Meet Your Maker: Jimmy Edmonds (Edmonds Guitars) and David Mathis (Inlay guru)
Jimmy Edmonds is a Virginia-based luthier building under the Edmonds Guitars name in the Appalachian region of the United States. In New Zealand, most players will not have come across him yet. In the US, he is well known among serious acoustic players and builders for low-volume, hand-built instruments with balance, responsiveness, and unusually careful material selection.
Jimmy was in Auckland briefly, so we did what you do when a builder like that passes through town: a long lunch, then straight back to guitars. We met next door at Milenta (wood-fired grill beside Studio 1), then returned to the shop for a proper look at the instruments and the details that do not show up in a spec sheet.
With Jimmy was David Mathis, a close collaborator and long-time friend. David is known for inlay and decorative work for builders across their area, including the visual language on many Edmonds guitars. By his count he works with around thirty high end builders. It is not even his day job, which says something about how much craft is still done after-hours in small workshops!
How far out is the order book
We asked the question everyone asks.
Jimmy’s answer was direct: he is “about two years out.” He also said he used to be “8 to 10 years out,” and has deliberately shortened the queue by not taking every possible order. In his workshop flow he will have “about 20 guitars going at one time” in various stages, working on “two” at a time, while letting others sit to “finish up.”
He has built other instruments (including fiddles and mandolins) but has largely paused that work while he catches up guitar orders, although he mentioned he still has some “in order.”
Appalachia, community, and the builder network
The Appalachian acoustic world is its own ecosystem: makers, pickers, repairmen, and players all overlapping. Jimmy spoke about knowing Wayne Henderson since he was six (Henderson is one of the most famous Luthiers in the States, with his guitars of reselling at a significant premium to actual build costs). They played together, and Wayne even drove him to fiddle contests as a child. Those relationships matter in that part of the world, because the craft is learned in community, not in isolation.
Wood selection: less labels, more sets
At Studio 1 we spend a lot of time talking about wood, but it is rarely helpful to keep it theoretical. What was useful here was how Jimmy described his process.
He does not like ordering wood sight unseen. He wants to evaluate sets in person. As he put it: “I like to hear it. Have the tactile experience with it.” He will go through hundreds of tops to pick the great ones.
On rosewood, he was clear that the label matters less than the individual set on the bench. Brazilian, Guatemalan, Nicaraguan: those names can be useful shorthand, but he is listening for stiffness, weight, and how the set behaves once it is worked. He is extremely particular about wood that taps out well, and some of the sets that have come through Studio 1 on Edmonds builds have been genuinely rare.
Jimmy also spoke about rosewood supply chains in a way that will interest anyone who watches what the big factories are buying. On Guatemalan rosewood versus Brazilian, he said it is “real close,” and he does not think there are clear winners just because one has the more famous name. He also mentioned a supplier relationship where the same stock is described differently depending on who is talking about it: Martin “calls it Guatemala,” but the supplier calls it “Nicaraguan,” and in Jimmy’s words it is “all the same wood.”
Spruce tops: Adirondack, Moon Spruce, Sitka
On tops, Adirondack (red spruce) still dominates player expectations for pre-war inspired dreadnoughts. Jimmy uses it often, and spoke about the regional nuance as well (different sources, different character, even when the wood is sold under the same broad name).
Moon spruce came up too. Jimmy likes it visually and considers it very high quality, but the supply is tight. He said he is limited to “two master grade tops a year” from that source, “that’s all they’ll sell to a builder.”
And on Sitka, he made a practical point players often forget: he does not use huge quantities of it, but he likes Sitka because it “starts out sounding good to start with,” compared with some other tops that can take longer to open up.
Bracing: small changes, big outcomes
We got onto bracing by the usual route: someone plays a guitar, someone else says “that top is alive,” and then you have to talk about how the top is being encouraged to move.
Jimmy described a detail relative to Martin’s approach. He referenced the two small bars outside the X-brace used by Martin (he could not recall the exact term), and explained that in his own system those bars “go to the edge.” His reasoning was that he prefers keeping vibration “in that thing” rather than “dispersing it.” In his view, it makes the top “a little more vibrational,” and centralises it at the bridge.
Fish glue came up in the same matter-of-fact way. It is what he uses for braces, tops, and backs, not as a romantic nod to tradition, but because he knows exactly how it behaves in his workflow.
Humidity: what matters once the guitar leaves the shop
In Virginia, Jimmy deals with serious swings: winter can sit around 20 percent relative humidity, while summer pushes well past 70. He keeps his wood room around 45 percent and roughly 70°F (about 21°C).
The practical point is this. If an instrument is built too dry, when it arrives in normal living spaces and absorbs moisture it can gain weight and feel less immediate. If it is built too wet, it can feel heavy while still wet, and then tighten up as it dries, with a higher risk of movement issues if the swing is extreme. If Jimmy knows a guitar is heading somewhere more humid, he adjusts how he conditions the wood before building so it lands closer to the player’s reality.
Inlay: how the material behaves, not just how it looks
David’s inlay perspective was useful because it was not mystical. Shell arrives in sheet form and is re-sawn and worked down. Fingerboard inlay sits thicker than headstock work because the board needs to be radiused without sanding through the shell. He described fingerboard inlay sitting around 1.6 mm, while headstock work is thinner.
We talked through materials by how they behave under tools and light. Pāua (familiar to New Zealanders) tends to throw blues and greens. Red abalone leans more red and green. Then there is green abalone, black shell, and mother-of-pearl in several colours. The point was that the material choice is not only decoration. It is about how it cuts, how it holds an edge, and what it does once finish goes on and stage light hits it.
The guitars we keep talking about at Studio 1
As the conversation moved, specific builds kept resurfacing. A Brazilian build Jimmy made for us that, frustratingly, we never got to see in person. A TREE D-42 completed last year for a customer. Multi-guitar sequences for the same owner where you can hear how the woods and voicing choices shift: Plum Pudding mahogany, Brazilian rosewood, Guatemalan/Nicaraguan rosewood, and discussions about what might come next.
Jimmy also mentioned all-koa dreadnoughts, including one placed in Davos via a player connected to the World Economic Forum. Koa at that level can be spectacular, and it is very much on our list to pursue when the right sets appear.
After lunch: back to the room, back to the sound
After Milenta we returned to the shop and played again. Instruments were simply passed around and listened to in the same room, with the builder there to answer the questions that matter: why a top feels that responsive, why a back set is doing what it is doing, what small change he would make if he had the guitar back on the bench for a day.
If you have played an Edmonds before, you will recognise the theme: quick response, strong fundamental, and an evenness across strings that makes them record well and sit beautifully under a voice. The decorative work can be extraordinary, but what really hits you is the tone these guitars output.
Seeing Edmonds in Auckland, and getting involved in a build
Edmonds guitars have become a quiet favourite with musicians passing through Studio 1. If you are in Auckland, come in and spend time with them properly. If you are outside Auckland, we can set up a phone or video consult and provide detailed photos and playing impressions.
If you want to discuss a custom order, we can walk you through the practical realities: the current wait (Jimmy described it as about two years), the build options that matter most (top wood, back and sides sets, neck carve, voicing preferences), and where inlay versus restraint makes sense.
To enquire about current Edmonds stock or a future build, contact Studio 1 Vintage Guitars or visit us in-store at Victoria Park Market, Auckland.