Your Pawless Guitar
Imagine someone building a home, doing everything. Landscaping, pouring the foundation, putting up the walls, painting, roofing, etc. That probably sums up how a Pawless guitar is produced.
Typically in a factory that produces quality handmade guitars, you have craftsmen that are pretty good at their job, and in fact VERY good because each employee are doing one step over and over. After a period of time they obviously acquire an excellence in their craft… of doing that one step.
When I started building, I knew the guitars were not going to be perfect due to the concept that one person couldn’t possibly be perfect at ALL of the tasks. I thought if I could produce a guitar that would at least “do the job”, it was a more realistic venture. I decided that I needed to identify what “job” a guitar actually had. The first thing that came to mind was it had to sound good and play good. Tone and playability became into mind.
I then came up with a mission. I decided every guitar would be better than the previous one I finished.
Keeping in mind with what a guitar is supposed to do, I came up with three priorities, and IN ORDER. I didn’t want to make a guitar that had the qualities of looking great and sounding bad. I knew that wasn’t going to work. I learned that from the players. I learned the first thing I needed to be really good at was to build a guitar with great tone, so I focused where tone begins, on the soundboard, the top, it’s bracing, actually the “speaker” of the guitar. After that I pursued playability, how easy the guitar played. Get the action low, the intonation correct, and no buzzes! That was the hardest actually. Of all the books, old builders, and different resources, no one told me about some of the things I learned about the neck, fingerboard, frets, and just getting a good general setup.
Okay, that’s two priorities, and there are three. First is tone, second is playability, and I need to excel in those priorities. Three is appearance, not so much. Honestly, if I was going for excellence in appearance it’s going to be a rabbit hole and I would never finish a guitar. I’ll leave that to the mass handmade builders in their million dollar facilities. I’ll just make them pretty.
Appearance of a guitar to me is quite intriguing. When you really think about it, is the guitar a piece of art or is it a tool? I know this is kind of trivial, but from a builder’s perspective you have to approach it and address it. I decided perfection in tone and playability, however in appearance, I just want it to look good. Even after thirty years of building, it’s a priority at the level of good, but not excellence. Sometimes I do get lucky and they look great! I DO use the highest quality of finish products. I knew that tone and playability were going to bet the strength of my guitars.
THE NUMBER ONE THING TO KNOW ABOUT A NEW HANDMADE PAWLESS:
(This goes with any handmade solid wood guitar)
Do NOT store it in a low humidity environment. I recommend getting a case guitar humidifier and a cheap digital hygrometer to keep in the case. You can get these from Amazon. Until you get a case humidifier, you can use a damp paper towel in an open glad bag to keep in the case with the guitar. Just make sure it’s not dripping wet into the case! The hygrometer will not only let you know the level of humidity in the case, it will teach you a lot about humidity over time by watching it. Ideal humidity for a guitar is in the 45-55% range. Your Pawless was built in a low 40s humidity environment. High humidity will not be as much a threat as low humidity, but it will raise the action of the guitar and make it harder to play. Low humidity is the worst of the two “evils”.
In a dry humidity it will damage a new guitar. All wood has a “base” level of moisture (water) in the wood. This moisture dries slowly and escapes the wood through years, and you want it to be a SLOW release of moisture or the wood will crack.
However, it’s okay to have the guitar exposed in low humidity situations for playing, etc., but not for a period of extended hours. For example, people love to display their guitars next to a fireplace, but that’s the worst thing you can do. Avoid open flame heat sources and air conditioning/heater vents in a room. Again, it can withstand a short period of time in that environment, (if you want to play by a campfire for example), but not for extended hours.
The humidity thing is real, and if you keep your guitar stored while controlling it, it will always play as good as the day you got it!
Be assured there is nothing I can’t do to repair that guitar in case something happens to it. Of course its construction is guaranteed for as long as I live and able to repair it!
Welcome to Pawless Guitars 