Boutique Guitar Resource Is An Authorized Dealer For Dynamico Guitars
Boutique Guitar Resource is an authorized dealer for Dynamico Guitars. If you are interested in having a custom guitar built by Dynamico Guitars, please use the contact form to get in touch with me.
Interview with Jay Ottenwess From Dynamico Guitars
Interview by Ron of Boutique Guitar Resource
Boutique Guitar Resource: What got you interested in building guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: Well, being a player for over 20 years, and for most of those years was as a starving semipro guitarist, I was poor enough to have to do a lot of my own repairs, and I am by nature one of those guys that as soon as he gets something new, it comes apart to see how it works. Also, I was wanting a guitar my whole “career” that looked vintage, classic, but one that not everyone else played. So I sat down at my drafting table and started doing sketches and writing down what I would want from a guitar, and went from there.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Are you a self taught luthier or did you have some formal education?
Jay Ottenwess: Yeah I’m self taught. I have some mechanical drafting background as well as years and years of vintage auto restoration, so I knew a bit about design, plans, measurements, wiring, finishes, etc. The woodworking part came much later, like about five years ago or so.
Boutique Guitar Resource: You have some very unique looking guitars. Where did the inspiration come from when you were designing your guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: I don’t know exactly, I mean it’s like anything; what made Thelonious Monk play the way he did? All things experienced or seen in one’s lifetime go into one’s art in one way or another. From an objective perspective, I am a vintage guy through and through. I was envisioning guitars that I could go back in time with, and I wouldn’t look out of place using. I feel they all look like they could have been designed 40-50 years ago, but aren’t direct copies of anything else. I have elements from many older guitars in them to be sure, but nothing blatant. One thing I was adamant about; I wanted a great looking headstock. Not to dog out any builders or guitar companies specifially, but there are precious few handsome headstock designs out there in my opinion.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What is your favorite part of the building process?
Jay Ottenwess: I really enjoy taking the neck from a chunky angular piece of lumber and in about 45 minutes with filing, sanding, and routing it turns into the most vital part of a guitar, and each one has it’s own characteristics when they are hand carved and sanded. No two necks should ever, ever be the exact same, that’s what makes hand made guitars special. Tadeo Gomez’s necks were different from neck to neck. I don’t use templates when I’m carving the back of a neck, I have three templates for when they are rough cut out; Fat, Regular, and Thin. Customers can request which of the three they prefer, and I will comply, but I don’t run with the whole “at the 12th fret i would like it to be a soft “C” shape with a .780” thickness, and at the third fret I want…” thing.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Would you take us through the building process of one of your guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: First I call the factory in Korea where they’re made and I tell them what colors I want…..
No, really I usually have a few necks that are almost finished, already fretted, carved, fingerboarded etc., and when I get an order for a specific bodystyle and neck, I will serial number the neck, proceed to cut the body out, fit the neck to said body, mate the top to the body/neck setup, do all the contour carves and/or binding, rout out pickup and control cavities, finish sand, grainfill, mask, shoot with nitro, wetsand, shoot color (or burst), wetsand, clear nitro, wetsand, buff, install hardware, electronics, set up, and play. Piece of cake!!!!!
Boutique Guitar Resource: What types of wood are you using on the different models of Dynamico Guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: I mostly use Genuine Mahogany for all my bodies; it just has a resonance that I dig. I like Black Limba for necks a lot, Mahogany is great for that too. Some guys really like Maple necks; as a builder I love working with it, but as a player I like a more porous wood like Limba or Mahogany, just feels more vibrant in my hands. I use Walnut tops for most of my opaque finished guitars, as I really love the sound it brings in concert with the Mahogany; almost “springy”, kind of tough to describe–real dynamic, quite loud acoustically. I also use tiger, birdseye, and plain Maple for tops as well, depending on model and motif.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Can you tell us a little bit about the finishing process you use on your guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: I’m not big on using too much finish or grainfill on guitars, just enough to protect the wood from reacting with weather too much, and looking good. Walnut is as grainy a wood as Swamp Ash, and it needs a certain amount of grainfill, otherwise, it would look like waaaaaay too grainy through the finish. I try to find a happy medium between too grainy, and what most factory guitars look like; which is dipped in a vat of liquid plastic!! If the mood strikes me, I will craze the lacquer a bit after a guitar is finished to give it more vibe and mojo.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Do you prefer nickel or stainless steel frets and why?
Jay Ottenwess: To be honest, I’ve never tried using stainless frets. All of my favorite guitars and favorite guitar records were made with nickel frets, so why fix something that isn’t broke?
Boutique Guitar Resource: What type of neck carve options do you offer?
Jay Ottenwess: I have three different thicknesses; Fat, Regular, and Thin. Apart from that, I can take suggestions as far as preference on flatter or rounder, bigger toward the heel etc. The ideal way to find “The” neck is to take several Dynamicos and play them all and see which one suits your fancy. In my opinion, having a player “design” a guitar is a bit like a man “designing” a girlfriend; just because all the elements are there doesn’t necessarily mean that they will work in concert. And you may not know what you want until it’s in your hands. So if someone gets too crazy with their order, I will talk to them about it.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Can you give us some information on your “Mega-Tenon” neck?
