About John How


Hi, my name is John How. I grew up in Northern California as my father worked on various California water projects around the north state, canals and damns and such. As a teenager, I started playing the guitar and have been in several bands that mostly just had a lot of fun and not a lot of commercial success although we did have a good fan base and still occasionally wow those fans with a reunion from time to time.
Well along the way I needed to upgrade the old guitar so I decided to try and make one. Of course it was an electric guitar and I still have it tucked away in the shop. Somewhere along the way I got more interested in the acoustic guitar and bought a nice guitar that I could afford, it was an imported guitar!! Later after reading an article in some magazine, I discovered that a lot of affordable acoustic guitars were made with laminated parts. Sure enough, a quick look at the sound hole of mine revealed the laminations. I never seemed to like that guitar after that although I still have it too.
Another article in the same magazine talked about people who were actually building their own acoustics, Hmmm. So I started gathering whatever information I could find, this was about mid 1970's and there was not a lot of info out there. Where was the internet then?
Well I found a violin maker in the town where I lived and he pointed me in the right direction and actually helped me build my first acoustic instrument, yes it was a violin, I still have that too.
I finally did get around to building an acoustic guitar a couple years later (1986 or so) and the bug had bitten. I couldn't get enough, building for myself, friends and any guitar players who happened to cross my path.
When I moved to Cool, Ca. in 2000, I built my current shop and threw up my plank and started doing guitars full time. Currently I make a line of small to medium sized guitars using two styles of bracing. I use x-bracing and ladder bracing. X-bracing gives a nice full sounding tone that most people are familiar with. Ladder bracing allows the guitar to vibrate in a slightly different way that gives a boost to the midrange of the guitar register and also lets the guitar project better. There are lots of examples of these old stellas in the early blues and roots music this country has produced. but a good portion of them will need some work to make them playable and reliable.

So if your looking for a vintage ladder or X sound and don't want to worry about fixing it up just to make it playable or would like one but wish for a guitar with good intonation or a nice modern feel to the neck, then give a look to my guitars. Vintage tone and looks with more modern comforts and reliability.

Thanks for looking!!