My visit to the luthier today

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Tuesday, 2 December 2025

This afternoon I drove the five minutes across town to visit our local luthier, Tim — the sort of quietly competent guitar technician whose workshop, tucked into the back of his garden, is crammed full of the esoteric tools of his trade, together with a collection of instruments. I took two guitars: my ancient, bargain-basement classical, now warped by decades of tension and neglect, and the new Córdoba C1M, whose bottom two strings (E and A) had snapped almost immediately after I bought it.

The failure of those wound strings had made me suspect a manufacturing fault in the nut at the headstock, some roughness. Hence the visit. Tim put the Córdoba on his bench, peered at the nut slots, the wraps, the break points. His verdict was brisk and reassuring: the wound bass strings were visibly corroded. That alone explained the sudden unravelling. The D string (string 4) was half-gone as well. The guitar itself, though, was in excellent condition.

He then examined the aged relic. Years of string tension had bowed the body; the bridge now sat too high; the frets were uneven; the strings themselves stiff and unyielding. The repairs, he reckoned, would run to about £130. Given that the new Córdoba — a far superior instrument — cost £132, the economics were self-evidently absurd. We agreed the old guitar had had its day.

I’ll restring it anyway, keep it downstairs, and use it as a knockabout practice instrument when I can’t be bothered to trek upstairs. The new Córdoba will remain the guitar that delivers on sound quality and playability.

A useful half hour, and an unexpectedly pleasant one. Tim is exactly the sort of artisan you hope to find: expert, self-effacing, and equipped to handle anything from fretwork to electronics. Good to know he’s close by.

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