Will Ray of the Hellecasters!

We are hosting a special workshop on Tuesday night, June 6th, with guitarist Will Ray.
Will has come to our shop a couple of times before, and it is always a great time.
He will be answering questions, playing some tunes, and sharing insights on being a musician. Of course, you can also buy Will's CDs.
Last time he was here, many of our clients even got to jam with him!

If you are in the area, we would love to have you come.

Tuesday, June 6th, 7:30pm
Please RSVP by emailing us at erick@cbperkins.com.

This event is sponsored by G&L guitars.

Sale on all Godin products!

We are clearing out all of our 2005 Godin products to make room for the new models coming in!
This includes:

• Seagull
  
• Godin
  
• Norman
  
• La Patrie
  
• Art and Lutherie
  

Call us for prices. 408-578-3428
We ship to anywhere!

Peppino at C.B. Perkins Co.

We were honored to have Peppino D'Agostino visit our shop yesterday. He lives in the Bay Area, and endorses Godin Seagull guitars, which is one of our favorite lines. Godin referred him to us when he needed setup work done on his guitar.

It's our honor and pleasure to do work for artists like Peppino. As well as being an internationally known player, he is a very nice, humble gentleman.
His guitar, of course, is a Seagull Artist Peppino model. The Peppino model is a cutaway, has a spruce top, and rosewood back and sides. What makes it unusual is the extra-wide 1.9 inch nut width, almost a classical guitar nut width on a steel string guitar.
You can read more about Peppino D'Agostino, and find out about his upcoming performances, on his web site.

So you want to be a Luthier?

We got an email recently, asking what it takes to become a Luthier. We get this question quite often, so we thought it would be a good idea to address it here.

I'm a guitar enthusiast, just started about 3 years ago. You can say it's something I truly enjoy on a daily basis. You can also say that I'm a "do it yourself" kind of guy so I've been really interested in learning how do my own setups for my own personal taste. As I delved deeper into that and I got interested into making guitars.

So my basic question is this: What does it take to become a luthier? What would I have to do?

Luthiery is still very much a traditional trade. The way trades used to work is that if you wanted to become a blacksmith, dentist, doctor, carpenter, or even lawyer, you would become an apprentice to someone experienced in the trade. Now, people mostly go to school to learn their trade or profession. Luthiery, for the most part, still works in the traditional way. There are schools around the country that teach luthiery, so you could certainly check some of those out. I was actually very surprised when doing a google search to find a large number of luthiery schools. You can also become an apprentice to a master luthier. Find a guitar shop, and be willing to do anything they need you to (mopping floors, dusting guitars, etc.). Respect the person you learn under, and be flexible to adapt to that shop's way of doing things. It takes years to learn the trade, but if you are dedicated, you can make it happen.

1971 C.B. Perkins Rose Guitar

This is one of our original, handbuilt guitars. We are not currently making our own guitars, but we made quite a few back in the 1960s and 70s. This one is from 1971, and was built by Charles (the original C.B. Perkins) and Kent Perkins. It is a nylon string classical guitar.

About the guitar:

• Inlay of a rose on the lower bout, bass side
  
• Originally had a high gloss finish, redone to a satin finish
  
• German spruce top
  
• Honduras Rosewood back and sides
  

The Rose guitar currently belongs to Karen, one of our teachers.
It was first sold to the daughter of Josh and Erick's pediatrician, and she took it to Europe. It got damaged, and she brought it back to us to repair, then decided that she would rather have a Brazillian rosewood guitar. We built one for her, and kept this one. When Karen bought it, she had us change the finish to satin so it would have more of a natural look. It really is a stunning guitar, in looks and in sound.