About Alex Willis
Personal background
I haven't always made guitars. When I was about five years old I was visiting my grandparents at Port Glasgow, Scotland and hearing the constant sound of riveting from the Clyde Side shipyards gave me a subliminal life long desire to build a boat. I did not realize that this would eventually lead me to building boats in sunny California, in fact my first was a 51 foot Ferro Cement ocean going yacht that led me to meeting my future wife Nancy, marrying her and have the boat as our home for the next eleven years. During this time I was designing and fitting yacht interiors. All this happened after spending some time in the Royal Navy and moving to the USA. At the age of 43 I returned to live permanently in the UK with my wife and three children, Stephen, Stephanie and Sandra. After being made redundant from a local firm I opened a business in designing and installing computer networks.
Five years later I was advised to take up a hobby to help me relax. I couldn't get a boat into my small garden workshop so at the behest of classical guitar playing friends Rob and Gilly I decided to read up and learn about making guitars from the excellent book called "Making Master Guitars" by Roy Courtnall as well as some others that are listed in the bibliography.
The transition from boat building via house renovation, designing and installing computer networks to musical instruments was not an easy one particularly when the latitudes of accuracy for the former skills were fairly generous and for a musical instrument are zero, they just have to be right not near enough. Therefore I find that owning and using top quality tools are necessary in producing top quality guitars as well as a comfortable, clean, well-lit work area.
The last ten years have been filled with tears of joy, mixed with some of frustration. I now know that I know more of what I don't know than I did when I first started when I knew less than I do now. The greatest joy is for me is to hand a brand new guitar to its new owner and hear it come to life for the first time.
All stages fully illustrated with colour photographs, clear drawings and detailed plans for each part of the instrument.
Copies of my book are also available at all the shows I attend. Please check the news section to find out where I will be next.