty of clamps (5). After the pickup cavities have been routed this channel becomes accessible again.
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(6) Routing a curved truss rod channel.
(7) Hard-soldering (brazing) of the truss rod anchor. This anchor nut must under no circumstances come loose later.
(8) The body and the neck before being glued together. Note the small step at the end of the neck heel which will extend under the front pickup to make the gluing area larger.
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Step
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(9) If the router is mounted separate from the body, a domed surface will not be a problem for routing a binding rabbet, and the rabbet will be evenly deep and parallel to the sides. If the router can additionally be moved up and down, even different-height sides will not be a problem. In that case a stop stopping the router at the top edge of the body will be required, though.
(10) The inner purfling is glued on with acetone first, then the binding. (11) Cavity for access to truss rod adjustment nut on a headless bass with straight-through neck. The small step at the end of the fingerboard, which is needed because of the height of the bridge, is clearly visible.
(12) Planing the peghead flat with a plane before veneer is glued on.
(13) Steve's jig for cutting the fret slots: the saw remains perfectly vertical at all times and all the fret slots become evenly deep because four distance blocks stop the saw. Similar jigs are commercially available from guitarmakers' suppliers. Steve, however, had already invented his own before he became aware that they already existed!
In the section on making the neck I explained how to cut fret slots with a tablesaw and a template fastened on the top side of the fingerboard.
With a jig such as Steve's you can achieve the same result by fastening a fret template on the bottom side of the fingerboard. Put the template plus fingerboard into an index pin fastened at the side of the jig and move it on fret by fret after a slot has been cut.
(14) Template for routing out a cavity under a suspended tremolo. To allow bending a tremolo backwards a cavity has to be cut into the body under the tremolo.
(15) A mounted Floyd Rose tremolo with cut-out cavity.The strings are clamped at the nut and the tremolo and the guitar remain in tune even after extreme operation of the tremolo. With the fine tuners on the tremolo the strings can be tuned after clamping.
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