Torrefied wood has been thermally aged in a process that takes 72 hours. Then there are torrefied woods, spruce and maple. As all good luthiers know, when it comes to materials, you look to the tone woods - from older trees: Brazilian rosewood (the “Holy Grail” of the tonewoods), mahogany, ebony (fretboard), abalone, curly maple and mahogany for the neck white maple, sika spruce bear claw sitka spruce - from the northwest - that Dmitrieff describes as “super pretty with all that grainy grooviness.” In a guitar forum online, Bourgeois wrote, “Bearclaw, like the curl in curly maple, is a rippling of the longitudinal fibers, which divides the surface of the wood into shimmering patterns.” Grooviness bordering on psychedelic – in the right light, of course … So yeah, some sweet business had come his way, and all the while Dmitrieff was also building his first few guitars - small jumbos. Dana had been one of Hill's clients, but Hill offered the gig to me, so I started selling top sets to Bourgeois and on eBay.”ĭmitrieff also landed an annual gig making 5,000 brace sets for a major international guitar company for its hollow electric guitars. “I bought a log from Tony and Bet Finocchiaro and brought it to Monmouth to be sawed. “Nick said Maine has the finest wood for soundboards, Adirondack red spruce,” Dmitrieff said. Dmitrieff says he was fascinated by the whole sawing process and began helping Hill out. Hill sawed tops for many Maine guitar makers. Already.Īpollonio referred Dmitrieff to David Hill of Monmouth for tops. Nick recommended the book ‘Guitar Making Tradition and Technology’ - so I got it.” “I thought to myself, damn right I could and asked him what I had to do. “Nick looked at me and said 'Buy a new Martin guitar? With your woodworking skills you could make a better guitar than a Martin,” Dmitrieff recalled. He'd had a Martin once before, but it was stolen from a sailboat in Santa Cruz. One afternoon, he told Nick that he wanted to buy a new Martin guitar. And when you think about it, who better to make an instrument than the musician who knows and loves it so well?ĭmitrieff was working at Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in 2006, as was a master guitar builder, Nick (Nikos) Apollonio of Rockport. Lifelong guitar player Rob Dmitrieff left his boat building career behind not long after he began making his first guitar.