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Antonio Torres. John D’Angelico. Giuseppe Guarneri. Antonio Stradivari. James D’Aquisto. Jose Ramirez. Leo Fender. Lloyd Loar. All of these noted luthiers have one thing in common: they were all known for being exceptionally good at building one type of instrument. You see, in the complex and convoluted world of lutherie, it can take a lifetime of study to become even mildly proficient at building just one kind of instrument. Stradivari for example worked his entire life to perfect violin design and according to legend, he still felt unsatisfied with his work at the end of his life. Jimmy D’Aquisto spent most of his life figuring out how to build a better archtop guitar, and his designs were still radically evolving at the time of his passing. So then, it’s almost inconceivable that one person could actually become a master at building two completely different types of instruments. Sure, on a grand scale, both Taylor and Collings have recently left their comfort zones and forayed into the highly competitive world of electric guitars. But these builders are operating with dozens or even hundreds of employees, CNC machines, and computerized consistency. In short, they have the resources and capital to experiment. And if a mass produced (or semi-mass produced) instrument is your fancy, both of these companies have some outstanding offerings. But for one builder in one shop to be able to handcraft two radically different types of truly outstanding instruments, it would be well, impossible. Yet, in a dimly lit, backroom workshop, in the bowels of downtown Richmond, VA, that is exactly what Tommy Rodriguez is doing. Quietly, for the last twenty or so years, Tom has been pushing the threshold of both classical and electric guitar design while simultaneously building some of the most stunning instruments known to man. To us it seems, well, impossible, but to Tom it all seems perfectly clear and logical. In a career path born out of equal parts necessity and passion, Tom has found a unique identity in the world of lutherie.
And after spending just a few minutes with the man, it becomes readily apparent that he couldn’t care less about becoming the next Bob Taylor or Bill Collings. No, Tom is the rare luthier who is more art than science; more passion than profit. In his tiny workshop in a declining business district, Tom is quite happy to pass away the hours, devoutly working on masterpieces that will likely one day command small fortunes in the auction houses of New York and London. And while he was once little known outside of his hometown of Richmond, Tom is starting to garner attention on the international stage. In fact, his instruments are even now commanding prices that he once thought unheard of. We recently had the unique opportunity to sit down with this remarkable luthier at his shop for an unbridled exchange on guitar building. We were humbled by the knowledge stored in Tom’s head and we hope you’ll glean some insight into what makes a great luthier tick.
A completed Rodriguez electric guitar. Note the "unburst" finish, the unique body and peghead shape, ebony fingerboard, and the wraparound tailpiece.
We were able to play this guitar full throttle through an old Fender Tremolux and we assure you, it sounds as good as it looks!
photo: Tom Rodriguez
Virtual Woodshed: So Tom, how did you get into building guitars? And which came first, electrics or classicals?
Tom Rodriguez: Electric guitars came first. It came from playing guitar. I wanted to know what was the thing that made one out of fifty guitars magic. I always wanted to experiment with guitars, pickups, that kind of thing. And it was too expensive to be going out and buying guitars and chopping them up. So I ended up slowly working into making things myself, getting cheap guitars and fixing them up. I would buy a neck from one of the companies that will go unnamed, who are still popular, and the quality would be horrible. And again I wanted to know what it was that made the guitars I liked play so fantastic.
Virtual Woodshed: So how old were you when you really started getting interested in that concept?
Tom Rodriguez: Probably 23 or 24.
Virtual Woodshed: When did you start playing in that case?
Tom Rodriguez: Probably a couple years prior to that in college.
Virtual Woodshed: What were you listening to then? Who were your main influences?
Tom Rodriguez: You know, I didn’t listen to a lot of music back then! [laughs] I liked to go see live bands and I would see a wide variety. At one point, I think I finally broke down and bought a record player and I didn’t have any records. And some friend of mine felt sorry for me and gave me two records that she didn’t want. It was AC/DC’s Back In Black and the first Van Halen album!
