Wilson Burnham Guitars

Hi, Everyone!

Check out my latest Substack post!

Stay tuned to this blog! I plan on updating the layout a bit and talk about some new woodworking ideas!

2025 Wilson Burnham Engelmann Spruce/Wenge double top classical guitar with an elevated fretboard. 

Ebony fretboard, East Indian rosewood bridge with MOP tie block cover, Manuel Ramirez style rosette.

Back and sides are laminated with curly Spanish cedar.

650mm string length

52mm wide at nut, 58mm string spacing at bridge. Please scroll down the page for more photos of this stunning guitar!

Regular price was $8000, price reduced to $4000! I am moving to a new studio and I want to liquidate my current stock of guitars!

For more specifications on this guitar, please click here!

Watch Juri Yun play this guitar! Please visit my YouTube channel, @wilsonburnhamguitars8563

"Wilson's guitars are outstanding! They have incredible voices and are easy to play! They are easy to play because the treble strings are there, they are present and you can hear them above the bass strings! You don't have to work hard to make these guitars sing!"

Nathan Fischer, president of the New York City Classical Guitar Society

The honeycomb Nomex in this double top guitar is cover with a veneer of old growth redwood to enhance the guitar's voice.

The sides are attached to the top with blocks of ebony, these ebony blocks make the guitar louder in sound!

Laminating the wenge back and sides with curly Spanish cedar stiffen the guitar to increase the volume and beauty of the guitar's voice. The sound of this guitar reaches out to the hearts' of your audience to bring them to you and the music you are playing!

 

These holdfasts have served me well of the last 32 years, I used them a lot when I re-sawed guitar sets by hand with a rip saw, they have never failed me. I do own a pair of Gramercy Tools holdfasts, I use them to clamp down a miter box I use for cutting kerfing strips of guitars, but I reach for and use those old holdfasts on a regular basis.

I started this blog in 2007 to share and talk about my woodworking and guitar making. I am very grateful that my blog has been on the two best woodworking aggregators: Norse Woodsmith and Unplugged Shop. Thanks to them the word got about my work.

The other day, I noticed that Unplugged Shop didn’t share my last post and took down the previous post on their website.  Since this happened I have noticed that the number of visitors to my website are down. I  submitted a request to have my website appear on their aggregator, I haven’t heard back from them. 

I wonder if the AI robot that assists their website doesn’t consider a guitar maker to be a “woodworker”? Is it because I don’t make stick chairs or turn bowls anymore? And that I don’t post much “how to” about guitar making? I’m a little baffled by Unplugged Shop’s action.

I hope that norsewoodsmith.com continues to share my and other woodworkers blog posts, I am very grateful for that old school aggregator. Thanks!

Hi, Everyone!

I have a new Substack post! Check it out!

Six years ago, I made an outside mold/work board to make one of my guitars and I disliked the thing so much I sent it to the local dump. With this guitar I made a work board that is based upon the one you will find in Roy Courtnall’s book, Making Master Guitars. Unlike Courtnall’s work board, the dished solera is removable. 


The back with its braces and center seam graft. By carving the ends of the braces I can adjust the tap of the back, it’s quite something to hear the change in the tone as I carve the ends and lower the height of the braces. I can bring that tap tone into a better “focus”, the tone is present without much “fuzziness” to it, it’s hard to explain unless you are in the shop with me so I can demonstrate this amazing change.

 “Traditional methods endure because they always have worked and they always will.”

Roy Underhill, The Woodwright’s Eclectic Workshop, 1991

There was a day several years ago, when I pulled out two blanks of wood from my wood cache, one was California laurel and the other was black cherry. I had two small Hock tool spokeshave blades, I made the laurel blank into a flat sole shave, the cherry blank got a rounded sole. Both have an East Indian rosewood wear plate and both use set screws to adjust the blade’s depth of cut.

I used both shaves to refine the heel on a neck for a steel string acoustic guitar that I am making, the above photo shows the laurel shave in action on the neck shaft, the cherry shave is on the bench next to a carving knife with an extra long handle. That knife I also use to shape the heel of the neck.

It’s pretty fun to use a tool that you made, and that it really works!

So, take time today to get out into your shop and make that hand tool you have always wanted!

 Merry christmas!

Though there is no snow

for northern new mexico 

this christmas,

i hope you have a wonderful time

with friends and family!