Frank Ford, a famend guitar builder and co-founder of Gryphon Stringed Devices, handed away December 17. He was 79 and suffered problems on account of congestive coronary heart failure.

A local of the San Francisco space, as a pupil at UC Santa Barbara, Ford found bluegrass music and started enjoying the mandolin, which spawned his curiosity on constructing and repairing stringed devices. In 1969, he based Gryphon with Richard Johnston, constructing guitars, mandolins and banjos of their Palo Alto store.
In February of ’73, they expanded to incorporate a retail and restore enterprise, although Ford continued to concentrate on repairs, restorations, and sustaining clients’ devices, which was his ardour.

Colleagues at Gryphon cited his kindness to clients and workers, in addition to his penchant for going past the anticipated stage of concern, which got here naturally, as he loved speaking about each side of fretted devices, from their historical past and upkeep to the music performed on them.

Over a long time, Ford developed new methods and instruments for sustaining devices. A self-taught machinist, he fabricated any substitute components he couldn’t purchase or in any other case discover. He constructed a variety of fixtures utilized in his restore work, and documented a lot of his work to share by way of his web site, frets.com. He was additionally an everyday at restore clinics and lectures at Roberto Venn College of Lutherie, in Phoenix, in addition to at varied luthier conventions.

“Frank was a super-bright, heat, and beneficiant particular person – a very nice guitar repairman,” mentioned fellow repairman and VG columnist Dan Erlewine. “Together with his passing, the lutherie world misplaced certainly one of its biggest repairmen, inventors, and academics of the commerce.

“His repute drew me to go to him within the late ’80s, and we grew to become quick buddies, and he grew to become my go-to reply man for a lot of a restore dilemma. His web site has been a fantastic supply for hundreds that can stay an extension of his legacy.”

Gryphon repairman Brian Michael met Ford whereas he was a pupil at Roberto-Venn in 2002.

“He was doing a dwell demo displaying easy methods to re-fret a Martin in an hour, begin to end!” Michael mentioned. “He supplied me a job in Gryphon’s restore division after I graduated, and I quickly found why he was so revered amongst luthiers close to and much.

“Frank loved passing alongside his information and experience in instrument restore simply as a lot as he loved the work itself. He was extra of a mentor and pal to me than my boss for 20 years, and his workers felt the identical method about him. We miss him enormously, and can do our greatest to hold on his legacy.”

This text initially appeared in VG’s March 2024 problem. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.