Virtual Woodshed: So one of the finest builders of classical instruments in the US today started out with AC/DC and Van Halen?! [laughs]
Tom Rodriguez: Yep. Stranger things have happened, I’m sure. Funny thing, years later that same girl came to [see me play at] a show and she said “I see those albums served you well” cause I guess that’s the vibe the band had at the time!
Virtual Woodshed: Did you ever buy a guitar that didn’t really suit you and reverse engineer it?
Tom Rodriguez: Well, actually I started out as a bass player. The guitar thing came from my first band, with Tom Applegate on guitar and David Stover. Well, Tom left the band, and I had a hard time finding a lead guitarist that I liked so I ended up saying, “I’ll do it” and I learned to play lead guitar that way.
Virtual Woodshed: So this was around the same time when you were 23 or 24?
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah. I actually started playing bass at around 21 and guitar at probably 23 or so.
Virtual Woodshed: What was your first electric guitar?
Tom Rodriguez: I had a 1967 [Gibson] Firebird. Hang on a second… [ed note: Tom gets up and mercilessly squashes a gigantic centipede that scurries across the shop floor – did we mention this is the bowels of Richmond?] Anyway, yeah at that time I had established myself as a player and I knew what a good guitar was. And at that time too I had also started listening to the Stones and I really liked Brian Jones a lot. I guess most people would think of me as more of the Keith Richards type, but there was one album they had with a picture of Brian Jones playing a Firebird.
Virtual Woodshed: Goat’s Head?
Tom Rodriguez: I can’t even remember which album it was now, but it was a three pickup guitar, you know, three P-90’s. I bought it at Don Warner’s Music and I didn’t even have a car at the time. I was just so excited about getting it that I rode my bike out there to Don Warner’s which was way out on Libbie Ave and then rode all the way back to VCU carrying a Firebird under my arm! [laughs]
Virtual Woodshed: No case?
Tom Rodriguez: Oh, it had a case which made it that much worse! I had it resting on the handlebars and holding it, so I was quite sore when I got back, but I was happy with my purchase.
Virtual Woodshed: Was it a reverse or the one with the banjo tuners?
Tom Rodriguez: It was the non-reverse. The Elmer Fudd one, the one that isn’t worth as much money.
Virtual Woodshed: Fast forward a little bit and tell us about the whole classical thing and how that got started.
Tom Rodriguez: I was making guitars and repairing guitars for a living and there was no music store that would hire me. They all had an established guitar repairman…
Virtual Woodshed: You’re referring to building electrics?
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah
Virtual Woodshed: So that would have been what, the early 90’s?
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah, that would have been around ’92. So, John Patykula from VCU [ed note: Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, a four year state university with a prestigious music program] had a music store that sold some electrics, but predominantly it sold classical guitars. And they hired me as a repairman and so, I got my experience with classical guitar players. I grew up listening to classical music and I was kind of slow getting into the rock. I guess that’s interesting compared to where I am now! I guess I have this secret double life of the crazy rock n roll player and the serious classical guitar maker [laughs]
Virtual Woodshed: In fact, some folks may actually still think that you are two different people! [laughs]
Tom Rodriguez: Probably. It’s troublesome with the advent of youtube, because it’s easy enough to find video of me playing guitar if you know the secret words! But at any rate, I worked at the classical guitar store and became more and more interested in these guitars. And so, what really got me interested was somebody came in the store with a 1923 Santos Hernandez flamenco guitar. I got to see it and it was considered to be worth something like $40,000. Santos Hernandez was the foreman at Manuel Ramirez’ guitar shop and was the one who made Segovia’s first guitar; the one he toured with for 25 years. Seeing that guitar [made me wonder] what makes this guitar so much more valuable than these other ones in the shop? So I got curious and it took me probably five years to get around to building my first prototype. And as soon as I did, the sales started coming in and it quickly overtook my life. I saw a way to really make a living doing what I like, and I saw myself getting less and less in tune with the new crop of rock players as I got older. But, there was the problem of everyone who reaches the level where they can afford to have a handmade guitar, they were getting them for free from the bigger companies, and it becomes this whole game of getting free instruments. You know, I’ve got house payments and children who rely on me. I’m doing this all by hand, no CNC machinery, so it’s time consuming and to give a guitar away for free is a big thing.
