Meet The Maker
REGULAR
hen the gods handed the
first guitar down from Mount
Olympus, humanity was
given a mighty gift. When
you pick up a guitar, you’re part
of a global lineage that includes
Hendrix, Mick Ronson, Nancy Wilson, and any
number of musicians from every continent.
We doff our caps therefore to Michael Dales,
who for the last three years has been making guitars
under the name Electric Flapjack. We spoke to
Michael to find out how working in a makerspace
has shaped his attitude to the noble craft of making
guitars, his tools, his attitudes, and why it’s good
to share.
“The first guitar I made was just out of parts. I
hadn’t done any woodwork since high school, which
was a long time for me. I took up the guitar again,
but the guitar I had didn’t really do it for me any
more. I didn’t want to get rid of it because it had
sentimental value, so I bought parts and then kind of
tweaked them. My brother, who is in a band, asked
me to make him one – that was guitar number two- and I made the body for that one, which was a big
leap forward.
“Since then, I’ve done a little bit more each time.
Three years and nine guitars later, here I am.
“I’m a software engineer by trade, so I have no
abilities in the real world – that’s why the location
from which I do all of this has been hugely important
to me. It’s a community workshop, and everyone
focuses on the workshop side; there’s lots of shiny
toys and stuff – but equally as important is the
community aspect. Because there are people around
who don’t do exactly what you’re trying to do, but
these are the kind of people who will say ‘let me
help you’.
“There’s all that experience you can tap into, so
I wouldn’t have been able to do this without a place
like Makespace.SOFTWARE TO SOFTWOOD
“[In my day job] I’ve done bits of hardware; I’ve done
digital circuit designs, FPGA stuff. And I’ve done a
lot more software in my career than hardware. That’s
also why I enjoy woodwork so much, because it
exercises a completely different part of my brain. It’s
still problem-solving, but it’s very different.
“You kind of find with places like this, that you
have a general set of tools available to the populace,
but [if you try] anything niche you end up by yourself.
The makerspace isn’t here to cater for luthier [guitar
making] requirements. That comes from in part just
getting into enabling me to have the confidence to
try things.
“I watched a lot of YouTube videos, and the luthier
community is very good at sharing; there are lots of
great tutorials by professional luthiers on how they
do stuff.
“I don’t have all the luthier tools, but I have
identified that there are some that are quite
important; they’ll save you a lot of time and effort.
The Japanese saw for doing the fret slots is a good
example of that. I have a specific requirement of
that saw, because it had to be narrow enough that
when I put a fret in it’ll stick, so it had to be a narrow
blade and quite sharp. That was one where it was
working for money, which enabled me to do that.W
Meet The Maker:
Michael Dales
The person behind the custom-built guitars