Maton Factory Tour

[druz15]

got to go on a tour of the Maton Factory last night with some of the employees from the music store I work at and wow!

Never really took much notice of Maton as a builder (I mean I knew they were good and all but just never really been into high end acoustic builders) but seeing what goes into every guitar gave me a lot more respect for them as a company and what they do. Makes building amps and pedals look like caveman work

The tour was taken by Andy Allan, their Master Luthier who was awesome and runs their custom shop which we got to see and he showed us some examples of custom work in progress, some of the wood flames and fingerboard inlays were absolutely astonishing.

No photos unfortunately, making me really wish I had a decent cameraphone cause we saw some really cool stuff

[Miza]

Awesome!

Always been a big fan of Maton, electric and acoustic. A friend has the ECW80(?) and it's perfect. Want to get one one day.

Hands down the nicest acoustic I've ever played was a Tommy Emanuel signature model.

[Cdog]

Man that's cool... both the Maton's I have played were quite nice.

[sty]

one of my old friends used to rave about his Maton acoustic and really rated them as a manufacturer.

building acoustic guitars, and other similar instruments like violins really intrigues me due to the way they work with fine woods and bend them and then somehow stick them together as solid but fragile instruments.

[Miza]

AND... they make possibly the coolest signature guitar for possibly the coolest front man ever...

http://maton.com.au/product/bb1200-jh

[Danger Mouse]

possibly the coolest front man ever...

There are a couple of his ex-Kyuss buddies that might disagree with that statement and if there is any merit in what they've been saying about him in the press lately, I can see their point.

[Miza]

Yeah, I get the impression he could be a total jerk to work for.

Looking forward to the new album though, June 4th.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-90obSa1Az4[/youtube]

[Danger Mouse]

Yeah, I get the impression he could be a total jerk to work for.

Looking forward to the new album though, June 4th.

Yeah definitely, he can be as much of an arsehole as he wants, I'll still buy QotSA albums (not to mention they are awesome live too).

[druz15]

Couple pics workmates took
This is in Andy's custom shop talking about a build he's working on, hilarious guy and seriously talented.


Tommy Emmanuel's first ever Maton which his tech dropped off at their factory for the museum yesterday, couple workmates actually played it

[slash-ed]

Sounds like a cool time!

[Jay]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLCRZ3ks ... =fvwp&NR=1[/youtube]

[Axel95]

I've always loved maton guitars! Everyone single one of them sounds great! Did the luthiers demonstrate any guitar building process or show u their tone wood collection?

[druz15]

I've always loved maton guitars! Everyone single one of them sounds great! Did the luthiers demonstrate any guitar building process or show u their tone wood collection?

Yeah they took us round and showed us the wood stocks and explained the wood drying process. They mostly use Queensland Maple and Australian Blackwood, with Spruce for most of the tops except for some models which use native Aussie timber.
They then showed us the CNC machines and demonstrated the process to get a neck from a piece of wood to a neck blank, to a neck profile with headstock shape and peg holes, to a shaped neck.
After that it was the body shop for glueing the sides together and then fitting the back and face, and then finally neck fitting and stuff.
Andy sanded down a rough CNCd neck to what has to be one of the comfiest unfinished acoustic necks I've ever held in about a minute while he was talking about something.

Then we saw the painting area which is really cool, they have a UV baking chamber which dries the finish in 4 mins as opposed to the 2-3 weeks they used to have to wait for finish to dry. They've got the finish down from 0.6mm to 0.2mm thick using this process. They sprayed and baked an acoustic right there for us and it looked amazing and was completely dry.

[nikar]

A buddy of mine has one of these. I believe Andy only made 4 of them after a trip to NZ.

[druz15]

A buddy of mine has one of these. I believe Andy only made 4 of them after a trip to NZ.

Clipboard01.jpg

Ah yes saw the template for the fingerboard inlays for that one. Very cool.