Charles Atchison Folk Artisan
The Baromitar
I began my journey into instrument building by making some upgrades and modifications to my own guitars. Then I learned about cigar box guitars, their history, and impact on music, and then I was hooked. So much that so that I later wrote the book, "The Folk Art Instrument Builders Reference."
I built this custom baritone 27” scale, lap steel guitar for musician Justin Johnson using a 100 year old barometer, and a neck from an old, Johnson brand guitar. I added added a new fretboard, used red and white fret position markers to give the feeling of mercury rising up the neck.
For this instrument I developed a new method for semi-mounted re-positional pickup. Basically, this pickup can be moved, even during play, to any point under the strings, between the neck and the bridge position.The floating bridge sits atop the metal face plate, above a big hollow cavity, which served in making this a resonator/dobro style guitar and adds to its deep, haunted, tone.
This instrument by far took the most thought, planning, consideration, and focus than any other instrument I’ve ever built. The sound is out of this world and Justin utilizes the space behind the bridge and tailpiece to add some insanely cool vibrato/pitch changes using his hand.
