Frequently Asked Questions Price List How long does it take to get a guitar? January 2023, it is with a mixture of excitement and regret that I am no longer taking custom orders. Having total control and freedom to do what I know and love to do, I am confident I will be presenting the best work of my career. Please feel free to call at any time to ask what is coming up, or with any questions about what you find on my In Stock Gallery In your own words, how would you describe your tone? My tonal focus is on a rich, warm, dark, round sound that does not sacrifice clarity. My tone has been described as "cello like." I like that description, and I continue to work for that above all other considerations. I have, over the years, brought out more treble voice, but my goal has always been to do that without changing the fundamental characteristic of my tone. Do cutaways have a detrimental effect on the tone? Not really. I can't say that I've ever experienced an A/B test in which it could be demonstrated that the cutaway changes the tone. How do you get your tone? I use hide glue to attach my braces in variations of traditional X bracing. I glue the braces on oversized and work them down, tuning and voicing as I go. I use a signal generator and Chladni patterns to verify some of the work, but the majority is done the old fashioned way, by ear. How do you select your top wood? I buy from reputable dealers and collect older pieces when possible. I buy larger amounts so that I can develop a "feel" for how a particular batch of wood behaves. I name the woods according to the name by which they were sold to me, though I know my "German" supplier is probably sending me Italian spruce, it is the wood he chooses to harvest and is consistent. I find that the spruce from my German supplier is quite different from what I get from my Italian supplier. Carpathian, Bosnian, Swiss, Adirondack, Cedar, Sitka, Sinker redwood, and a few other rogue sets are in my collection. When selecting a top for a client's guitar, I take into consideration the tonal requests and playing style. When choosing a top out of a stack, I choose for tap tone, stiffness, and appearance in the order of importance to my client. A player with a strong desire for a perfect looking top still needs a top that will perform well. A player with a strong desire for tone above any other consideration may enjoy a top that I consider to have a special tone about it, but perhaps there are streaks in the top. I have bought a lot of wood, and there are many tops that I donate or sell to others while keeping the best for my clients. Do you do your own finishes? Rarely. I can't justify the environmental dangers, especially in crowded Southern California. I have a finish person, who on a scale of one to ten is a ten and a half, and he has an environmentally clean spray booth with protection for himself that I can't replicate. Any finish work is only partly finished by the time the final assembly of the guitar is done, and I find my time is better spent nitpicking the fine details, just as I would have to do if I sprayed the finishes myself. What finish do you use? I use many, including French polish, but mostly I use nitrocellulose lacquer. I believe that it is the finest guitar finish available. It is beautiful, thin, and continues to get thinner as it "gasses off" over the years. Lacquer is beautifully repairable. There are other more durable finishes available now, but you shouldn't be subjecting your lightly braced, custom made, hand-built guitar to those conditions anyway! What is your neck joint? I build with traditional dovetail mortise and tenon secured with hide glue. I no longer have a particular prejudice against bolt-on necks, I believe that argument has been resolved, but I prefer a traditional dovetail and find that there are no down sides for me. With the exception of my harp guitar, there have been no bolts used in Wingert construction. Why do you use hide glue? I use hide glue because it does not creep, but it can be removed if it must. It is important that a fingerboard and bridge do not move around if subjected to heat, and woodworking glues creep when they get warm. Heck, they creep when they're cold. Cold creep can easily be observed in older instruments if you look at the front of the bridge. There will usually be a telltale pile of lacquer pushed up in front of the bridge. How did this happen? Well, the glue creeps, but does not let go, and after a number of years, the intonation of the instrument is not quite right anymore. If there is string tension on the instrument and it is subjected to heat, the neck may bow forward only to solidify in a new place when the instrument cools off. Bridge placement is crucial to intonation and playabililty. Why do hide-glued bridges lift at a corner sometimes? Okay... this isn't really a frequently asked question. Hide glued bridges may sometimes lift because they don't creep. Hide glue will hold or let go. The repair is extremely simple and any reputable shop can do it, it is covered under warranty to original purchaser. I am very happy to take care of it myself if a problem should arise. Why do 12-fret guitars sound so good? Why 12-fret guitars sound so good is the subject of almost as much myth as the myth about a mysterious varnish making the Stradivarius tone! The myth is that the 12-fret bridge