Virtual Woodshed: Along those lines, I’ve heard it said that you make every single part on the guitar except the strings and the tuning machines. Is that true?
Tom Rodriguez: Yes. And as much as I love the fine detail work, I also love the whole roughing out process. You know, finding a rough board and cutting it open to see what’s in there. I choose my own lumber and a lot of times I’ll try to salvage lumber when possible.
Virtual Woodshed: You also seem to favor some fairly exotic materials. Talk about some of your favorite woods to work with.
Tom Rodriguez: I like all different things! Each one has its magic. I’ve been very fortunate to find things like… For instance, I walked into Woodcraft at the right time and they had purchased a wood worker’s estate and in it was a whole stack of really old, good quality Brazilian rosewood. And it was a real treat to get wood of that quality and do all the re-sawing myself. Because it has become so scare and so valuable that everybody is thinking of it as a way to make money. You know if they can find a way to sneak it in from Brazil, they’ll cut it while it’s still green and it ends up curling up and cracking. Most of what you see out there is horrible quality, but when you get the good quality stuff it really is nice to work with. Every piece is different. The majority of what I have is from the same tree, but [each set] has really unique and distinctive grain patterns.
The top of a recently completed Rodriguez masterpiece. The Herringbone bindings were made in Tom’s shop.
photo: Tom Rodriguez
Virtual Woodshed: Certainly in the flattop steel string world, Brazilian rosewood is considered the holy grail tonewood. Is that also the case for classical guitars?
Tom Rodriguez: Well, I’d hate to say that. I don’t want to encourage people that they have to have a Brazilian guitar. I think the builder is the most prominent part of the equation. It’s all shapes and flavorings and Brazilian rosewood does have some really nice qualities. But it’s so scarce that I’m finding I have to use other things and I’m getting excellent results.
The neck to body joint of a recently completed Rodriguez classical guitar.
The quartersawn Brazilian rosewood on this instrument is simply the stuff of dreams.
photo: Tom Rodriguez
Virtual Woodshed: Well, what other kinds of woods are you working with for the sides and backs?
Tom Rodriguez: I have a lot of Honduras rosewood which I traded somebody a guitar for. They had had this stuff in their family for thirty years and it was rough lumber. So I got to re-saw it out and I got to pick the way the grains would run and so forth. I also really like ziricote, but it’s very hard to find now. The stuff that I’ve been using actually came over in the 60’s and it was considered junk wood! It was used as protective boards to hold veneers flat in a veneer mill. And it sat there forever until it was purchased by someone who dealt in guitar woods and they saw the value in that wood…and by the time I had sold people on it being a really good tonewood, I could no longer easily get it!
A tonewood lover’s paradise! Secretely hidden away in a very inconspicuous building with no
sign lies one of the best collections of tonewoods in the state of Virginia.
photo: Brian Williams
Virtual Woodshed: What about mahogany? Is it used much in classicals?
Tom Rodriguez: It was a lot in the early days. It has a stigma about it of being substandard for classicals but I think it would make an excellent guitar. I actually have a lot of it set aside…
Virtual Woodshed: Is that because the bass response may not be as good as rosewood?
Tom Rodriguez: Umm, well no, it actually has good bass response, but rosewood I guess has a slightly richer sound. Mahogany is going to be a little woodier and warmer. And since a classical guitar is already fairly warm, it may be too much. But there were a lot of great guitars built out of mahogany in the 20’s so as I have the time I’m going to build some with the intent of them being for sale and someone will fall in love with it I’m sure.
Tom proudly shows off one of his projects still in progress, a Brazilian rosewood beauty.
photo: Brian Williams
Virtual Woodshed: What about the top, neck and fingerboards; what are your favorite materials to work with there?
Tom Rodriguez: I go back and forth with all of them. Right now, the main tops are western red cedar, and a whole multitude of different types of spruce. I had a lot of problems with the red cedar but I’ve come to really like it now. I think a lot of people were judging it because it wasn’t introduced as a tonewood until the 60’s, and they felt that it might lose it’s sound and die after say, twenty years; whereas a spruce top guitar would continue to improve forever. But I found that not to be true. Some fairly prominent players that I know who have Ramirez guitars from the 60’s with western red cedar tops claim that they are still improving and still sound great.
