Tom Ribbecke's Shop
A trip to Healdsburg, California, and Tom Ribbecke's Shop
Situated in California's wine country, Healdsburg is a "notoriously" beautiful small town. With vineyards all around, there's no shortage of wonderful views, like the view from the back door of Tom's shop:
Pretty cool, eh?
Speaking of back doors, I'll just turn around and look at Tom's:
This small barn shaped building houses one of the country's finest archtop guitar builders. Tom has built an enviable reputation as an individual craftsman and maker of superb archtop acoustic guitars.
Inside, his shop is very well laid out and neatly organized:
Here's the classic shot of guitar sides in the mold:
Tom explains that his building techniques are really quite simple, relying on hand work, "feel" and expertise rather than lots of jigs and fixtures.
Simple, indeed! All you have to do is practice for a couple of decades until you
get the hang of it. . .
Here's a very cool, simple setup:
It's a little downdraft vacuum station where Tom can use a router and sanders to carve the tops and backs of his instruments. Notice that there is a permanently mounted thickness gauge sticking right out from the bench. That way, Tom loses no time in gauging his progress as he carves the graduation in the top or back.
Here's a peghead, ready to receive the familiar Ribbecke logo:
Below that, a custom inlay pattern is laid out, using dyed bone and abalone pieces.
This is a simple overarm router which rides up and down on a rail:
Tom uses this work station for cutting the ledges for edge binding on the guitar bodies.
The only cluttered area is the wall behind the stairs leading up to the storage loft:
In a separate detached garage building, Tom stores the wood for future guitars:
Out here, he also has a "clean room" for spraying finishes.
While I visited, Tom shared his special technique for fitting tone bars to arched tops.