Interview with Chuck Thornton of Cp Thornton Guitars
Interview by Ron of Boutique Guitar Resource
Boutique Guitar Resource: At what age did you start playing guitar and what made you pick the guitar?
Chuck Thornton: My parents bought me a cherry sunburst Teisco Del Ray and a small amp when I was 8 yrs old. My Mom would play and sing old Cowboy, Country and Gospel songs when we were growing up.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Who were some of your musical influences growing up?
Chuck Thornton: I think my first guitar hero was one of my dearest friends Ray Gaudet. He would sit and listen to Clapton, Santana then DiMeola etc. etc. and he would learn song after song note for note and I was amazed at the dicipline and the ability to teach oneself. It was my first and only year at Berklee that I realized I would never be the next Dimeola or my buddy Ray. My passion was for guitar I just hadn’t realized that it was for designing and building them yet.
Boutique Guitar Resource: I read on your website that you started out building custom basses. What made you start with building basses and how did you progress into building guitars?
Chuck Thornton: After my year at Berklee I woke up one morning and realized I was a Bass player instead of a guitar player. I couldn’t afford a Bass so I bought a book and built one. I built 8 Basses with Warmouth necks. Then I built 43 5pc. Through Neck Basses. In 91 a friend asked if he could hire me to build my first guitar for him. Then I built another 32 guitars from 91 to 97.
Boutique Guitar Resource: How did you learn the art of building guitars and do you have any recommendations for those out there that are interested in building guitars?
Chuck Thornton: Have such a passion for it that long days and short dollars don’t suck that bad at all.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Describe a typical day at Cp Thornton Guitars.
Chuck Thornton: My day begins between 4:00 and 5:00am with a cup of Coffee sitting in front of the computer doing emails, paying bills, etc. I try to get to the shop between 6:30 and 7:00 to start that part of my day building a guitar that I hope will not only play and sound great but bring a lifetime of happiness to it’s owner.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Tell us a little bit about the people that work at Cp Thornton Guitars and what their roles are.
Chuck Thornton: My partner Richard Shapiro does the website work, all the photography, the business end of things and is working to help move us forward. I do all the designs, build the guitars and run the day to day business stuff. I had a great right hand man Jeano that was doing finish and helping with all the sanding until I had to lay him off when the economy went south.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Do you follow the work of other luthiers and if so, who are some of your favorite builders?
Chuck Thornton: I know there are some great builders out there doing what they love to do too but I don’t really get much of a chance to check them out.
Boutique Guitar Resource: If you were having a custom guitar built, what builder would you want to build your custom guitar?
Chuck Thornton: John Slobod of Circa Guitars, he’s a great builder a sweet heart of a person.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Do you still buy mass produced guitars or do you just build your own?
Chuck Thornton: Just build.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What kind of guitars are in your guitar collection?
Chuck Thornton: The only guitar I own is one of my new Classics. I’d rather hear someone else play my guitars, it brings me way more pleasure than I could get playing them myself.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What is your favorite part of the building process?
Chuck Thornton: It would be a toss up between designing them and seeing them completed ready to ship.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Would you take us through the building process of one of your guitars?
Chuck Thornton: I start by choosing the woods that the customer has conveyed to me that they would like. Then they go through the processing stage of resawing and glueing and sizeing. Then all the parts go to the CNC for carving the individual pieces for that guitar. Then I install the truss rod glue down the fretboard and headstock veneer and sand the neck. Then the fretboard gets leveled and fretted and taped up to keep it safe and clean. Then the sides get prep’d and glued to the neck. I then voice the carved top and back and glue them to the guitar. The entire guitar gets sanded at that point and heads for the finish department. It then goes through the various stages of the finish process which takes about two months per batch of ten to fifteen guitars. It’s then assembly time, wiring and setup. Then as Dana Bourgeois used to say, “It’s time to spank the baby’s ass. I try to keep the guitars for a few weeks before shipping, to play them and readjust them as the woods awake and realize they’ve been reborn as an instrument.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What are your favorite wood combinations to use?
Chuck Thornton: Well that depends on the model of guitar that I’m building. For instance my Blues Queen I use a two pc. quaterswan mahogany neck, mahogany sides and a mahogany back for its warnth and woodiness. I use an ebony fretboard for its snap and an eastern soft maple top for tightness of tone. Then I have Lindy Fralin wind my P-90′s with Alnico 2 magnets instead of Alnico 5 magnets, which are to bright for the Blues Queen, 5% under in the neck and 10% over in the bridge. With this pickup, wood and semihollow body combination I get this smooth creamy rich tone that will really growl.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Do you prefer nickel or stainless steel frets and why?
Chuck Thornton: Nickel, I guess it’s the traditionalist in me.
Boutique Guitar Resource: If you had to pick your favorite guitar ever built, what would it be?
Chuck Thornton:The one that turned the head of every young guitarist, that made him or her pick up a guitar and start the long journey of pouring there emotions into the instrument and getting back a joy that can only be experienced. The one that started collectors searching for there next guitar that has that certain mojo that others don’t.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What is the wait time when ordering a guitar through Cp Thornton Guitars and can you describe the ordering process?
