The Artistry of Dan Kellaway

Dan Kellaway’s journey into the world of luthiery began  in 1973 with a deep-seated passion for music and craftsmanship. After studying classical guitar playing, Dan was inspired to build three classical guitars in an attempt to make a better instrument than the one he owned.  As a trained Jeweller he found guitar building very satisfying coming from fine metals to fine timbers with fine tolerances and exacting techniques. However he soon realized that he needed to eat breathe and sleep guitars for many years before he could finally master the art of building a great Classical guitar. His journey took him through all aspects of repairs and restorations.  By 1990 he had worked on many high end guitars, many classicals but also many steel stringed instruments of great value. He built many lutes from Renaissance to Baroque and then in 1993 he decided to specialize in building Classical guitars exclusively. These were first built in a traditional style though the necks were dovetailed rather than Spanish Heel as experience with Martin guitars had involved many neck resets and this seemed a much more sane approach. Dovetailed necks can always be reset while Spanish Heels are not easily repaired if the action ever pulls up too high.  In any case Fleta had also taken the same path and if it was good enough for Fleta he figured it was OK for him as well.

Fan bracing was used through to 2000 in many configurations,  though some lattices were produced as early as 1996. But from the start of the lattice building there was a principle to uphold a more traditional ‘Spanish’ style of tone. It turned out that making a lattice from Spruce imparted this tone, while the lattice system allowed an increase in volume and projection. It also achieved great evenness over the range, a characteristic required by most modern players.

In fact the material of the braces was found to impart a large degree of tone so for example a cedar soundboard braced with spruce has a much more ‘Spruce’ sound than a full cedar guitar and vice versa. One experiment was conducted using a fan bracing system made from Balsa. This imparted the tone one would expect from the Balsa braced lattice guitars that are being made. Then a Spruce lattice was made with the result of a more traditional ‘Spanish’ tone, but with more volume than a fan.

But there were many other discoveries along the way, some concerning lattice placement, alignment, where it was thinned out, how far apart the braces were, the thicknessing of the soundboard, the way the linings were built and shaped, among some other innovations, all of which have contributed to the refinement of the modern Kellaway Classical Guitar.