In ‘’The Vault’’, a small room off his workshop in Goulburn, Chris Bonham looks over his hand-crafted guitars made of repurposed timber. Photo: John Thistleton.
Each of these guitars is handmade from worn-out pianos and old-growth timber reclaimed from heritage homes and warehouses.
Chris Bonham made them all. The accomplished woodworker has allowed the swirling patterns of aged timber to guide his work. He is accredited in French polishing, too, enabling him to conserve patinas on some guitars.
This is critical for customers who bring him their old pianos that have been handed down over generations and are no longer used. Chris gives them a second life as a guitar.
Restoring his 1882-1885 home in Goulburn, he put aside damaged Californian redwood skirting board and turned it into a beautiful electric guitar. It’s for his friend, professional guitarist Brett Kingman, who has a huge following on YouTube and has accompanied Australia’s best entertainers on tours abroad. The two men feature on YouTube discussing six of Chris’s guitars.
More guitars hang on his lounge room wall, including a Maton, which he didn’t make. It belonged to his father, Keith. Like all of Chris’s guitars, the Maton holds memories. It evokes songs from Saturday afternoons in the 1970s when he sang with his family, amid the lingering smells from the morning.
They lived at Seaford Beach. Keith would come home from the delicatessen with a breadstick and pate in time to tune in to John Cargher’s radio show Singers of Renown.
In the afternoon, they’d sing Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Lead Belly songs and go back further to African-American spiritual and blues music.
Chris’s first guitar teacher was renowned parent educator Steve Biddulph.
“Steve Biddulph was like my older brother,” he said.
Fascination with that Maton guitar steered him to French polishing in later years. As a teenager hearing the Rolling Stones, his devotion to guitars was sealed for life.
His affection goes deeper than the sound of a guitar. It extends to the shape of one, too. He sums this up borrowing a quote from renowned English musician Thom Yorke: “Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is look at it.”
Chris liked the look of antique furniture, too, and began restoring pieces. In 1996, he was accepted into the exclusive Sturt School for Wood at Mittagong. There he met another invaluable mentor, the late Tom Harrington, while learning woodworking and furniture design. Tom left him with an enduring philosophy that had influenced the master craftsman’s life.
His work was famous for its simplicity and elegance.
Chris hears Tom’s voice when he planes and shapes his wood: “Don’t try and put everything you know into one piece. Also, let the timber lead where you go, let it inspire you.”
Planing a piece of timber, Chris has learned woodworking from one of the best practitioners in the land. Photo: John Thistleton.
French polishing studies followed over three years at Lidcombe TAFE while working part time restoring antiques.
“The idea is that your work is so indistinguishable from the original craftsman’s that people cannot tell whether it has been worked on or not,” Chris said.
“It’s not about sanding back to the raw timber and starting from scratch. It’s about working with what you’ve got and conserving.
“It’s very difficult to replicate a patina; you have to work in sympathy with the piece. That includes doing joinery work.”
Over the years, Chris has worked in various roles to support his interests in woodwork and French polishing.
As a court officer in the Family Court, he worked on the side fitting out barristers’ chambers. One of the barristers handed him his most challenging assignment, an investment piece of furniture, a wine table by Australian cabinetmaker Hill and Sons.
“The original French polish on the top of the table was beginning to flake and come off,” Chris said. “If you know what you are doing, through a process of re-amalgamation, you can repolish the table top using the original polish without disturbing the patina.”
Now it’s the distinctive vibrations from old seasoned timber that most excite Chris. He has made guitars from timber reclaimed from an old Ansett freight warehouse, and a big beam of Douglas fir from a demolition contractor.
“He reckoned that tree was 600 years old when it was cut down,” Chris said.
At Wilsons Promontory National Park in 1975, Chris Bonham (right) is with two early mentors, his father, Keith (centre), and guitar teacher Steve Biddulph, who became a prominent author and parent educator. Photo: Bonham family collection.
He spends from 50 to 100 hours making his unique guitars. He named one ”Sloane Street” after using Douglas fir wall studs his stepson Gus gave him after renovating his home in Sloane Street.
Chris promotes his guitars at the Sydney and Melbourne Guitar Shows and hopes to one day break into a conservative market, using skills from dying trades and timber from the same era.
Original Article published by John Thistleton on About Regional.
