About

Early Influences

• My father and my big brother who dabbled in wood turning and other wood work as a hobby.

• Watching my brother, Lawrence build an acoustic guitar in the mid sixties.(The guitar was never completed and its whereabouts are not known.)

Training in Guitar Construction

• A month-long apprenticeship with Craig and Alicia Carter in Petrolia, Northern California, hand-splitting Red Wood and Spruce and re-sawing them into soundboards.
   
• Four months’ apprenticeship in Mountain View, California with Steve Newberry. We spent most of the time in streamlining and re-organising Steve’s workshop and visiting the workshops of many luthiers. The experience stands me in good stead now, in setting up my own workshop. I also made a steel string acoustic during my stint with Steve. My stint with Steve was cut short because of a shop accident in which I severed my flexor tendon of my left index finger.
   
• Four months’ apprenticeship in Mountain View, California with Steve Newberry. We spent most of the time in streamlining and re-organising Steve’s workshop and visiting the workshops of many luthiers. The experience stands me in good stead now, in setting up my own workshop. I also made a steel string acoustic during my stint with Steve. My stint with Steve was cut short because of a shop accident in which I severed my flexor tendon of my left index finger.
   
• Two months' apprenticeship in Ensenada, Mexico with Boaz Elkayam, where I got an insight into the Schneider Kasha Design and also Boaz’s Clarita Negra.
   
• Two years’ apprenticeship with Kenny Hill, in Felton, California, by far, the longest and most fruitful one, in that, Kenny understood my needs well and encouraged me to work at absolutely all the aspects of guitar making. Assisting Kenny in the conduct of his Guitar Making Workshops was a great opportunity for me to reinforce my knowledge.
   
• I have attended many workshops and lectures at two Healdsburg Guitar Makers Festivals, spoken to many luthiers namely, Brian Burns, Erwin Somogyi, Randy Angella, the late Richard Schneider, Tom Ribbecke, Charles Fox, Frank Ford, Hideo Kamimoto, Fred Campbell, Richard Hoover, Abe Wechter, Fred Carlson, Mike Lewis, Jeff Traugat and visited the workshops of most of these luthiers. I acknowledge their sharing their knowledge and extending their support that has helped set up my shop.
   
• It’s inevitable that I must specially acknowledge Kenny  Hill for sharing his knowledge without any reservations whatsoever and giving me a free run of his entire workshop, office and showroom. My experience with him is the one single factor that emboldened me to give up my day job to build guitars full time.
   
• (My day job? I worked for the Ministry of Rural Development Government of India, from 1977 to 2004. My apprenticeships etc. were during this period.)