Official Luthiers Forum!

I'll be in LA and Palm Springs this week. Any cool luthier related stuff I should seek out there?

the Music Museum in Carlsbad.

Carlsbad is about 90 miles from LA, but if you do end up there, stop by Buffalo Brothers. They have quite a selection of boutique guitars such as Bourgeois, Collings, Froggy Bottom, Goodall, R. Taylor, etc. I've found the occasional used hand built guitar hanging on the wall. There's a pretty cool little shop in Santa Monica called McCabe's that has similar brand guitars. Smaller, but closer to where you are going to be. Those are more guitar related, than builder related, but it'd probably be cool to play some better guitars, depending on what you call "better".

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sweat the small stuff.

Thanks for the McCabe's recommendation. They were profiled in Fretboard Journal a while ago but I forgot they were here. I played a bunch of nice new Martin's, Taylor's, Goodall's, and Collins'. Nice stuff. I was most impressed with the walnut OOO or OM stuff.



My favorite was by a maker I'd never encountered, Carmel Guitar Co. It was a fantastic walnut OM.



It was shocking how big and complex this guitar sounded.





And pretty too. I don't know if all their guitars are great but this particular one had "it".

Thanks again.

Another cool place is The Guitar Shoppe in Laguna Beach. the sell top end Taylor and Martin as well as others. It is also the home of Kirk Sands, a fantastic custom guitar builder. He is also a nice guy.

And one more and its a big one, Kevin Ryan Guitars. Kevin is a great guy also. If they know you are a builder they most likely will give you a look around the shop. You can also pick up some zipflex while you are there if you have a mind to. They are in Westminster, about 40 miles from LA.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Cool, Linus! I'm glad you found it!

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sweat the small stuff.