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The Art & Craft of Contemporary Guitars

Mervyn Davis comes by his craft naturally; both his father and grandfather were amateur violin makers and his father built a mandolin while imprisoned during the Second World War.

For more than 20 years, Davis has been perfecting a completely new approach to acoustic guitar design that he calls the SmoothTalker. The body shape of a SmoothTalker is similar to that of a banjo, but, instead of a skin head, it has a round, fan-braced Engelmann spruce top. A space between the top of the soundboard and the neck severs as a "breather", which facilitates the movement of air both outside and within the guitar.

Read the full article below.

Quarterly Journal of The Guild of American Luthiers no 90

I first met Mervyn in 1998 at his old farm shed workshop in the countryside just outside Pretoria. I had just started my first instrument and had a need to ask questions of someone with experience in building stringed instruments. I found Mervyn to be a deep thinker, very knowledgeable and willing to share with me the answers to my questions.

Mervyn's knowledge and insight into stringed instruments stem from many years of self-inspired building and innovation. Most South African builders like myself can claim to have gone through the Mervyn Davis school at some stage of their building career. The interview below serves to prove Mervyn's willingness to share his years of experience with others.