2024 Jake Fuller "Purnell" SP/CSAR

A 2024 "Purnell" classical guitar by Jake Fuller, with a spruce top and CSA rosewood back and sides from a log given to Jake by a local double bass maker – with his latest strutting and an optional soundpost.

In the video above, Joshua Moore plays "Cradle Song" from Sérgio Assad's "Children's Cradle" on this guitar.

Rosewood Too Short for a Double Bass

A local double bass maker in England gave Jake a log of beautiful rosewood that was too short for a double bass – so why not guitars? Encouraged by his friend Youri Soroka, Jake used three pieces for the sides and six for the back, and the result is absolutely beautiful. (Read the story on our blog.) The guitar also has a laminated fingerboard, a walnut bridge and tulipwood trim.

Strutting, Floating Back Bar and Soundpost

The spruce top has Jake's latest strutting, refined over many years for extra stability and stronger bass. As in his previous guitars, a laminated veneer at the foot replaces the end block, and four tapered transverse back bars carry a floating longitudinal bar, on which a removable soundpost can rest – raising the body resonance a whole step for a brighter, more separated sound, or left out for a warmer, more romantic voice.

Sound and Playability

The tone is textured with ample overtones, clear and balanced – Spanish and Northern European at once. The light body responds like an early 20th-century Spanish guitar, the stiffer neck joint adds sustain, and the neck is very easy.

Jake Fuller "Purnell": An English Guitar Maker from Suffolk

Jake Fuller is an English classical guitar maker who has built guitars since the late 1990s, in a workshop first in Laxfield and then in Reydon, Suffolk. Woodworking runs in his family: his Cornish grandfather, Purnell, was a wheelwright who made carts, wheelbarrows, gates and furniture, and who lost a leg in World War I (he even built his own wooden leg); some of his tools, and a table that serves as Jake's workbench, are still in the workshop. Jake never met him, and he builds under the name "Purnell" – also his own middle name – as a tribute. His father, a toy maker in Suffolk, gave him his first apprenticeship.

Training with David Rouse, and the Spanish Tradition

A guitarist himself, Jake began classical guitar studies at 16 and went on to earn a BSc in Musical Instrument Technology at London Guildhall University, where he studied with David Rouse and David Whiteman. His main influences are Antonio de Torres and Hermann Hauser, with ideas from Santos Hernández and Masaru Kohno: traditional, lightly built Spanish guitars with a few refinements of his own, often made from woods with a story – reclaimed timber, old pianos, gifts from fellow makers.