California luthier Kathy Wingert creates some of the most exquisite acoustic guitars available today. Her daughter and frequent collaborator, Jimmi Wingert, is one of the best inlay artists in the musical instrument world. During this week’s Bench Press interview, Wingert unveils a Steampunk-themed guitar, which has to be one of the more unique design motifs we’ve seen in a while. Read more about the Wingerts in the Fretboard Journal #22 or visit her website here.
Fretboard Journal: What’s on your bench?
Kathy Wingert: Well, I’m working on something new. It’s a Steampunk design. Steampunk is a genre of art, dress and music. It’s like Goth kids-meets-Jules Verne. A lot of the designs are like anything you could imagine before the world of electricity. They’re a lot of mechanical and industrial movements but they all appear to be driven by steam. The designs are often a Rube Goldberg-type thing. My hurdle has been not how to use gears and pipes, and stuff like that – that’s the fun part – but I wanted to do a three-dimensional design.
FJ: So the Steampunk design will be incorporated in the headstock?
KW: It has multiple layers. There’s a portal that looks out the back of the guitar. There are gears behind the door. The door is really detailed. I had [daughter] Jimmi [Wingert] do that part for me. It’s got wood slats running the appropriate ways, rivets and a portal. Then, on top of that layer, are pipes and gears and then inside of the headstock has some nickel in it with rivets. Had to have the rivets!
FJ: What inspired this design?
KW: It was some Steampunk furniture that I ran across. Like Macintosh and a lot of things that we’ve used excessively in our designs, you just look at it and you can instantly see how to apply it to the guitar.
FJ: Does the body have any Steampunk elements?
KW: Just the headstock. There will be a little bit carried into the rosette to make it match. A lot of Steampunk design reimagines and uses found art and I’ve seen some pictures of some electric guitars out there that are very cool. Pieces of the guitars are cut off and then reattached in a Steampunk way. Those are very cool but wouldn’t be appropriate for acoustic guitar.
FJ: So what kind of guitar is all of this design going into?
KW: It’s a Cocobolo Model E and I’ve got two more coming for Healdsburg.
FJ: Is this one going to be for sale anywhere?
KW: It should be going to the Guitar Gallery.
[Editor’s Note: If you’re a builder and have a fun project going on, drop us a line. We’d love to hear about it.]
