Tassie Luthier
John Turnbull's Guitars



Posted by Wayne on April 02, 2002 :


Yesterday, Easter Sunday, my managing director I decided to visit some old friends in the beautiful village of Stanley on our North-West coast. Pejomo suggested that I call on an old country picker and guitar maker who is an old mate of a good friend of ours who lives in the aforementioned village.
So, armed with Pejomo's dig. camera (and a Molonator)I
visited this very gracious and skilled person.
His name is John Turnbull and he is unfortunatley afflicted with Parkinson's disease which has brought an end to his playing days but thank God or whatever you wish to thank, not his instrument making days.










I found John in his workshop having a beer with a mate. He is a very quiet and unassuming bloke who will sit and talk with you all day about instruments and how they are made, but more than that, help and advise other makers.


He has some wonderful instruments that I would like to show you and perhaps describe (not all in this too long post)with the help of a few pics I took.
The first one is his latest guitar made from all Tasmanian woods (the top is solid King Billy Pine. King Billy is unique to Tasmania and John reckons it makes the best sound board bar none. Who am I to argue? The back and sides are Tasmanian Blackwood) except the ebony fingerboard. John made every component of this instument except the tuners and the bridge pins. There is about 1,000 pieces of wood in this thing as he built the binding from tiny pieces of wood.
Hope the pics tell the story.




Here's a pic of John with his Dobro style guitar. Again, John made everything himself except the cone, cover plate, tuners, etc. He is experimenting as I type with turning his own cones and Pejomo has been discussing this venture with him this evening.
John was an extremely good player of slide in the country/bluegrass style and it must be so frustrating for him not to be able to play these beautiful instruments any more. The guitar in his lap sounds so sweet and sustains forever.









Ed.Note: Thanks to Wayne and Mr. John Turnbull for sharin' this. John, you make some really fine lookin' guitars! Also thanks to brother Pejomo for his technical assistance in the pictorial posting department ;~)