In August 2017 my mate Loyd and I visited the Maton guitar
factory in Box Hill, Melbourne. I
visited the old factory some years ago and was very keen to see the 'new'
facility.
Maton was founded in 1946 as the Maton Musical Instruments
Company by Bill May and his brother Reg. Reg was a wood machinist and Bill a jazz
musician, woodwork teacher and luthier who had for some years operated a custom guitar
building and repair business under the name Maton Stringed Instruments and
Repairs. The name "Maton" came
from the words "May Tone" and is pronounced May Tonne.
About 15 of us turned up for our tour on the allocated day
and we were very fortunate to have the very knowledgeable daughter of Bill May
as our guide. She gave us a talk about
the history of the company, some very interesting anecdotes about her father
and talked about the beautiful instruments on display.
 |
| Some of the Maton guitars - the ones on the left are from the Custom Shop |
 |
| I used to have a Maton Saphire - and I still miss it |
 |
| My mate Gary Ward had one of these - we played together a lot when we were about 14 years old (need photo) |
 |
| Beautiful fiddleback blackwood |
 |
| The same guitar from the front |
 |
| Bill May's first hand made guitar |
No comments:
Post a Comment