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SYXQORA

New guitars, made to order in Halifax

Four to six guitars a year

There is a list, and right now it runs about 14 months. When your turn comes, your guitar gets about 11 weeks of bench time, from choosing the wood to its first week of being played in. Nobody jumps the queue, whatever they offer.

Waitlist
About 14 months
Bench time
About 11 weeks
Deposit
30 percent at wood choice
Prices
$6,900-$8,400 CAD

The three models

Three bodies, one way of building them

Each body is drawn at the same scale, lying on its side with the neck to the left, inside the same dashed lines. What the extra money buys is air: a wider lower bout, more low end, more guitar to get your arm over.

Spec Woods Sound Price

12-fret parlour

No. 3 Chebucto

Plan outline of the No. 3 Chebucto body, drawn at the same scale as the Harbour and the Bedford
Lower bout 340 mm, body 470 mm, 12 frets clear

Spec

Body
12-fret parlour
Scale
630 mm
Nut
48 mm
Lower bout
340 mm
Neck joint
Dovetail, at the 12th

Woods

  • TopRed spruce or Sitka
  • Back and sidesYellow birch or walnut
  • Fingerboard, bridgeEbony

Red spruce suits the small body. It is stiff and light, and it gives a parlour more headroom than it would otherwise have.

Sound

Small, quick and close to you. The 12-fret joint puts the bridge nearer the middle of the lower bout, and that gives a little body more push than it has any right to.

For fingerpickers, songwriters, and anyone who plays sitting on the edge of the bed.

Price

Base price
$6,900 CAD
Deposit at wood choice
$2,070
Balance on collection
$4,830
Figured set or cutaway
+$600-$1,000
$6,900 CAD
12 frets clear
Spec Woods Sound Price

14-fret orchestra size

No. 1 Harbour

Plan outline of the No. 1 Harbour body, drawn at the same scale as the Chebucto and the Bedford
Lower bout 381 mm, body 492 mm, 14 frets clear

Spec

Body
14-fret orchestra size
Scale
645 mm
Nut
44.5 mm
Lower bout
381 mm
Neck joint
Dovetail, at the 14th

Woods

  • TopRed spruce or Sitka
  • Back and sidesYellow birch or walnut
  • Fingerboard, bridgeEbony

Most Harbours leave in red spruce over yellow birch. It is the pairing I would pick for myself.

Sound

The one I would keep if I could only keep one. Even from the low E to the top string, enough bottom end for a flatpick and clear enough for fingerstyle.

The top drawn on the go-bar deck on the front page is a Harbour.

Price

Base price
$7,800 CAD
Deposit at wood choice
$2,340
Balance on collection
$5,460
Figured set or cutaway
+$600-$1,000
$7,800 CAD
14 frets clear
Spec Woods Sound Price

Round-shoulder dreadnought

No. 2 Bedford

Plan outline of the No. 2 Bedford body, drawn at the same scale as the Chebucto and the Harbour
Lower bout 397 mm, body 505 mm, 14 frets clear

Spec

Body
Round-shoulder dreadnought
Scale
645 mm
Nut
44.5 mm
Lower bout
397 mm
Neck joint
Dovetail, at the 14th

Woods

  • TopSitka or red spruce
  • Back and sidesYellow birch or walnut
  • Fingerboard, bridgeEbony

On a Bedford I will sometimes steer you towards Sitka. It takes a heavy right hand without breaking up.

Sound

The big one. Round shoulders rather than square, so the bass comes out wide and warm instead of boomy, and it sits under a voice at a kitchen party without burying it.

For strummers, flatpickers and anyone who plays standing up.

Price

Base price
$8,400 CAD
Deposit at wood choice
$2,520
Balance on collection
$5,880
Figured set or cutaway
+$600-$1,000
$8,400 CAD
14 frets clear
On every one

Same bench, same steps, whichever size

What comes with every guitar

  • Top thicknessed to between 2.4 and 2.8 mm, then voiced by hand
  • Scalloped X-brace, tap-tuned against the hand
  • Neck carved by hand and fitted to a dovetail
  • Frets with hand-dressed ends
  • Thin oil varnish, about three weeks of coats and curing
  • Bridge glued down with hide glue
  • Bone nut and saddle, cut from blanks
  • A first week of being played in before it leaves
All fourteen steps, in order
Options

Any of the three

Figured sets and cutaways

  • Figured back and side set+$600-$1,000
  • Cutaway+$600-$1,000

Priced against the actual set on the rack or the extra bench time, and agreed in writing before you pay the deposit.

