Best of British

Meet plucky guitar-maker Rory Dowling

a plucky guitar-maker

Rory Dow ling ,34, has enjoyed making things since he was aboy.‘iw as always whittling something with a penknife,’ he says. ‘At university i built an oct ave mandolin and, two years after leaving, i started making instruments in my bedroom before setting up Taran guitars in 2007.’

Ten years on, Dowling ’s business, which he runs from a former dairy farm on the coast of Fife, has sold more than 100 instruments – among them, guitars, mandolins andbouzouk is( a type of lute).

Dowling occasionally hosts concerts or invites folk artists to perform and showcase his instruments at his workshop, which can hold up to 70 people. But mostly it is silent, except for t he sound of saws, chisels and planes.

Each guitar can take up to four months to make–the waiting list is almost two years long, and Dow ling speaks regularly to his customers throughout the process. ‘The more i know about my client’s tastes, the better their guitar will be,’ he explains.

To build a guitar, Dowling begins by selecting the wood. ‘The timber choice is key ,’ he says .‘ Mahogany will give you a drier, woody sound, whereas rosewood is much richer with more depth. There are infinite variables in between.’

next, he cuts out the rough shape of the body of the guitar with bandsaws, then glues the pieces together before hand-planing the wood to the correct thickness and inlaying the sound-hole rosette. Most of Dowling ’s tools are manual and some have sentiment al value; they include a file given to him by his grandfather and a plane that dates back to the First world war.

To shape the sides of the guitar into their distinctive curves, Dowling heats t he wood on a bending iron at 185C. This softens it before the sides are set in a mould. Dowling then begins to work on the neck and fretboard, using mahogany and ebony (or a sustainable alternative called Rock li te) respectively .‘ The critical part is joining the neck and the body by cutting the dovetail joints with a router, and then finally hand-fitting it with a chisel ,’ he explains. ‘That has to be perfect.’

Finally, after adding the company logo, spraying with lacquer and polishing, comes Dowling’s favourite part of the process. ‘The best bit: you string it up for the first time,’ he says.

After wards, the customer tries out the guitar. ‘it’s always quite a moment,’ says Dowling. ‘i never know whether to be in the room or not. Sometimes it’s really emotional.’