placement is in the middle or a "sweet spot" on the top of the guitar. Many builders have set out to design a guitar around that "sweet spot" placement only to find that there just isn't that added 12 fret magic. Hmmm.... The real story is that a 12-fret neck is shorter and thicker, relatively speaking. The short, fat neck is stiff enough to prevent energy loss. Another way to say it is that the raised frequency of the neck only robs energy from partials our ears couldn't be bothered with anyway. Aww... gee... I really need a 14-fret neck. How am I going to love that when 12-fret guitars sound so good???? Don't worry. As with all discussions of guitar tone, construction, or tonewood considerations, we exaggerate a WHOLE LOT to make a point. The differences are subtle, and any slight gain that you would make in terms of that "something extra" from a 12-fretter, you would miss terribly if you couldn't play what you want to play. Sitka spruce? Sitka spruce has a quick, punchy attack and a strong fundamental. The tone is quite bright, and Sitka has a lot of headroom. This headroom means you can drive the top quite hard without losing the tone of the top. A great choice for flatpicking and a great choice for fingerstylists who like a distinct, punchy attack. The color tends to be a yellow brown to pink brown that darkens pretty rapidly. Sitka almost always displays gorgeous silking across the grain. Adirondack spruce? Adirondack (red spruce) has a lot of fundamental with beautiful overtones. Adirondack has the most headroom of all the spruces, but must be driven pretty hard unless tops are thinned to the point of trading ease of play for a tinny sound. The overtones are even through the entire range of notes and volume, the attack has some punch -- though it is less bright than the attack quality of sitka spruce. The coloration of Adirondack spruce can be streaky with uneven grain patterns, but it is worth the trade off for tone if you are a player who can drive it hard enough to get the good out of it. This is the stuff vintage legends are made of. European spruce? European spruce (picea albies) or silver spruce, is warm and rich in tone and fairly easy to drive. It has a warmer attack quality than Sitka that seems (to me) to swell after the note is struck. The overtones are lush in all registers, and yet can be built for excellent separation of tone. European spruce has adequate headroom for the job, and really shines for fingerstyle play. The color and appearance is generally very clean with even grain lines, most tops come with about two inches of closer grain, and sometimes this section is a little darker in appearance. The appearance of a slight amount of runout is common, even in the best sets. What is the difference between German and Italian spruce? Maybe nothing. I have no idea where my suppliers really get their woods, and I suspect my German suppliers are getting theirs from the Italian Alps. The "Italian" spruce that I have, from my Italian supplier, is stiffer, a little harder to drive, a little bit brighter in the mids, takes a little longer to open up, but when it does, it opens up to some incredibly rich basses and thick round trebles. The "German" spruce that I love so much is a warmer sound with a little less edge right there in the middle. The overtones of the bass tend toward a slightly darker sound. European red spruce, Carpathian? Insert Adirondack description, but with a slightly cleaner appearance, and add a little more cooperation. The Euro red seems to me to be a little easier to drive, and less likely to need to be broken in all over again the next day. It does shut down some overnight, and will have to worked nearly as hard as Adirondack to get it to open up. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. . Rosewood vs. Mahogany? In general, rosewood tends to have more sustain in the bass with a wetter sort of sound (reverb wet). Mahogany shines in its round, sweet trebles and a bass that thumps but does not sustain quite as much, giving it an advantage in front of a microphone. What do you think about Brazilian rosewood? Can you get it? There is a reason Brazilian rosewood has always been a highly sought after tonewood for stringed instruments. From the guitars of Antonio de Torres to this date, it is the wood of choice. Brazilian rosewood lends a smoothness, a brilliance, and sweet overtones to the trebles, while enhancing bass sustain and richness. Exactly what I strive for is exactly why this wood shines. Brazilian rosewood is available for export out of the U.S. only under very stringent controls, as it has been a protected wood since the 1970's. There are many sets of Brazilian rosewood still available from builders who have been around long enough to collect them from older supplies. The stump reclamation project a few years ago provided us with beautiful pieces cut from stumps that had been left six or more feet tall. Some of the wood is sound, and other parts are full of obvious stresses that I won't work with. The wood that was circulating from that project is not as readily available as it once was, but I have stockpiled many sets, keeping only what I thought was good instrument wood. I feel it is just now fully ready to use after many seasons in my wood storage. Due to scarcity, Brazilian rosewood is starting to fall out of favor with some builders, partly