Add $600-$1,000 CAD

Back and sides

Why yellow birch

Most of the guitars leave here in yellow birch, and walnut when a player asks for it. No tropical back and sides, and nothing without a paper trail.

In Callum's words

I get asked why the back and sides aren't rosewood. The short answer is that yellow birch grows about an hour up the road, and rosewood doesn't.

The longer answer is that when you tap a well-dried birch plate it rings with a clear, slightly glassy note that sits somewhere between maple and mahogany, quick to speak, not much overhang, and it lets a red spruce top do most of the talking, which is exactly what I want from the back of a guitar. I buy it from a small mill north of Truro, from a man who saws it, stacks it and lets it sit for years before he'll part with it, and I can tell you roughly which stretch of hardwood most of it came out of. The first birch guitar I made was in 2013, a Harbour, mostly to prove to myself it could be done, and I kept it at the shop. It was a bit tight and polite that first year. It isn't now. It has opened up every winter since: the trebles got sweeter, the low end came in somewhere around year four, and players who pick it up at the bench tend to ask what it's made of before they ask anything else. I've held back a few boards from that same log, which I probably shouldn't admit to, and every so often I pull one out and tap it just to hear it. Anyway. It's a good wood.

Walnut is there for players who want a darker, rounder voice. It comes with the same rule: if I can't trace it, I don't buy it.

Callum

The rack

Woods used on the builds

What the guitars are made of

  • Red spruce topsNova Scotia, the top I reach for first
  • Sitka spruce topsFor players who dig in hard
  • Yellow birch setsA small mill north of Truro
  • Walnut setsTraceable to the yard it came from
  • Ebony blanksFingerboards and bridges, from stock that shows where it was cut

If a set can't tell me where it grew, it doesn't come in the door, however good the figure looks.

How the list works

Joining the list

Nothing to pay to get on the list. The deposit comes later, when there is a wood set with your name pencilled on it.

  1. Step 01

    Write first

    Tell me what you play, how you play it, and which of the three you are leaning towards. If you aren't sure, say so. I would rather talk you into the right size than the dearest one.

    Free
  2. Step 02

    Your name goes on the list

    I reply within two working days with where the list stands. Today that is about 14 months. You can step off it at any point just by telling me.

    No deposit yet
  3. Step 03

    Choose the wood set

    We pick the top and the back and side set together, here at the bench or from photographs. The 30 percent deposit is paid then: $2,070 on a Chebucto, $2,340 on a Harbour, $2,520 on a Bedford.

    30 percent deposit
  4. Step 04

    Eleven weeks at the bench

    Change your mind before the top is braced and you get the whole deposit back. After that, the wood has been cut and voiced for your guitar and nobody else's.

    Refundable until braced
  5. Step 05

    Collection or delivery

    The balance is paid on collection. Within 150 km of Halifax I hand-deliver it for free. Anywhere else in Canada it ships at cost, with full-value transit cover.

    Balance due

Turned down, politely

What I won't build

Better you hear it now than fourteen months in.

Won't build

Four things the answer is no to

  • Electric guitars, electric rewiring or active electronics. An undersaddle pickup fitted on the repair bench is as far as I go.
  • Copies of another maker's body shape, headstock outline or inlay. The three models here are mine, and the people who drew theirs build them better than I would.
  • Back and side woods without a clear, traceable source, however good the figure looks.
  • A place bought further up the list. No rush fees and no jumping the queue, for anyone.

I have been asked, kindly and otherwise. The list is the list.

Callum

Start here

One way in

Write to join the list

Say which model you have in mind, what and how you play, and whether you are near Halifax. Callum answers within two working days.

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