Maker’s Marks

Alister Atkin takes us through the materials and style of The Forty Three

What type of mahogany are you using?

“We use the highest grade African mahogany and I’m surprised how good it is.When I started, no-one would touch sapele or African mahogany; it was all about Brazilian. But Brazilian can be variable and a pain to work. When the Brazilian ran out, we tried it all. I can honestly say that African works very well for us.We’re using Cuban mahogany for our 25th Anniversary The Forty Three models, which I’m looking forward to hearing.”

What about rosewood?

“We switched from Indian to Santos when the CITES restrictions came in. Santos can look wonderful if the colour’s right. Again, on our 25th Anniversary we have some beautiful Madagascan rosewood for bridges and fretboards, so that combined with the Cuban mahogany and Adirondack tops will help us get closer to the originals.”

Do you only offer baked Sitka spruce?

“We can still get a good supply of great quality Adirondack spruce, which comes at a premium. I am definitely a fan and we offer it on some of our custom guitars. But I think our standard baked Sitka tops, as on your review guitar, produce a very rich tone. We’ve been baking our tops for nearly 10 years and it’s been a game-changer. They sound stable and dry with that vintage boldness that everyone is hankering after.”

Where do you stand on vintage versus modern guitars?

“When my friend Andy Crockett used to repair guitars in my workshop, and he was always working on vintage instruments, it was clear that the earlier Martins had a higher hit rate than the Gibsons. But when we got a great Gibson in it was fantastic, so at every opportunity I tried to see what was going on inside. From there I would play with the bracing pattern, heights and thicknesses to see what worked. I have an image in my head of what works, and then I jam with the shapes and flow of the braces.

“With modern guitar building, everyone’s buying the most expensive straight-grained timber, and then you look at a 1940s J-45 and the top grain is 4mm apart and the braces are roughly sawn. And yet every so often one sounds better than the majority of new guitars. I think you have to be able to know what to concentrate on. For me, a thin finish helps, as well as not building too heavily. Then an acceptance that most of the truly beautiful things in life aren’t perfect. Imagine if Bob Dylan’s voice sounded like Michael Bublé’s…”

How about the bracing?

“Our Forty Three is not the same as the original. It is an X-brace, but we have scallops and transverse braces. They aren’t as high as the J-45 braces, either. We also bake all of our brace wood, which helps with stability.”

Do you offer ‘new’ finishes?

“Yes, we offer two types: Aged and Mirror. They are both nitro, but they have very different amounts of lacquer.The review guitar you have is a lightly aged finish with minimal checking.These days, 95 per cent of our 300 yearly production actually has the Aged finish.At the beginning, we used to get flak for it; now people can genuinely see, feel and hear the difference. I would choose it every time.The Aged guitars have about eight coats of lacquer applied over three days. They are left to cure, cut back and polished, and then we put them through a freezing process for between five and 10 days.”

What type of neck join do you use?

“We use a bolt-on neck, much like some of the top US brands. It’s a mortise and tenon joint with two bolts. The fretboards are glued down. It means that we can do a neck reset easily. I also believe the neck is held against the body so well that the vibrations flow through the whole guitar with a very little amount of interference.”

And strings?

“We ship our guitars with Elixir 0.012 to 0.053 Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze.”

Do you offer electro versions?

“We do fit pickups if asked. I really like the K&K Pure Mini, but we stock Fishman and LR Baggs. I think all of these work well in the right environments.”