Harvey Leach – Cutting Edge Inlay
Harvey Leach – Cutting Edge Inlay – Feature in Premier Guitar Magazine
First, for those who don’t know here’s a little about Harvey…
Since 1972, Harvey Leach has been making guitars – building a total of 350 guitars, mostly flattops with about 20 archtops and electrics. He has been living in California since 1984, when he moved from his native Vermont.
Exactitude is one of Harvey’s main components in his stringed creations. He is also one of the best inlay artists in the world, commissioned by The Martin Guitar Company to adorn Custom Shop creations that sell for $100,000. He has also done inlay work for Paul Reed Smith, Collings, D’Angelico, Godin, Warrior, Warr, Jim Olson, Kevin Ryan, Lance McCollum, and others.
With over 35 years experience in building guitars, Harvey has designed and built guitars with hundreds of combinations of woods, using his innovative design and bracing variations. This gives him keen insight into the subtle design details that contribute to the tone of a guitar. Because all Leach guitars are hand-made from solid tonewoods, personally selected by Harvey, they are also pricey investments – with prices starting at $8,000.
Harvey used this experience to design two different models for Voyage-Air Guitar: a comfortable and fingerstyle-friendly OM-style guitar, and a traditional Dreadnought-size guitar. The size and shape of these instruments are familiar to any guitar player. But it’s Harvey’s advanced designs, and the subtle combination of internal and structural differences that sets Voyage-Air guitars apart.
“I consider myself to be a traditional luthier who is always searching for a better way to do things by tapping the advances of today’s technology. It’s that thinking that led me to the Voyage-Air design. I often hear, ‘Why didn’t someone think of this before?’ The reason is two-fold: First, the more you ‘know’ about the details the less you might see of the big picture. For example, if you are endlessly debating the merits of dovetail vs. bolt-on neck design, then thinking about folding a guitar is completely outside of your realm of thought. Secondly, now is the time to meet the artist’s need for portability. In this portable age of laptop computers and cell phones, you should also be able to take your guitar wherever you go. That’s what Voyage-Air is all about.”
Harvey Leach – Cutting Edge Inlay – Feature in Premier Guitar Magazine
