MODERN BUILDER VAULT
dudley custom Guitars
BY RICH OSWEILER
Like many in the lutherie community, Peter Dudley got his start in high-end
furniture making. Possessing a degree in
engineering, Dudley wanted to satisfy his
childhood fascination of building things
and went to study and work with Wendell
Castle in the ’80s, a furniture artist often
called the father of the art furniture movement. While on Castle’s team, Dudley
acquired the attitude and confidence that
he could build anything he could imagine—at the highest level of craft and artistry—and invent new techniques to solve
any aesthetic goals.
It was about eight years ago that Dudley
had the idea to build a guitar, and he studied everything he could find on construction and tone before he started building.
The “perfect tone” he envisioned would
be the synthesis of a 335, an ash Tele, and
Snowflakes
SRV’s neck-position tone. Experimenting
with heavily chambered solidbodies, as well
as handcarved and graduated tops, Dudley
arrived at what he calls a “chambered/
hollowbody hybrid.” His current guitars—
which are of a singular body-design and 24
3/4" scale-length—are graduated by hand
to reach optimum tone, typically weigh in
around 7 pounds, and are handfinished in
nitrocellulose lacquer.
Though Dudley’s guitars possess a singular
body-shape, which allows him to maintain
consistent control of the tone, the instruments are anything but singular. Working
with a variety of maple, spruce, and mahogany to push the tone of a guitar in a particular
direction—be it brighter, deeper, woodier,
or mellower—he’ll then match a particular
instrument with handbuilt pickups, currently favoring those made by Peter Florance.
Paint Splatters
Dudley’s design philosophy also leaves room
to experiment with his unique and complex
graphic ideas. “I like to take traditional
approaches to guitar ornament, and blow
them up to see what happens,” says Dudley.
snowflakes
For Snowflakes, Dudley looked at the
snowflake inlays found on prewar Martins,
and wondered what would happen if they
got really big and intricate. With 151
pieces of pearl making up the snowfall
that trickles down the ebony fretboard,
Snowflakes has a Canadian-Lutz-spruce
top, a mahogany back and neck, and Peter
Florance Voodoo ’57s for pickups.
Paint splatters
For Paint Splatters, Dudley was inspired by
the paintings of Jackson Pollock. Not just a
Butterflies
168 PREMIER GUITAR FEBRUARY 2012
premierguitar.com
