MH: When did you first show an interest in guitar luthiering?
DTM: Around the age of ten. I had a poster of Ace Frehley and his Sunburst Les Paul. I can remember staring at that guitar for hours. I started playing guitar around that same time, once again, because of that poster.

MH: Can you recall the first guitar you built or modified?
DTM: The first guitar I modified was the first guitar I ever owned. It was a Fender Strat that I scalloped the fingerboard on because of Ritchie Blackmore. To make the body look old and beat up, I tied it to my bicycle and drug it around the block a few times. As far as the first guitar I built goes, it was a bolt on with a mahogany body. One pickup and one volume knob. I still have the body. I'm not sure what ever happened to the neck.

MH: When and what was the first guitar that displayed McNaught on the headstock?
DTM: It was a bolt on with an ash body. Three single coils and a flat mount bridge. It is about nine years old. I didn't put my name on them prior to that because they were always for me. That was the first guitar that was built for someone else.

MH: Did you have a mentor who assisted you in getting into guitar building?
DTM: My grandfather had a wood shop in his backyard. He showed me the basics as far as how to use the tools and stuff. As far as guitar building and finishing goes, I taught myself.

MH: McNaught guitars have the most incredible tops on them. How do you achieve this?
DTM: The way we stain our tops came about by accident. I stained a top a certain color and it didn't come out right. So to fix it, I restained it a different color. Since then we have turned the staining process into a 10 - 12 step process depending on the color we are trying to achieve.

MH: Are there any special manufacturing techniques that you feel are unique to McNaught Guitars?
DTM: Our set-thru neck, our lock-tite neck joint for our bolt ons, direct-mounting the pickups, keeping everything in house, and using as little paint as possible to keep from killing the natural tone of the wood.

MH: How many employees do you have and tell us about your equipment and your facility?
DTM: We have three employees counting myself. My wife Cary does all the office work, the other Dave (Dave Mansel) does all the finish work, and I do all the woodworking. As far as equipment, we have all the basic tools.... table saw, planer jointer, lots of routers, spray booth, etc. Nothing too fancy.

MH: How many guitars are you able to produce a month, and are you happy with your current production schedule?
DTM: We do about eight a month right now. I would like to do more, and hopefully the new lines we are offering will enable us to do that. Until recently, we were only doing the completely custom stuff, which had all kinds of "this and that" on it which makes it really difficult to be able to keep up with. The new models are still built one at a time by myself, they just have fewer options.

MH: Your neck inlay is incredible. Tell us about the procedure involved.
DTM: All of the inlays , with the exception of the trapezoid blocks, are cut out using a jewelers hand saw. Once they are cut out, they are inlaid into the fingerboard using a dremel tool with a 1/32" carbide tip router bit.

MH: How many different models do you currently offer and briefly describe each one of them.
DTM: We currently offer four different models. The David Thomas McNaught guitars are a blank canvas. Totally custom, anything goes. The DTM Vintage series is a choice between a double cut or single cut (on front cover). There are still options such as pickups, quilt or flame top, three different inlays to choose from, and stuff like that. Next is the DTM Phoenix. It is available in the Phoenix shape and comes with a solid colored back and side and rock maple top. This allows us to use wood for the neck and back that may have a slight blemish that we couldn't use on one of the other guitars. Your choice of pickups, upgrade to a quilt or flame top, three inlays to choose from, etc. Last is the G-4. It is a bolt on strat style guitar. Options include neck, body and fingerboard wood, pickups and electronics, that sort of stuff. We are probably going to offer graphics on the G-4 also.

MH: What new products are McNaught guitars offering in the future?
DTM: We are in the process of doing a shop tour video. It should be done some time next year. We also are opening up the custom shop to the public, through our dealers. What this means is that if someone has a guitar that they want to customize: retop, inlay, have some graphics painted on it, whatever, we will do it.

MH: What personal philosophies would you share that have attributed to the success of McNaught guitars?
DTM: Attention to detail and always pushing ourselves to be better.

Very special thanks to David Thomas McNaught. Photos courtesy of McNaught Guitars.
Cover photo of Dec/Jan 2001 issue by Aaron Stevenson.

 

Return to: