Man builds artisan guitars Posted On: Saturday, Oct. 31 2009 05:01 AM By Jackie Stone
Killeen Daily Herald

LAMPASAS – Ralph Lewis doesn't play a note himself, but he knows when the guitars and ukuleles he builds sound good.

Before he puts the back on the instrument, he holds it up by the sound hole and begins tapping. From there Lewis carves the bracing until he gets the sound he wants.

"I just realized this, but it's about the same as picking a good watermelon," he said. "It has to be a nice low sound, but it has to have a ring to it."

Lewis, 75, moved to Lampasas from Hawaii five years ago. From his home-based woodshop, Lewis crafts handmade guitars and ukuleles from Koa wood, a rich, reddish toned wood found mainly in Hawaii.

His guitars can take six weeks to finish, spending between two and four hours a day working on the guitars plus waiting time for glues and finishes to dry. The finished products – complete with abalone shell inlays – shine with the work that goes into them.

Lewis said the hallmark of an acoustic instrument is how long it can hold a note from having a single string plucked. A note plucked from a four-stringed guitar he made of Indian rosewood holds steady for a good 18 seconds.

While Lewis has sampled working with other woods like rosewood, his first love is the Koa wood, in spite of its high cost.

What he hears from musicians who pick up his koa-wood guitars is that they are among the best sounding, he said.

His work is done to order, and Lewis said he finds customers through musician circles and word of mouth.

One of his guitars with all the bells and whistles sold for $3,500 to a local musician. His basic ukuleles start at about $1,000.

Right now he is working on a mandolin for his wife, Marilyn, a musician and one of his fans.

"I'm a little bit partial of course, but they have good sound, easy action, and of course, they're beautiful," she said. "What else can a musician ask for but those things?"

Despite the level of his work, Lewis has only been building guitars for seven years.

Lewis had a clock shop in Hawaii, but after 9/11, business took a downward turn. So he decided to take an adult education class in ukulele building to learn how to bend wood and do more woodworking.

After building his first ukulele, Lewis was hooked.

"I found something I could do, something that I was successful at, and I said, 'heck, I enjoy this,'" Lewis said.

Right now the instruments are a hobby, but he has bigger dreams.

"I'd like to see it become a business," he said. "And what I'd love to see is to build it up to the point where I could train my youngest son to take it over."

Lewis said he hopes to some day have the same kind of name recognition among musicians as James Gooddall, a fellow guitar maker who also works with Koa wood.

"Now my name is not like James Gooddall's, so I can't ask the kind of money he does," he said. "But hopefully I will live long enough that I can build a name to that extent."

Contact Jackie Stone at jstone@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7474.