It’s the small details that make all the difference. Old growth mahogany, long neck tenon, nitrocellulose lacquer.
You simply can’t buy guitars like this in the "big box" stores these days.
photo: Tom Rodriguez
Virtual Woodshed: I’ve heard some people say that flamenco guitars of days gone by were made of materials that tend to deteriorate over time. Have you ever heard that?
Tom Rodriguez: Well, flamenco guitars, to get that percussive sound that they are known for are built very light and they’re built from cypress. And, it has a tendency to…
Virtual Woodshed: Implode?
Tom Rodriguez: Yes! [laughs] Which I think may be why flamenco guitars are associated with very low bridges. You know originally, [classical and flamenco guitars] started out as the same instrument. It was just that builders used cypress for people who couldn’t afford the rosewood. That would be the gypsies, who used them for flamenco guitar. And then you start getting that sound, and I think over time with the neck lifting, they started shaving the bridge down to get the action back where it needed to be, and they found that facilitated the techniques they wanted which became the norm for the flamenco style.
Virtual Woodshed: So it sounds like these guitars may have gotten this unfair stigma of being “cheap” instruments for lack of a better word.
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah, and I’m sure some of them probably were! [laughs] They were basically folk instruments. And a lot of these issues I’ve addressed with my guitars, with reinforcing the necks with carbons fiber. And I use solid linings, the linings being what are used to create gluing surfaces for the top and the back. Most builders consider that to be it’s sole purpose. But with violins, the linings are actually solid, or mortised into the neck and the heel block, where you cut the square notch and fit it in there. And that adds a huge amount of strength to the instrument without adding any weight. By doing that [on my guitars], I’ve found that it’s almost like [when Steinway introduced the cast iron harp for their pianos], you’re able to stiffen up the guitar dramatically which transmits the vibrations to the top of the guitar better.
Virtual Woodshed: That segues nicely into my next question. I heard Bob Taylor say recently that “most guitar companies are selling their past.” But you certainly don’t seem afraid to break with tradition and innovate in tasteful ways. I’ve also heard that you are doing interesting things with your bracing and with the so called “sound ports”. Talk about that.
Tom Rodriguez: I see room for improvement in a lot of aspects… Most of my ideas come from years of guitar repairs; seeing what works and what doesn’t work. Thus the introduction of carbon fiber rods. You know, I went to Spain and met some of the top makers, and they told me that you don’t need [carbon fiber rods] if you use well seasoned wood. And I said “but I’ve seen plenty of guitars [made from] well seasoned wood that were built in the past that have warped necks, and there’s nothing you can do except pull the frets out and shave the fingerboard down. And even then it doesn’t necessarily [solve the problem]. And unlike industry today where you have planned obsolescence, I’m building my instruments to last a lifetime. Where they may seem expensive, try and pay that amount of money for anything these days and try to have it last the rest of your life. I mean buy a car these days and watch it fall apart!
Virtual Woodshed: Yeah, a Chrylser certainly isn’t going to last that long!
Tom Rodriguez: No! [laughs] And so, [my guitars] are built to last. My first flamenco guitar that I made almost fourteen years ago, uh, I’m still in touch with the original owner. And he says it still gets better sounding each year and the action is the same as when he bought it. So, if I were buying an instrument, that’s what I would want.
Virtual Woodshed: How about the bracing? What do you refer to your bracing as? Lattice bracing?
Tom Rodriguez: It’s sort of based on lattice bracing. And what’s happened… classical guitars are one of the few things where you are buying [the instrument] to actually play it acoustically. So many steel string players are buying them and then wanting to plug them in or put a pickup in them. But classical players use them acoustically, and they always want more [volume]. Guitar has always been considered a quiet instrument and it’s always had trouble competing with a piano or a flute, or even a violin for that matter. So, a lot of makers have been trying to come up with a way to make the instrument louder. And there’s a lot of innovative guitar making going on right now. Greg Smallman from Australia came up with the idea of lattice bracing, where you have the diamond pattern and the crisscrossing of the braces to make the top super stiff. Then the top can be very thin and you just have an explosively loud guitar.
