FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - Trash turns to treasure in the crafty hands of a Union Bridge man.
Harry Harne has been making cigar box guitars professionally for about five years.
“Cigar boxes get thrown out so often,” he said, “and most people don’t realize that’s Spanish cedar.”
The wood, he said, is related to mahogany, a desirable material for luthiers.
Harne, 32, also makes guitars with ham can bodies at his Frederick workshop, although the cans are getting harder to find. Members of Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band and the indie rock outfit Guided by Voices own some of the unusual pieces.
He built his first guitar in fifth grade with his father in their home workshop. In 2010, he started CrocBite Guitars.
It wasn’t a passion for guitar-playing that got him interested in making them. Rather, it was a love of woodworking and the ability to craft a high-quality instrument from something discarded.
When he gets a new sample of hardwood, he knocks on it to get a feel for the sound the wood will make.
“I hear how things want to sing before I tell them how to sing,” he said.
Harne spoke excitedly in his workshop about snakewood he’d bought. He had been unsure if he would discover worm damage when he took it back to the shop, but he was pleased to find it unblemished.
Friend and client Goodloe Byron owns the first six-string cigar box guitar Harne made. Other people tend to make them as novelties, he said, but Harne approaches the craft like an artisan.
“The stuff he makes now just blows it out of the water. He has learned everything there is to know about rare woods,” he said. “He can hand-hew a guitar neck.”
A serious accident in April 2014 kept Harne from making guitars for the better part of a year. He cut his left hand badly when a glass door shattered on it. He needed several surgeries to reattach the ligaments.
“The first few months, I didn’t think I’d even be back in (the shop) again,” he said. “There are still plenty of things that take me twice as long to do.”
The delicate, exacting work of notching a fretboard is slower and more challenging than it used to be.
Not having the use of his left hand seemed particularly difficult for Harne, Byron observed, because he is invested in so many manual crafts and hobbies. It stopped him from doing many of the things he loved, he said.
Getting back to the shop turned out to be good physical therapy.
“His hand was not fixed until he started working again all the time,” Byron said.
Harne is back to spending time on his guitars. He can be in the shop up to 60 hours per week when he’s preparing for festivals, he said, turning out up to five cigar box guitars in a week.
Prices range from $150 for a fretless CrocBite three-string guitar to $1,000 for a solid-body electric mandolin, according to his website, crocbiteguitars.com.
In the future, he’d like to expand his capabilities by investing in a wood steamer. The equipment would allow him to bend wood to make dreadnought-style guitars, a large acoustic model.
Byron said he has been impressed by Harne’s progress. He has had an eye for detail from the beginning, he added, pointing out the skull knobs on his own guitar as an example.
“The idea that one person just sat down there,” he said, “and made the instrument is mind-boggling to me.”
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Information from: The Frederick (Md.) News-Post, https://www.fredericknewspost.com
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