2021 Jake Fuller "Purnell" SP/YW

A 2021 "Purnell" classical guitar by Jake Fuller, with his last piece of Italian spruce for the top and yew back and sides – a guitar that, in Jake's words, sounds more like a piano.

In the video above, Shane Parish plays Captain Beefheart's "One Red Rose That I Mean" on this guitar.

Yew, Ebony and Italian Spruce

The materials all come from Jake's old stock, including his last piece of Italian spruce. The yew and ebony came from the same source, a retired violin maker, with tulipwood, holly and walnut for the trim – stunning to look at. Inside, the back is a Contreras-style "doble tapa", with spruce laminated inside to make up the thickness and add stability.

New Construction and Sound

Jake tweaked a few things here – diagonal lower-bout struts and a new end-block design, like a full-depth lining that stiffens the back end – and compared with his recent, more Torres-like guitars, he finds this one sounds more like a piano. The tone is textured and clear, sustain is long, and playability is a breeze.

Photos of this guitar being built

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.