A rare peek inside a Rodriguez classical guitar which gives an interesting perspective of Tom’s own take on lattice bracing.
photo: Tom Rodriguez
Virtual Woodshed: Like a drum head.
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah, but the problem is that it doesn’t really sound like a guitar anymore. It had a piano like quality. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was finding that a lot of players were being drawn to that volume. I had pushed traditional guitar making as far as I could, and I was making excellent guitars but the players wanted more [volume]. So I tried my own version of lattice bracing, but instead of going as far as the Australian makers were going, I just basically took fan bracing and took the two outside fans and put them above and below the bridge and had them fanning out from the treble side. I initially did this because I thought it looked cool, but I had read where asymmetrical bracing will help eliminate wolf tones and dead spots on the fingerboards, and I had a lot of arguments with other builders who said that what I was doing wouldn’t work! But I’ve found that my guitars are probably the most well balanced, evenly responding instruments of any guitar I’ve ever seen. And most of the major instruments that are out there are braced asymmetrically. Steel string guitars for instance; you know X bracing is actually asymmetrical, mandolins are braced asymmetrically, violins have a bass bar on one side. But classical guitars for a long time have been symmetrically braced. And this is something that I thought could be improved on and it seems to be working, although I couldn’t tell you exactly why.
Virtual Woodshed: And that’s not to say that you won’t further evolve the concept, right?
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah. I think I’m fairly happy with the way it is, but now I’m really refining it. It will take years and years of trying all different combinations of thicknesses and brace shaping… You know, I don’t do any tap tuning. And this will probably piss a lot of people off but I think of tap tuning as a way to consistently make mediocre guitars. I’ve tried so many things and gotten excellent results and I’ve never tapped the top to see what note it rings to. And who knows? Maybe one day I’ll find the complete opposite is true as I learn. The whole process is an education, and I think that’s what’s fascinated me for twenty years. I learn new stuff every day and it never gets old.
Virtual Woodshed: How many classicals have you built at this point?
Tom Rodriguez: One hundred and six.
Virtual Woodshed: Any other instruments in the classical family? Lutes or mandolins?
Tom Rodriguez: I’ve made a handful of classical mandolins. I’ve made four to six Venezuelan Cuatros, it’s hard to keep up with the exact number. And I have plans drawn up for ukuleles because I hear they’re getting popular.
Virtual Woodshed: Probably because of Zooey Deschanel!
Tom Rodriguez: If I only knew who she were…
Virtual Woodshed: She’s a movie star who plays the ukulele. Uh, nevermind… Have you ever built a violin?
Tom Rodriguez: No. Going back to what I said earlier about tap tuning being stupid for guitar building, it’s actually critical in violin building. You have the arched top and the arched back and they have to be tuned to specific frequencies to work off of each other. In violin making, you have to be formally trained to do that properly and it’s a serious skill.
Virtual Woodshed: Let’s switch gears for a minute. You’re a two faceted builder in that your classicals are outstanding but you also have a unique design for electrics. Talk about what motivates you there and what get you excited about building electrics.
Tom Rodriguez: I guess I just started doing it for myself, solely to make what I thought would be the perfect guitar for me. And I came up with my model that’s just been evolving over the years. Every time I make one I see something else I’d like to change. You can do things with your drawings in two dimensions, but as soon as it gets to three dimensions, you see other things… But basically I don’t like having fifty guitars. A lot of these famous guitarists, you know, you hear about [Guns & Roses guitarist] Slash having over a hundred guitars; I met [Police guitarist] Andy Summers and he had over a hundred guitars. Man, I wouldn’t know what to do with them or even where to put them! So I’m trying to find one guitar that works for me, and when I go to play a show, I don’t want to have to bring a backup guitar. I like simplicity. My brother used to have a Les Paul Junior from 1959 and it was just so simple, but it worked so well. So, I’ve tried to capture that in my guitars with the wraparound bridges. I use the lightweight aluminum wraparound bridges made by Wilkinson which I think have to be the best bridge out there. I hear people say, well I want tremolo or this or that, and [the wraparound bridge] does have limitations and limited intonation adjustability, but I’ve managed to get the intonation perfect and they never break strings. There’s no moving parts which I think translates into tone on the guitars.
