Great Machines: Musical Instruments: Boutique Bluegrass
06/01/2008
There are good old-fashioned guitars, and then there are Robinson Guitars—that unmistakable blend of beautiful wood and masterful acoustics. Due to the painstaking labor involved in creating each guitar, luthier Jake Robinson, who custom builds 90 percent of his guitars to clients’ specifications, typically produces no more than a dozen per year. "For me, choosing the right wood is where the process starts," he says. "I just can’t bring myself to pull preselected, precut boards from a shelf."Working out of his shop in Kalamazoo, Mich., Robinson focuses on one guitar at a time. "We make sure the tone of the guitar is where it needs to be," he says. "[Assembly lines] just build them to a blueprint, whereas I am a lot more touchy-feely; it’s an organic process. One set of hands and one guy doing it all, instead of a bunch of people at different stations."
Until recently, Robinson had limited his craftsmanship to four models of finger-style guitars cut from dramatic Brazilian rosewood, koa, and mahogany—at a cost of $10,000 to $12,000. But he has expanded his catalog to include a bluegrass line with two banjos, those typically four- or five-stringed instruments that conjure scenes from "Deliverance," and a dobro—an inverted-cone resonator guitar.
"I’m an avid player and aficionado of bluegrass," Robinson says. "During my travels to festivals throughout the country, I had more than a few people ask me to craft a banjo." Available by special order or through the American Guitar Boutique in St. Paul, Minn., Robinson’s Top Tension Banjo is made from maple and birch salvaged from the Great Lakes. The dobro is mostly composed of birch, with a Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
Robinson Guitars, 269.345.7491, www.robinsonguitars.com