In a small walk-down shop in Exeter, New Hampshire, old guitars find new life at the hands of Pat DiBurro. Some are over 150 years old. When DiBurro finishes with them, his goal is that they should sound as good as that day long ago when some master guitar builder declared them done. DiBurro has been working on guitars for over 30 years and as New Hampshire Public Radio’s Jon Greenberg reports, in that time he’s learned that sometimes the most demanding bosses are the dead ones.
Pat DiBurro plays his Gurion guitar. (Photo: George Kelly)
Plunk / I’ve got to tune this up, just give me a second/ tuning
Pat DiBurro works alone in a low-ceilinged but sunny shop alongside the Squamscott River. He reaches over to a bin by his workbench and picks up a slender, honey-colored instrument.
this is a guitar that I’ve just finished completely restoring. It was built in 1949 in Nazareth Pa at the CF Martin factory.
When this 1949 Martin came to DiBurro, he says it was unplayable. Guitar strings have about 140 pounds of tension in them. Over the years, that force literally bends the instrument. The body changes shape and the strings, instead of lying just above the neck, sit well above it.
What I had to do was remove the neck completely off of the guitar, change the shape or the angle at which it entered the body and reset it into the body. The bridge, this little piece of rosewood was pulling off. And then there were a few braces, some of the internal structure of the guitar had come loose. And now, all these things are done and I’m going to play a bit if you don’t mind.
Playing
1850 Ashborn guitar. (Photo: George Kelly)
I started playing the guitar when I was 13, but it seemed that when I started putting my hands on these guitars, prying them apart and putting them back together, that is what I really wanted to do. I'm more interested in having my hands on them with tools, rather than a guitar pick.
Guitars are built to appeal to the ear, but for DiBurro, the relationship is much more physical, more tactile, even olfactory. The older the guitar, the greater his satisfaction.
When they come in, I really enjoy getting into it, smelling the dust, putting my nose in the sound hole, taking it all in, looking at the joinery, at the way the braces were carved.
His heroes are the guitar makers of the 1800’s who took mahogany, rosewood and spruce and assembled them with enormous care.
I'd like to show you a guitar. This is the oldest guitar I have in my shop today .. this guitar was built in 1850 by a luthier named James Ashborn.
DiBurro runs his hands over the small, unstrung guitar. The face is ornate with diamond shaped inlay encircling the sound hole and a checkerboard pattern all around the outside edge of the body. DiBurro admires it all. He points to the peg head, the part where you tune the strings, and shows how it connects with the neck of the guitar.
James Ashborn used two pieces of wood. An elegant joint. Difficult to do today
When DiBurro works on guitars, he thinks of craftsmen like Ashborn. DiBurro studied at the Martin guitar factory, a shop that was founded in 1833 by CF Martin and is run to this day by his descendents. DiBurro enjoys the feeling of the continuity of that chain.
To this day, I think of CF Martin senior looking down on me, watching what I'm doing. and saying you’d better work that a little more; that one’s not done.
Playing
look at all of these guitars that I’m working on, unless they meet some catastrophic damage, they’re going to outlive me. And my work’s going to be, if it’s good work, keep the guitar in good working order and the guitar will continue to play well. And that’s all I really care about.
DiBurro says there’s something he never tells his customers. He doesn’t work for them; he works for the guitar.
For NHPR News, I’m Jon Greenberg.