because of difficulty in getting it, and partly because much of what's available is very hard to work with. By choosing carefully, I have been able to keep the best for now. As anyone with experience with Brazilian rosewood will tell you, it's not perfect wood, not at any price, but it is another trade off that is worth it, at least to my ears. What about the Lacey Act? The Farm Bill of 2008 contained an amendment to the Lacey Act of 1900 adding wood and wood products to the list of regulated materials. For export out of the US or reimport (such as for warranty work), certain woods and all shell products must be declared. There are stringent controls on some of the materials, such as Brazilian rosewood, and no woods or shell products can be imported or exported if they were obtained illegally. The lutherie community is scrambling to learn how to do the paperwork to be in compliance, but thankfully, the shipping companies have put systems in place to deal with these difficult export issues. The cost of inspection and brokerage must now be added to the price of shipping for export out of the US, but as always, it is perfectly legal, and under the circumstances probably cheaper, to fly in for your guitar. Awww... gee.... I really want Brazilian but it's just too expensive. There is no shortage (yet) of gorgeous and great sounding substitutes for Brazilian rosewood. The most commonly used rosewood is Indian rosewood. It is usually plantation grown and highly sustainable. What about African blackwood? African blackwood, a very rare and expensive rosewood, is perhaps the superior of Brazilian in that it does everything Brazilian is supposed to do, and does it better, though it won't save you any money. African blackwood is the heaviest tonewood that I use, but as buyers become better educated, a "heavy" guitar does not have the stigma it once did. Buyers are no longer worried that a heavy guitar is overbuilt just because of its weight, they are much more likely to judge a guitar by the tonal results. Madagascar rosewood? Madagascar rosewood is a poor man's Brazilian, but I do not care to work with it. Madagascar is the victim of environmental exploitation, and I like to be able to sleep at night. I do have some sets from previous purchases, but I do not intend to buy more. What does cocobolo sound like? A very heavy rosewood, it lends a gorgeous alto richness to the voice of a guitar. I have been told my results are different from other builders, and that's okay with me. What I experience from it is a warm, lush bass with great sustain, and a rich alto presence with a slight edge to the sweetness of the trebles which allows for effective counterpoint. (Hint: I let it be heavy and use it at full strength while some folks choose to thin it excessively.) What about koa? Koa is all sweet with a bass somewhere between the mahogany thump and the sustain of rosewood. May I send you wood to use? Only in rare and special instances will I use wood that is not my own. There are several reasons for this: I usually have worked with sister sets from my collection, and know what the outcome will be. I want to know everything about how a set of guitar wood was stored and where it came from. It needs to be in my shop a minimum of two years before construction begins. If something goes wrong, I won't be able to substitute from my own collection, therefore I will lose time. If you are able to convince me, usually for sentimental reasons only, to use your wood, there will be all the same upcharges as if it came out of my pile, and there will be some warranty changes. How did you learn to build guitars? I started out at the library, and then another, and then another. It took a lot of reading about routers, and jig making, and plane sharpening in addition to absorbing everything I could find on the subject of guitar making. There were no clues anywhere about how to achieve good tone, so I apprenticed myself to a violin maker learning to do vintage guitar restorations, fret work, set ups of acoustics and electrics, lots of neck resets, and observing tonal shaping that my mentor did on violin family instruments. Is guitar making hard? I've seen some really amazing first guitars that were made from kits or books. Now ask me if it's hard to consistently make a good sounding guitar, on time and at budget, and to stand behind every last guitar you've ever sold to a customer. That's a bit harder, but that's what it takes. Do you do repairs? Yes, I do repairs, but I seldom have time to take on any projects. I know of several fine repair persons across the US and will be happy to help you find someone. I am interested in restoring fine vintage instruments and will make time and space for that kind of project. Can you help me price this used Wingert? Every instrument I have sold was priced fairly at the time it was sold. I even sold the very first guitar I ever made. Each guitar must be evaluated on its own merits, not in comparison to my current price list which reflects many years of experience and many refinements. Do you need any help? Yes, but I don't have shop space or time for training. It might be the manifestation of some control issues, but really, I just have to do it myself! How do I get the best deal from a luthier? Call when they're broke. Why is this site so wordy? Search engines. Click Here For Our Green Statement