News & Notes
Updates from the bench, the shop, and the woods.
The website is currently being updated and refined. Thanks for your patience as we continue bringing everything up to the standard of the work itself.
A quick look at what’s happening in the shop: I’ve been focusing on new tooling and reorganizing the workspace to create a smoother, more efficient flow. Several builds are moving through the benches at once, and I’ve been finishing up the guitars headed to shows. It’s been a full stretch of work, but things are coming together nicely.
April 2-4, 2027
John O will be returning to the Artisan Guitar Show. I hope to have 3 or 4 guitars that will be available to audition.
Compensation on a Guitar
This is a post I wrote back in 2007, I cleaned up some of the grammar but otherwise left the technical details alone as I still agree with what I wrote back then. Compensation is what allows a guitar to play in tune as you move up the fingerboard. When a string is...
2022-25 Shop Update
As I started to emerge from the pandemic fog in early 2023, life and work slowly found their way back to something resembling normal. There was plenty to catch up on, and motivation returned in short bursts — just enough to remind me why I love this work. Getting back...
2020-21 Shop Update
Looking back, I realized I never posted an update for 2020 or 2021 — probably because those years felt like one long, blurry stretch. Even though I’m back‑dating this entry so it falls in the right place on the timeline, I’m writing it in 2026, now that I’m finally...
2019 Shop Update
Another year flew by and I find myself getting ready for yet another show, the Artisan Guitar show. Also busy working on a couple of "thinking a little out of the box" guitars and client's guitars I was expecting to have a new more "mobile-friendly" site by now and...