Virtual Woodshed: You obviously favor the Gibson approach when it comes to basic design. Are you also using a 24 ¾” scale length exclusively?
Tom Rodriguez: No. I’m going with 630mm, which is probably a couple thousandths of an inch longer than Gibson. It’s mostly because all my scales are plotted out in millimeters and they’re more accurately plotted out than traditional guitars are. So I do everything in millimeters.
Virtual Woodshed: There’s a notion today amongst players that all of the best electric guitars were built forty or fifty years ago and that most of the major brand’s best days are behind them. What was it about those golden era guitars that made them so magical? And I guess I’m referring primarily to the Gibsons.
Tom Rodriguez: At the time they were building them, they were not really successful. I get together with [electric guitar pickup maker] Lindy Fralin a couple times a month and we’ll go to lunch and share ideas. And we’ve come to the conclusion that back then all the woods were air dried. But now Gibson puts their wood in a vacuum kiln and dries it in one afternoon. And there’s other things that go on with the wood in the drying process other that just sucking all the moisture out! So, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m so backed up with orders that the wood piles up in there, and I have wood that’s been sitting literally for 150 years. Some of the stuff I’ve cut has been in there for twelve to fifteen years and I’ve noticed that it makes a huge difference in stability. For a long time I didn’t use ebony fingerboards on electrics because I thought it was notoriously unstable. But, the guitar I’m playing now has an ebony fingerboard, where I actually bought the wood green and sat on it in my shop for five years [to dry it out]. The first guitar I made with it… was one of my own guitars, and that’s the one I play now. And I’ve had it for a year and a half and I have not touched the truss rod with the seasonal changes. The fret ends have not started poking out of the sides. In fact, I played a show recently where the stage lights went amuck and were going full blast for the entire show. So, I’m playing on the stage at 100 degrees, pouring sweat all over the whole guitar, and it went an entire set without going out of tune, the neck didn’t do anything funny, and that’s the kind of stability I’m looking for.
Virtual Woodshed: And you contribute that mostly to the wood?
Tom Rodriguez: Yes, well seasoned wood. Guitars now to big makers are just commodities, you know, products to sell. Whatever they can do to save some money, they will do it. Even in the high end [models]. They’ll use these new modern double truss rods saying “well if your neck back bows, you have the ability to adjust it out”. And I say, if your guitar is built properly, the neck is never going to back bow. And those truss rods make the neck so notoriously unstable, you’re constantly having to adjust them in seasonal changes if you’re a picky player. [The necks] just don’t add to the sound of the instrument. The neck is not stiff enough. Think about it, guitars today are built to hold a set of .009”s whereas the Gibson’s of the 50’s were built to hold a set that starts with .013”.
Virtual Woodshed: Jazz strings. Now THAT’s an interesting concept right there! That’s a dirty little secret that is just not talked about! I had never thought of that before.
Tom Rodriguez: Uh huh, yeah, I mean it’s hard to set up new guitars. I used to laugh when Stewart McDonald came out with a table to support the neck while you leveled the frets and so forth. I thought that was the silliest thing I had ever seen, but I’ve since adopted it because the necks on today’s guitars are so flimsy. They just don’t have an even curve. I think of the neck as a bow and arrow, like when you string up a bow, it has this even, predictable radius, and new guitars don’t have that. They have S curves and all kinds of things. So you end up having to clamp them to the workbench to file the frets, and you’ll have some frets that are filed almost flat and others that are barely touched. So you try to recrown it to make it look as good as possible, but you shouldn’t have to go through that much work just to make a guitar play right.
Virtual Woodshed: And that’s attributed to trying to dry the wood too quickly?
Tom Rodriguez: Well, that and trying to cater to modern playing preferences. I mean, everybody wants the thinnest possible neck these days.