Jay Ottenwess: It’d be simpler to show you a picture! Instead of a complete body that’s routed out for a neck and the neck fitted from there, I rout the neck cavity down to where the bridge sits, fit the neck, cut it flush, then fit the top over that. This does several things; it allows me to place the neck pickups somewhere other than right up against the end of the fretboard to hide the neck/body joint, it offers an incredibly strong neck/body junction, it allows for a very petite heel, very good access to the upper register, and a longer tenon transfers more tone.
Boutique Guitar Resource: I was reading on your website that you use an aluminum/lucite tailpiece. What made you decide to use this type of tailpiece and what effect does it have on the tone of your guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: I am actually working on a bridge design to go with that, but the complexity of it is rather cost prohibitive at this stage. I was just trying to come up with something different for a tailpiece/bridge combo that was fairly serviceable as well as aesthetically and tonally pleasing. I tried many different combinations of woods, metals, and plastics and this one just worked. The plastic is very dense, so it resonates different than wood or metal. The fact that it is firmly attached to the guitar all the way across it’s lower surface has to transmit more sound than a floating tailpiece or stoptail, right?
Boutique Guitar Resource: Tell us a little about the pickups you use in your guitars?
Jay Ottenwess: I love Lindy Fralin pickups. They are standard in all the Dynamicos, except the “FiftyNine” motif, in which WCR pickups are standard. Fralin’s P90’s sound so great, they kill even my vintage ones! Jim at WCR is a super dude, and makes the best humbuckers on the planet, they blow my vintage ones away in all my old Gibsons too! Maybe it’s because they’re in Dynamicos though….. I also offer a crazy hybrid pickup which I call “The Glasspack”; it’s essentially late Pre-CBS type grey bottom Fralin Strat pickups made to look like and fit the footprint of a P90. Sounds sweet!
Boutique Guitar Resource: Can you list the different guitar models you offer and briefly describe them?
Jay Ottenwess: My four models are Megami, Swingin’ 66, Los Alamos, and Wrecktangle. Megami has a smaller body with kind of a Daliesque look to it. Swingin’ 66 has a good bit of Mosrite in it’s shape, Los Alamos has a Paul Bigsby feel to it in it’s “Louisiana Hayride” motif, but looks totally different than anything out there when it’s finished opaque. Wrecktangle is my tribute to Bo Diddley, to be sure, but sounds like Peter Green.
Boutique Guitar Resource: What is the wait time when having one of your guitars built?
Jay Ottenwess: Right now I’m gettin’ killed with orders, so I’m about 10-12 weeks out.
Boutique Guitar Resource: Out of the guitar models you build, which is your favorite and why?
Jay Ottenwess: Swingin’ 66 is the one I use. I just like the way it hangs on me, the sound, the balance, and most of all the look. When I break that out of the case at a gig, all my fellow guitar geeks come running up to check it out. The electronics layout is great too; everything is real close together, but not in the way; you can get to the three way switch with your pinky while your playing, and the volume and tone knobs are right there too. I’m a player first, and a Luthier second!
I want to thank Jay Ottenwess from Dynamico Guitars for taking the time to answer the questions in this interview. Please visit the Dynamico Guitars website at:
Dynamico Guitars
Dynamico Guitars Swingin 66
Dynamico Guitars Wrecktangle Guitar
Dynamico Guitars Los Alamos Electric Guitar
Dynamico Guitars Megami
Dynamico Guitars Headstock
Boutique Guitar Resource is an authorized dealer for Dynamico Guitars. Please contact BGR if you have any questions or if you are interested in having a Dynamico guitar built.
Dynamico Guitars
To cast one’s mind back 40-50 years ago, unless you were a wealthy musician, you had one electric guitar. You practiced on it, you performed with it, it rarely left your side. It probably was played 10-20 hours a week, depending on your level. With those kind of hours logged on an instrument, it is inevitable that it would “break in”, i.e. necks would have edges gently softened, pickups where your hands met them would wear softly, etc. When you factor in most guitarists today have multiple instruments to choose from to practice on, to gig on, and also factoring in the poly finish and thick, thick plastic on most late model guitars, it’d take a dozen years for a guitar to break in properly!
Dynamico guitars are designed and built to “wear in”, but not “wear out”. Necks aren’t covered in impenetrable plastic paint, bodies are hand finish sanded to be crisp, but soft to the touch. One of the reasons players seek out guitars that are well played or “whooped”, is that they are properly broke in and fit one’s hand like a well worn leather glove.
Dynamico guitars are built and designed to be halfway there already. Our proprietary building processes insures that when you play your Dynamico guitar for the first time, it will feel like you’ve been playing it for years. Only the finest electronics are used in the making of Dynamico guitars, CTS, Switchcraft, Bigsby, Jensen, Sprague, Lindy Fralin, Oak Grigsby, WCR, to name a few. High quality cloth covered wire is used throughout each guitar, and each component is amongst the best in it’s given area. We would rather put a great sounding capacitor in a guitar that costs $10 than increase our profit margin whilst using an inferior piece that costs 10 cents.
Visit the Dynamico Guitars website at:
Dynamico Guitars
Dynamico Guitars Los Alamos
Dynamico Guitars Megami
Dynamico Guitars Swingin' 66
Dynamico Guitars Wrecktangle Guitar
Dynamico Guitars Headstock
Dynamico Guitars