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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 2018)
LIFESTYLES Wednesday, december 12, 2018 HermIsTOnHeraLd.cOm • A9 Hermiston man hand-crafts guitars By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN Staff Writer L es McMasters picks up his guitar and strums. Surrounded by band- saws, tools and hundreds of wooden boards, he begins to sing in a smooth tenor, pick- ing away at the guitar he built in that same room. In the past 35 years, Les McMasters has honed a musical hobby and some woodworking knowledge into an art form. In a shop a few feet from his Hermiston home, McMasters spends thou- sands of hours a year build- ing guitars, dulcimers and mandolins. The craftsman behind McMasters Guitars has long been interested in music, and has played the guitar since 1958, when he was high school. Around the same time, he began taking all the woodshop classes his high school offered, and parlayed those skills into a career in pattern-making in the U.S. Navy. Though he did small repairs on his own instru- ments, the two interests didn’t really converge until about 20 years later, when he started trying to teach him- self how to build his own instruments. “I had no previous knowl- edge,” he said. “So I started doing research.” He began designing and building his own instruments, and now makes about four a year to sell to customers. McMasters spends at least 300 to 400 hours on each gui- tar he makes, with some of his most challenging projects approaching 2,000 hours. That time doesn’t come cheap. “My prices start at $4,000,” McMasters said, guessing he spends at least $1,800 on parts for each instrument. That doesn’t include labor, he said. For McMasters, the time is worth the end result. “The whole guitar, every part of it, is very tight work,” he said. “If you start slack- ing on anything, the quality is going to slip. To me, that’s pretty much unacceptable.” In the back room of his shop, McMasters has a shelf filled with thin pieces of wood, which come from as far away as the rainfor- ests of Brazil and India, and as near as the Blue Moun- tains. He uses spruce, black walnut, bigleaf maples and tamaracks from Oregon and Washington. “We have some nice trees here in this country,” he said. “They’re good tone woods, and sound very pretty.” But some of his most striking pieces use woods that have become increas- ingly difficult to get — a fact McMasters laments. Many of the woods he uses, like Hon- duran Mahogany and Brazil- ian Rosewood, are listed in the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endan- gered Species) appendix, a list of species that are vul- nerable or endangered, and use of them is limited. Oth- occasionally plays other gigs around town, and the two of them perform at some music festivals throughout the year, including the Sacagawea Bluegrass Festival in the Tri-Cities and a Fourth of July festival in Fossil. They played in a country band for five years in Fossil. McMasters had many careers before he began making guitars. “I signed up for the U.S. Navy, and my uncles were diesel mechanics,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to be.” Because of his experi- ence in woodworking as a high school student, he was instead placed in pat- tern-making, as a preci- sion woodworker. He would make wooden patterns, which would then be sent to the foundry to make sand molds for molten metal. A native of Garfield, Washington, he served four years in the Navy, including staff photo by e.J. Harris/east Oregonian at the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Les McMasters of Hermiston uses a carving chisel to shape the braces on the back a guitar at his shop Friday, Nov. Cuba. They were capable of 30, 2018, in Hermiston. reproducing major pieces of equipment — as large as a 30-foot propeller for a ship. But a smaller item that McMasters still has holds special significance, as well. On a table in his shop, he still has the first thing he cast in the Navy — a small lay- out knife, with a handle fash- ioned into the shape of a knight’s head. He managed a Les Schwab in Fossil, and moved to Hermiston for the same job in 1977. He left, Les McMasters uses a block plainer to shape the braces drove a truck and worked in on the back of a guitar at his shop in Hermiston. concrete for a while, before going back to school to be McMasters said while tar, she on dulcimer and an electrician. After work- they don’t have to be per- piano, and both singing. ing for several companies, formers, any guitar maker They play at the weekly Fid- he retired, and continued has to have a working knowl- dler’s Nights at Avamere, a to work part-time, until he edge of how to play the local retirement home. They decided there was only one instrument. have done music ministry thing he wanted to do. “Now, I spend all my time He and his wife Leanna for 45 years, at two Herm- do perform — he on gui- iston churches. McMasters out here,” he said. A Special Guitar maker