Virtual Woodshed: Hmm. Well with that said, is it still possible to build a vintage quality instrument that’s going to sound like one of the classics today?
Tom Rodriguez: Uh huh, oh sure! I mean factories, unless they go to a third world country, are not allowed to spray nitrocellulose lacquer which plays a huge part in the instrument’s characteristics. Just the fact of how an instrument weathers, for instance. My guitars will age and crack and wear, but they’ll do it gracefully. Whereas these new guitars will get a chip in the finish and you’ll be cutting your arm on that chip, or maybe if moisture gets under there the finish will lift off in sheets. Others, the finish won’t come off at all! But lacquer can be seamlessly repaired if it really needs to be done. But with these polyester guitars, you can’t get anything to stick to it if you wanted to touch it up or whatever.
Virtual Woodshed: So it’s not just that the big makers won’t build guitars like they used to, but in some cases with materials like Brazilian rosewood or nitrocellulose lacquer, it sounds like they simply can’t build them like they used to!
Tom Rodriguez: Right. For instance, nitrocellulose lacquer is a solvent based finish which emits toxic chemicals as it evaporates, and it’s highly flammable. So essentially, unless you’re shooting less than a gallon a month, you’re not allowed to use it. [Finish companies] are reformulating it and it’s getting better. They’re even coming up with some pretty good water based lacquers. But it’s a time consuming process of wet sanding, and what have you. And that doesn’t equate to money in the factory. They’re trying to sell a lot of cheap guitars… You know, the Les Pauls that people are paying ridiculous sums of money for, the ones from 1958 to 1960, they only made about 280 of those per year. It was a very small number. And that’s why they’re so valuable. But I’ve played some of them before and there’s no real magic there.
Virtual Woodshed: Well, you say that, but I did have a chance to play a real ’58 Les Paul once and I can tell you it was nothing like what you can take off the wall and play at a big box music store here in town.
Tom Rodriguez: One of the things too that I’ve had to compete with, is that electric guitars improve over time. The wood as it’s played vibrates and starts to become more responsive. The magnets in the pickups get weaker, the hardware gets corroded. And that’s the magic you’re getting with these old instruments. The guitar I’m playing now, I would put up against any old Les Paul as far as its tone and I imagine that after twenty years of playing it will be pretty magical.
Virtual Woodshed: Yeah. [Legendary guitar builder] Wayne Henderson told me once that for a guitar to get really good, the wood has to get to know itself. I guess he was referring to the joints and how all the different pieces of wood begin to vibrate as one unit over time.
Tom Rodriguez: Well what he’s talking more about is that at each place you have a different wood, it responds differently to seasonal changes. And that’s a problem with the Les Paul design. On the old ones they had what was called a long neck tenon, where the neck went all the way under the [neck] pickup into the pickup route. But the newer Les Pauls don’t have that, and so you essentially have a rosewood fingerboard that’s glued onto mahogany and maple, and on almost every single one of them, if you sight it down with a straightedge you’ll find a hump where the neck meets the body. And so even though I do make a lot of flame top guitars, simply because that’s a very desirable look, my personal preference is a solid wood guitar. My two favorite guitars are a Firebird based guitar that I’ve been playing for fourteen years which is all walnut, neck-through-body and my other one is my own design which is a solid body, carved top, solid korina with a korina neck and an ebony fingerboard. So you’ve got ebony glued on korina the whole way down and it tends to make it a lot more stable. And it sounds better! It seems you can have as many laminates side to side, but when you start gluing them front to back it starts affecting the tone dramatically.
Virtual Woodshed: And that one has the long neck tenon?
Tom Rodriguez: Yes. And the other thing that the factories aren’t going to do, is, I hand fit that neck tenon so that it mates perfectly the whole way across. It’s a very tedious process, but once it’s glued in place and sanded, you can’t see the joint. And perfectly fitting that neck joint makes a huge difference as far as tone production.
Virtual Woodshed: Yeah, Gibson would lose money on every guitar if they had to do that!
