The Early Years:
I was born on the 5/5/51 – this makes me currently 55 years old, and I didn't make my first guitar until I was 45! The making process has give me great pleasure all my life, it seems. As a boy I spent most of my spare time making models of cars and planes – these were never made from kits however, but always from scratch using raw materials. I suspect this was as creative a process as the making of my guitars is to me now.

At the age of 13 my family moved from NW London to Wembley, just behind the Stadium as it then was. It was around then, just before I left school, infact that I started working with my father at his building and and carpentry business. It was here that my skills with wood were first nurtured and developed.

However it was to be a very long time, not until the winter of 1996, until I was to build my first guitar.

The First Guitar:
The idea to make my first guitar started when my old classical guitar, which my wife had given me a as present in 1986, needed some work doing on it. I had worn the guitar out with years of playing and the frets desperately needed dressing. Rather than having it repaired however, I simply thought I'd buy a new one. I picked up a Ramirez guitar second hand for about five hundred pounds and it was a fantastic instrument – the sound and feel of it was remarkable. I played it solidly for the first two or three weeks and couldn't believe how anyone could have constructed anything so well. I therefore started studying the instrument, both inside and out, to see how it had been made. It was this process that made me decide to have a go at making an instrument for myself.

Having begun to make a guitar as good as the one I owned, I realised I was now on a mission - it would take me three years before I achieved anything I was even remotely happy with.

de Torres, Romanillos & Soundboards
During this period there were two books that were invaluable - The Life and Works of Antonio de Torres and Romanillos – and these books were my inspiration. I studied these works and in particular was fascinated with, and indeed copied, their soundboard designs.

The seven-strut, fan-based strutting system with an open harmonic bar works well but, but I soon realised that I wanted to take it even further.

Chance meetings:
It was around this point I became aware of guitar maker Greg Smallman’s work, and this was to change my world yet again. Smallman was guitar maker to John Williams and I had found lots information on both him and his soundboards. He used a novel grid system, using both carbon fibre and balsa wood in it's construction. To me this radical approach seemed the way forward. I had known about the concept of a grid-system soundboard for some time – they are renowned for having a particularly even response, but I still had a long way to go before I could crack their secret.

It was around this time that I met another guitar maker in St Albans, Chris Cross (now sadly deceased). He gave me some great ideas and also introduced me to Malcolm Miles, his finisher, and the chap who finished Patrick Eggle guitars in the early days.

 I also met Ray Cooper, a great guitar maker and repair man. I had already started doing a variety of repairs to all sorts of guitar, really just to earn some money!

Because of the limited demand for classical guitars, I had also decided to broaden my scope and started to make steel strung acoustics. Chris had told me that they sell a lot easier than classical guitars, and he was right! It proved a good move for me and early sales were good. I was using the Martin X Brace system in all my steel string guitars, but deeply scalloped?

Then, in the summer of 2004, I met Joe White, a guitar maker in Ash Vale. His finisher had recently moved to Spain and I was so impressed with the quality of his work that, despite the distance, I started using him to finish my own guitars. When the distance made this logistically unfeasible, Joe took the function back in-house and started finishing them himself in his own workshop - I naturally got him to finish mine too!

Something radical!
2004 proved to be a good year for me. Early in that year I took my most radical move to date, and changed the design of things inside the guitar. It took a further two years to develop these ideas fully, but what emerged was a cross-over grid system. I instantly used this in my steel strings in place of the Xbraces. That particular guitar was finished by luthier Ray Cooper.

I soon realised that this grid system was crying out to be adapted for classical guitar I promptly made one with the same system, but removing the harmonic bar just behind the sound hole. My thinking was that this would improve the sound, but unfortunately it didn't work! The guitar lost an incredible amount of power, and it was at this point I realised a major factor of guitar construction …. (what!). This led me back again to the work of Greg Smallman: He had developed a floating frame that, until now, I hadn't fully understood. I realised that by removing the harmonic bar, I had inadvertently created stress just behind the sound hole, resulting in a halving of the sound output. When I examined other guitars with the harmonic bar construction the soundboard between the bridge and the harmonic bar is non-active. Smallman's’ frame overcame this factor, and I realised that a combination of this frame with my grid system the way to go.

So, the CHS system was born.

More radical still
However, this was still not the final chapter in the story, but merely another step towards what was to become the CLL. I was now about to make my most radical move ever. This was to remove the soundhole completely, allowing me to the frame straight from the neck into the soundboard. The sound board is now therefore much bigger - the sound holes were incorporated in the upper bouts of the guitar.

Finishing
Well, over the years I've used several finishers (Ray Cooper finished some of my guitars too) and again I think I have come up with the perfect system. All my guitars now have a lacquer finish on the back and sides, and an oiled finish on the top.

The Future
The journey has great! I must say the people and the guitar players I have met on the way have made it more than worthwhile - it's been fantastic. . .

All the best

Gary Hearn, 2006