Gallery Hardwoods visits Benavente Guitars
June 2005
After a very long drum roll, I hope ya'll find this as interesting to view
as it was interesting to do.
I want to thank Chris Benavente for giving up several hours of his shop time
for me. I caught him at a very, VERY busy time getting ready for NAMM.
What I found was a very busy shop with lots of sawdust flying, stacks of
bass parts waiting for processing, and the clean-up guy AWOL :). Chris was
very generous with access to his shop equipment and techniques.
Mr. James Hart www.hartsafire.com contributed many hours organizing the photos into something
that would resemble a "tour". He did a remarkable job in spite of my bad
photos and laziness. Thanks James!!!!
Over the past couple years, I've stopped by the Benavente shop delivering
wood from time to time, but this visit was unique in that I got to see the
new automated over-head router in operation. Watching the "tool" cut out a
top, cut out a body blank or route a pocket was impressive. More impressive
was the time Chris put into hand working the pieces after auto routing.
Auto routers can only remove material, they cannot fit and finish. As I
watched the Amboyna burl top being cut out, I couldn't help comparing it to
the same bulky process using a bandsaw. Hands down, no contest for clean,
accurate work off the auto router.
Any professional shop with desires and plans to grow the business cannot to
some degree or another not utilize this type of tool.
The main difference between a factory using CNC and a small builder is that the small builder spends more time on his product and more money on wood. Usually a small builder has one person assemble a guitar instead of a different person for each small job. It isn't the tools, it is the designer and the process much like it is the player and not the gear. ...John Suhr