Tom Rodriguez: I actually saw a special where they showed the [Gibson employee] doing it with a chisel and he’s doing it in about ten seconds! Because that’s probably the production schedule he has to keep. I have a Les Paul in my shop that somebody did their “Who” impression with and smashed it, and they gave me the body for giggles. But anyway, there’s only about an inch in the neck joint where you can see part of the neck glued in there, which meant that in 75% of the neck joint the glue didn’t even make contact, and that’s all that was holding the guitar together. Whereas if you tried to smash my guitar, that whole thing would probably splinter, the body with the neck, and that whole thing would break as one unit.
Virtual Woodshed: It would be more like Hendrix at Monterey smashing the Strat!
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah, well back in my early days, I broke a guitar or two and the first time I broke one of my guitars, I dropped it and it cracked between where one of the screws in the tremolo was, cause it was so thin there, and I thought there’s really not enough to glue here. So I thought, “this guitar’s a goner” and I put glue in there and hammered a nail in there and I played it for the Hot Licks competition put on by Don Warner. And I went out there and did my thing, breathing fire and smashing the guitar. But I had to hit the guitar into the stage six times before it broke, and it was starting to break a hole in the stage! [laughter]
Virtual Woodshed: [roaring laughter!]
Tom Rodriguez: So, in hindsight, I guess that was one of my favorite guitars! I didn’t realize my nail and glue repair was going to work so well and I guess I should have kept it!
Virtual Woodshed: Holy cow, man, that’s funny! [still laughing] OK, OK. So can people come visit your shop?
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah, but the big thing is that I do work with power tools and I really can’t hear the door. So please make an appointment. People think I’m trying to be snooty and high falutin by wanting them to stick with an appointment, but if you’re late for an appointment, then I’m basically losing money to sit and listen for the door. And if you drop by unannounced I may not hear the door. But yeah, people do come by and check out what I’m doing. I think it’s a big part of making people comfortable, that you can come in and see what’s going on. A lot of people like to pick woods for the guitars if I have it in stock. You know, “see, this is going to be your fingerboard.”
Virtual Woodshed: And how does someone go about ordering one of your guitars.
Tom Rodriguez: For electric guitars I have a dealer, Fine Guitar Consultants in San Diego. But [founder] Richard Glick died and I don’t think the other people there are willing to push my guitars. They have ‘em there, but they haven’t done anything for me since he died.
Virtual Woodshed: Do they have any of your guitars?
Tom Rodriguez: They have one there now.
Virtual Woodshed: So I guess people should go direct to you now if they want to order one?
Tom Rodriguez: Yeah. I had an electric guitar website up but I let it expire because I didn’t know how many I was gonna do. Basically, I’m willing tp make electric guitars, but you know, it’s not cheap doing it by hand. But by the same token, I’ve got people coming in here who said my guitars were too expensive but then they go pay thousands of dollars for a pre-CBS Strat that’s [in terrible condition] and hardly playable.
Virtual Woodshed: So what’s your typical annual production?
Tom Rodriguez: It’s about fifteen guitars a year.
Virtual Woodshed: That’s electrics and classicals?
Tom Rodriguez: Yes. Typically I’ll try to do ten to twelve classicals a year. On good years I’ve done fifteen [classicals] and done no electrics. But bear in mind that this is all made by hand with attention to detail and made to last. I guess I should also mention that I work a lot with Lindy [Fralin] in making pickups, but I’ve also made my own pickup designs and had Lindy wind them. So the sky’s the limit for what we can do. It’s a big thing, I mean everybody wants the sound of the old PAFs, but they all go out and buy these [modern overwound] humbuckers because they think they don’t want weak pickups. But having that shorter bobbin [like the old style PAFs] ends up adding a lot to the sound. And it’s a big part of why so many new guitars with humbuckers sound like mud whereas the old ones are just full of tone, and they’ll still overdrive just fine.
Virtual Woodshed: What about if someone wants one of your classicals? Should they go direct to you?
Tom Rodriguez: With the classicals they can order them direct through me. I do have a website for the classicals [www.rodriguezguitars.com] and people can also order them through Dream Guitars [www.dreamguitars.com]
Virtual Woodshed is now the Exclusive US dealer for Tommy Rodriguez hand built Electric Guitars
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