One of the last students to graduate from the London Metropolitan University with a BSc (Hons) in Musical Instruments, Zac Booth talks to active magazine’s Kate Maxim about his studies and setting up his own guitar making business Zac Booth Guitars in Great Easton, Rutland.
It was great to see one of our local guitar makers featured in the September issue of active, a Stamford & Rutland based health and lifestyle magazine.
Zac has a keen interest in sculpture and planned to study art at university until, during his foundation course, he discovered the Musical Instrument degree at London Met. Being a keen guitarist, he saw this as the perfect way to combine his interest in art, sculpture and music.
Here is an excerpt from the article published by active and written by Kate Maxim:
As Zac is at the beginning of his career, his guitars start at £1,500 for a basic model and it takes around 100 hours to make one. “I’ll get quicker as I get better and buy more kit. At the moment I’m doing it all the traditional way using band saws, chisels and hand planes.” …Zac has a selection of moulds and templates, mostly based on the iconic Martin design, but some he’s adjusted at the waist so that they’er easier to hold. His customers are usually very specific in what they want but he also likes to experiment with the design. “…My favourite part of the process is stringing up the guitar to see what it sounds like. …It’s great when it plays nicely right from the beginning and hopefully I’ll get more precise the more I do.”
You can read the full article on active’s website, starting on page 37 of the September 2020 issue here:
https://www.theactivemag.com/previous-issues.aspx
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