Julius Borges Guitars  
 

Construction

Working on headstock

Borges guitars have a very retro feel to them. They are assembled pretty much the way guitars were built back in the 1920's and 30's. With hot hide glue used for all of the structural joinery, red spruce bracing, hand fit dovetail neck to body joint and nitro over shellac finish, they're like a trip back in time. He tap tunes every soundboard and later adjusts the tuning of every body to produce the consistant sonority his instruments are famous for.

Many builders today feel that some of the techniques and procedures employed at Borges Guitars are impractical and time prohibitive, but Borges believes that with every step taken away from traditional building technique you lose something subtle in the guitar's response. He feels there's a synergy between all the guitar's components that he's not willing to jeopardize to save time. This is not to say that he's a Luddite. Borges employs modern woodworking equipment to produce precise and consistent parts, so he can devote more time to the details and voicing of every instrument where his time really counts.

Gluing top bracing

Borges refined his skills in the 1980's and 1990's, focusing on American guitars made by C. F. Martin in the early part of the past century. In an article published in Acoustic Guitar Magazine, Richard Johnston, a widely recognized authority on vintage instruments, and co-author of Martin Guitars: An Illustrated Celebration of America's Premier Guitarmaker was quoted as saying,

"I think Julius has done an excellent job of honing in more accurately on what some of those early 1930 Martins were all about."

Acoustic Guitar Magazine, September 1999

Let Borges Guitars build you an instrument you'll treasure for years to come.


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