Looking for a nice guitar in New Zealand

[JeffZ]

Hi all,
I am new to this forum and looking for some advice. I live in Jacksonville Florida USA. My wife is from Christchurch NZ and we will be traveling there in January. I would really love to check out and hopefully take home a guitar made from some New Zealand Woods. I am a huge fan of nice woods on my guitars and there is some really great looking stuff over there. Can't wait to see how they sound.

Any reccomendations on some stores or luthiers I could check out while I'm there? We will be traveling between Christchurch and Dunedin. Can't really hit any other areas on the time we have since it's a family trip.

Thanks for the input.
Jeff

[Daniel_M]

Hi JeffZ,

have a look at Nick's work I think that he is also in Christchurch. I don't think that you could go wrong - just my opinion - I am just in love with his work and particularly some of his finishing touches.

I was only admiring this (again!) last night.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2819

here is his website....

http://www.oliver-guitars.com

hope this helps,

Daniel

[rocket]

Check out Nick Oliver if you're looking for a nice New Zealand built guitar, Nick is a class act that you can't go past.
He's situated in "shakey town" Christchurch, I hope you enjoy your trip to the other side of "the dutch".
Cheers,,,,
Rod.

[kiwigeo]

Graham Wardrop is also in Christchurch but not sure if hes actively building right now. Hes a member of this forum so PM him.

[Nick]

Don't know what to say fella's
Welcome to the forum Jeff & thanks for marrying a Christchurch girl!
I don't specifically build in Native timbers (there are very few that are readily available in sizes for guitar purposes) but can source some (I do have some NZ soundboards in stock at the moment) from the North Island. I won't plug my own guitars here on open forum but by all means PM me if you wish to at least look at the possibility, I also had a bit of an article about me written for Flatpicking guitar magazine (http://flatpickingmercantile.com/Mercha ... Code=VOL15 ) if you have access and wish to have a read up on a little about me first.

Graham Wardrop (as Martin suggested) makes excellent guitars (either PM or http://www.grahamwardrop.com/) but is also a professional guitarist & so is touring a fair bit & so you would have to check on his schedule. Another local builder, & also Graham's building mentor, is Peter Stephen who works from Lyttelton http://www.stephenstrings.co.nz/ which is just over the hill, they got hammered in the recent (and ongoing ) earthquakes so you would have to check if he's currently working out of his shop. He builds almost exclusively in native timbers but can take a little while to complete a build. You would get a beautiful guitar (he was trained in Europe so has some street cred ) but maybe not in the timeframe you are looking at, could take upto 12 months from time of ordering, but please don't exclude him from your investigations as they are worth the wait.
Also another great possibility is our own Christian who is a member here. He builds beautiful guitars from Kauri viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3044 & lives in Auckland but I'm sure wouldn't mind shipping a guitar down to me for you to pick up on your visit. Another Member is Dave Olds viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1945 who also lives in Auckland but I'm sure could do a similar deal with shipping it south.
Just a few for you to ponder on Jeff.(and me of course )

[kiwigeo]

And there's Paddy Burgin in Wellington.

http://www.burginguitars.co.nz/

[pavliku]

Hi Jeff,

Ian Davie sounds like the man you want to see www.singingwood.co.nz he is in Otago. Many of his guitars are made almost exclusively from native timbers. I don't think he is a member here - I could be wrong.

Paul.