Chuck Thornton: The wait time depends on when in my cycle of building the order comes in. In other words if an order for an Elite comes when I’m three weeks into the building process of Thinline Archtops the wait could be close to a year. But if the Elite order came in while I was choosing the woods for a batch of Thinline Archtops the wait might only be 4 or 5 months.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Out of the guitar models you build, which is your favorite and why?
Chuck Thornton: Man I don’t think I can answer that question. No one guitar will do it all. Do I want to hear the twang of the Classic or the Jangle of the Fusion or the growl of the Blues Queen, or maybe I’m into hearing the woodiness of a Jazz Elite or woodiness and drive of the Professional or maybe I just feel like playing the acoustic side of the Professional Acoustic. I love them all. It’s wonderful when a potential client is explaining what kind of music they play and what their ears want to hear from the instrument you may blessed enough to build for them.
Boutique Guitar Resource: I love the Classic model and think you hit it out of the park with your interpretation of the Telecaster. The carved top that elevates the bridge, pickups and controls really adds some class and a modern element to a vintage design. Can you talk a little bit about what you were thinking when you set out to design and build your own interpretation of the Telecaster?
Chuck Thornton: As anyone knows who knows my guitars I don’t like copying other peoples work. The Classic is the closest I’ve come to doing just that. The Telecaster was designed as a working mans guitar. In my opinion it was never meant to be overly pretty. It’s simplicity is it’s beauty. After all these years it still has a cult following. I wanted to show the Telecaster the respect and admiration it deserves but I also wanted to make it more comfortable to play with a neck system that allows the playing hand to play in all positions without the typicle huge block of wood in the way that makes me change hand position to play in the upper register. Also because of the length of the neck tenon into the body that is hand fit to each body, The rigitity of the neck to body connection I belive inhances tone and sustain.
I gave it a 4.5 degree neck angle which I believe makes the neck easier to play and allows me to keep the controls in their usual place without bumping into them while playing. I gave it a 13 degree headstock angle to give it a good string break over the nut and eliminate string trees. I then gave it a matte finish instead of a high gloss finish to keep with it’s vibe as a working mans guitar without having to polish all the time to
keep it it looking good.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What made you decide to go away from the bolt on neck when designing the Classic?
Chuck Thornton: The Classic is a bolt on neck. With a set neck there would be a layer of glue between the neck tenon and the body. With my bolt on design there is raw wood to raw wood which I believe is a better transference of tone from the neck to body.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Looking at the pictures I assumed it was a set neck. Ya learn something new everyday!
Boutique Guitar Resource: I know you just recently released the Classic model, but do you have any new models in the works or in your head that you want to share?
Chuck Thornton: I have so many designs in my head that I hope I’m blessed to live long enough to build them all.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What do you see in the future for Cp Thornton Guitars?
Chuck Thornton: What I hope to see in my future is more clients like the ones I have now. These people are some of the finest people you could ever hope to build guitars for. Not only do they love my lifes work and own many of my works, but they’re also wonderful human beings that I’m blessed to know as friends.
I want to thank Chuck Thornton for taking the time to answer the questions in this interview. Please visit the Cp Thornton Guitars website at:
Cp Thornton Guitars
Ron
Boutique Guitar Resource
Chuck Thornton Introduces the Classic Model Electric Guitar
CP Thornton Classic Guitar
CP Thornton is offering a new model called the Classic. If you like the Telecaster body style, this guitar will definitely be one you will want to check out. CP Thornton’s interpretation of the Tele is perfect and they definitely hit this one out of the park! In my opinion, this is the best designed Tele style guitar I have ever seen. Yeah, I want one of these!
CP Thornton Classic Electric Guitar
CP Thornton Classic Guitar
CP Thornton Classic
CP Thornton Classic Guitar Back
CP Thornton Classic Electric Guitar
CP Thornton Classic Side Shot
CP Thornton Classic
Cp Thornton Designing New Guitar Model
Chuck Thornton is in the process of designing a new model. It will be his version of a Tele. He states that if you love the way his Fusion Guitar plays and sounds then you should be very pleased with his Tele.
Definitely looking forward to seeing what he comes up with!
Cp Thornton Guitars – Masterbuilt Instruments from Chuck Thornton
Guitar playing is something Chuck Thornton developed through discipline. However, he feels that true talents should flow effortlessly. Looking back at the last twenty years that he has been building guitars, he realized that being a luthier is the talent that he was born with. Each personal and professional lesson kept directing him to accept and develop the gift that he had been given: the ability to create musical instruments.
To date Chuck Thornton has personally built more than 100 guitars and basses. Each an act of passion, dedication and discipline. With CP Thornton Guitars, Chuck is fulfilling a lifetime dream… to create heirloom quality instruments for musicians who seek that rare balance between breath-taking beauty and engineering excellence. With mass production dominating the music industry today, a truly masterbuilt instrument is rare. Each Thornton model has been designed specifically for its purpose and sonic signature.
Visit the Cp Thornton Guitars website:
Cp Thornton Guitars
Cp Thornton The Blues Queen Hollowbody Electric Guitar
Cp Thornton The Elite Hollowbody Electric Guitar
Cp Thornton The Jazz Elite Hollowbody Electric Guitar
Cp Thornton The Fusion Electric Guitar