To Make the Wood S
I
N
G
I’ve seen that before and a lot of times it
doesn’t affect the way they play. Some of
them play fine. In fact, somebody actually
produced a design where the whole neck was
radically twisted to accommodate the position
that your hand is naturally in as you go up and
down the neck. Toward the nut it was angled
a certain way and as it came up to the body
the neck was more parallel. I can’t imagine
how they did that! But a guitar with a headstock twist can actually play fine as long as
the frets under each string form a straight line
under that string.
everything tightens up under string tension.
Good guitars – you know they’re good at that
point, within the first day or so. A good guitar
sounds good right away. But it will change as
it’s played and as the lacquer dries out. I’ve
had guitars come back after a couple years
that I think have really opened up. You get
some noticeable degree of improvement even
within that short period of time. But if you
happen to build a guitar that’s a real dog – if
it’s a dog when it’s new, it’s going to be an
old dog when it’s old [laughs].
out of brass when I was building solidbody
instruments. So I have some metal work experience but not a lot of mill working tools. I had
to come up with a design that was original,
matched the other design features and still
had a classic look. I spent a lot of time drawing tailpiece designs and finally refined it over
the course of a couple years to the design
that I have now.
So you’re only going to see this tailpiece on
your guitars.
I’ve never had an extreme problem like that
with any of my guitars. When I make neck
blanks I cut a bunch of blanks up, store
them on the shelf for a while and let
them do whatever they’re going to do.
I have seen some develop a slight twist
during that period. Before I use any blank
I resurface it, so by that time hopefully it
has done whatever movement it’s going
to do.
Some builders just use pre-manufactured
parts added on to their wood. It seems like
you have really put a lot of thought into
I hope so, because I’m having them made.
Enough people have seen this on my guitar
that they know it’s my design. The tailpiece is
A good guitar sounds good right away. But
it will change as it’s played and as the
How long do you store them?
lacquer dries out. I’ve had guitars come
Most blanks sit up there for a year or two
before I use them. Even if I do glue up
new blanks to use, they hang for a couple
of months while I’m doing the bodies. So
at minimum they’re going to sit around
for a couple months and do whatever
they do; when I’m ready to start the
necks, it’s a couple months into the building process, so they get resurfaced again
at that point. And I imagine they’re pretty
stable by that point, because I’ve never
had any problems with them.
back after a couple years that I think have
really opened up. You get some noticeable
degree of improvement even within that
Is the wood that you get already aged?
short period of time.
Yes, 90 percent of it. Rarely will you get wood
from an instrument supplier that’s not dried
enough – if they are a reputable supplier
they’ll always tell you if it’s not dry. Most of
the wood I get for neck stock is just from
lumber suppliers – construction grade lumber
– and most of that stuff is kiln dried.
You mentioned that you often go after a
forties or fifties L- 7 type of sound. Can a
guitar be built with that sound from day
one, or is that something that can only be
acquired over 40 or 50 years? Does the guitar really change that much over that period
of time?
The sound of the guitar changes dramatically
within the first day or two when it’s strung
up. That’s the initial settling in period when
the geometry of your pickguard, the unique
design of your bridge and the tailpiece
– these parts are distinctly Campellone.
The pickguard is a similar silhouette to a
Gibson pickguard – I just made it a little
smaller and a little less rounded. The tailpiece
is really considered a decorative feature, like
some of the other parts of the guitar. When
I started building you couldn’t buy anything
except a 335-type trapeze tailpiece, and
I used that on a couple of my first guitars
because that was all that was available. If you
wanted to use something different, you had
to make something, and I was thinking, “the
tailpiece is a design feature which should
match the rest of the design features of the
guitar.” I’m a wood worker, not a metal worker, although I used to make my own bridges
made out of brass stock, so I buy a 3’x8’ sheet
of brass from a metal supplier; I take it to the
sheet metal guys and have blanks cut – you
can get two or three tailpieces out of every
blank. They cut these squared blanks, and
they go to another machinist who has a wire
EDM – electrical discharge machine – which is
basically a machine that cuts with a high voltage electronic pulse through a very thin wire.
The blanks are stacked one on top of the
other and then they are all cut in a stack on
this machine where they are placed in a tub
of water – they have to be submerged for the
electricity to work. The tub of water moves on
an X/Y axis and that’s how the shapes are cut.
At this point, they’re still flat, so they have
to go back to the sheet metal guys and
have bends put in – the hook that holds the
strings and the bend where the tailpiece
