JWJ GUITARS PARLOUR & ORCHESTRA
JWJ Guitars is a relatively new name on the lutherie circuit, specialising in bespoke builds at off-the-peg prices. Interested? You probably should be…
We have to admit that we weren’t aware of JWJ Guitars until a few months ago when luthier Rich Jones visited us at Guitarist HQ in order for us to sample his wares. Based in Shropshire, Rich began building guitars as a hobbyist 20 years ago, turning fully professional around 2018. With guitars a passion since his youth, Rich had found that his early builds were attracting a lot of attention on his local music scene with players queuing up for new instruments. Eventually, the decision was made to make guitar building his full-time occupation. “I was running a restaurant,” he tells us. “I’d always run pubs and restaurants and it was just hard work, doing all those hours and never being at home. So it just kind of made sense to do this and be around more, you know?”
Essentially a one-man operation, Rich now builds a range of acoustics (see our spec lists and the company website for model info) and will happily take on the individual design requirements of his customers. Both the models we have before us now are recent builds and two contrasting guitars: the ever popular OM-size cutaway, plus a Parlour/00 – both of which are finished in a thin matt coating of nitrocellulose. Our first glance suggests a very high level of workmanship on both instruments and Rich tells us that both have been built using only hand tools and workbench hours. We’re quite excited to pick them up and start hearing their voices, but first a quick run-through of the duo’s parts and specs.
Looking first at the Parlour model, despite its name it measures up more as an 00, as it lacks that petite ‘figure of eight’ shape to the body. Here, the lower bout is slightly more full and rounded. The top is what Rich has described as “aged cedar” whereby the wood is vacuum dried before the ageing process is begun using ammonia gas, which reacts with the tannins in the wood to produce the distinctive ‘antiqued’ appearance we see here. It certainly has a much darker look to it than cedar’s usual ruddy hue.
Back and sides are from a nicely bookmatched and very attractive figured walnut that bounces around in the light as the guitar shifts position (a phenomenon