Les McMasters likes to use a wide variety of woods in the creation of his guitars. The instrument on the left is a Gibson jumbo styles Guitar with Bolivian rosewood on the back and Sitka spruce on the top. The guitar on the right is a twelve-string lady’s fancy guitar in what McMasters has dubbed his “Oregon guitar” with a Redwood top from southern Oregon and a back using black walnut from Baker City. ers are on the IUCN (Inter- national Union for Conser- vation of Nature) Red List, another database of species and their status. “They’re being very spe- cific with what’s being shipped out of the country, who’s logging and how,” he said. “It’s OK to protect our resources, but it can get a lit- tle overbearing.” Because he’s been collect- ing woods for more than 30 years, McMasters said most of his pieces that are now on those lists did not qualify when he purchased them. To create the instrument, McMasters puts the piece of wood through a bandsaw, and bookmatches the boards — one by one, the boards will fall off the saw, and he opens them up like a book, so they mirror each other. He then uses hand tools to work on smaller details. He finishes the instrument with tuners and strings that he gets from a few small suppliers around the U.S. McMasters is currently working on a guitar that he will keep for himself. The instrument, still not quite fin- ished, has a deep brown back, made of Macassar ebony, and a spruce board for the front. A thin border of iridescent abalone seashell surrounds the edge of the guitar, as well as the sound hole. In a nearby tray, there are several aba- lone letters that McMasters has carefully cut out, which spell out his name. “When I retire (my old) guitar, I’ll start playing that pretty one,” he said. McKay Creek Estates FREE Cognitive Screening Thank You To the Friends and Supporters of the Hermiston Lions Don Horneck Ag-Ed Dinner & Auction PLATINUM SPONSORS: GOLD SPONSORS: • Rogers Toyota of Hermiston • Barnett & Moro, P.C. • Simplot Soil Builders • K&L Madison, LLC • Wilbur Ellis Co. • Pioneer Seed Co. • Umatilla Electric Cooperative SILVER SPONSORS: • Purswell’s Pump Co. • Wheatland Insurance Center • IRZ Consulting • Bud Rich / G-2 Farming • Elmers Irrigation • Hawman Farms • Hansell Farms • Sunheaven Farms • United Grain Growers • Morrow County Grain Growers • Banner Bank BRONZE SPONSORS: • Miller Realty Inc. • Les Schwab Tire Center • Eastern Oregon Telecom • Mr. Insulation Company • Photography Plus • Columbia Harvest Foods • First Community Credit Union • Mike & Diane Henderson We would also like to give a shout-out and a thank you: • Swire Coca-Cola Dave Caldwell • Columbia Crest Winery • Art Prior • Ordnance Brewing Company • Starbucks Coff ee • Rep. Greg Smith • Horace Mann Inc • Devon Oil • Knights of Columbus • Americus Signs • Key Club • Toni Eddy • Hermiston Chamber of Commerce • Kuhn Law Offi ces • Destination Bartending • City of Hermiston • Good Shepherd Health Care System • Ford Bonney • Tom Spoo • Cole Crosthwaite • Steve Myers • Kalene Wheeler • Ruralite A Big Thanks to these folks who donated auction items and made our event even more successful. Is Mom a little more forgetful lately? There are many early warning signs of a potential memory disorder, such as Alzheimer’s disease. That’s why we’re offering a FREE and CONFIDENTIAL cognitive screening. We encourage anyone who is concerned about cognitive decline to take this short, in-person screening. The screening is administered by a qualified health care professional. To schedule your cognitive screening today, please call (541) 704-7146. McKay Creek Estates 1601 Southgate Pl. Pendleton, OR 97801 www.PrestigeCare.com Yo Country Frozen Yogurt La Palma NW Farm Supply Wes Wise Construction Cycletown KRISanthemums Barnett & Moro Denny’s Restaurant Stanfi eld Hutterian Brethren Farm Hales Restaurant Wal Mart Distribution Center City of Hermiston Dairy Queen Larry Usher Mark & Ruth Schwartz Madison Farms Eastern Oregon Mobile Slaughter Double T Farms Ky Miller & Charlie Clupny Columbia Crest Winery Goss Family Jewelry Wild Horse Foundation Vicki Horneck Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center Threemile Canyon Farms Carla McLane Umatilla County Fire District 1 Life Flight Carley Schriever Aff ordable Family Eyewear Smitty’s ACE Hardware O’Reilly Auto Parts Dave’s Barbershop Pet Sense Desert Lanes Scott’s Cycle Sports Kent & Laura Madison Rick’s Car Wash USA Sub & Grill Kopacz Nursery & Florist Oriental Garden Ixtapa Shari’s Restaurant Delish Carlson’s Pharmacy Proceeds go to the Umatilla Electric Hydromania program and local community activities in memory of Don Horneck. Cathy Wamsley Cottage Flowers O So Kleen Sanitary Disposal, Inc. Umatilla Head Start Java Junkies Alive & Well Andree’s Ekone Oyster Co. Lifetime Vision Source Kuhn Law Offi ce Country Kennel Grooming Hermiston Veterinary Hermiston Drug and Gift Pet Parade Oregon Grain Growers Ochoa Jewelry Big Lots Nutrien Ag Solutions Jack McGuire, Farrier Maurices