Kinniard Guitars

John Kinnaird

John Kinnaird is an independent builder from Atlanta. John uses his own unique designs coupled to traditional ideas to produce world class guitars. We first met one of his guitars used, at a friend’s shop and found it to be an incredible guitar in almost every respect, from the tone to the build quality to the price. John’s prices are still extremely reasonable and start from US$3,000 sans shipping and taxes.

We currently have 2 Kinnairds on order; a 12fret OO and a 12 fret slope shouldered dread both with superb woods and cutaways. Please contact us for more details.

His top construction gives a characteristic sound that is distinctive and easily identifiable, and consistent even between different styles of guitars and different woods. To get a top to have good bass response without sacrificing trebles, other builders have several approaches to solve this problem, some of which involve splitting the bridge so that the treble and base strings oscillate the bridge separately. John’s design keeps the bass and treble strings hooked to the entire bridge because the entire top to responds to every string. The bridge is wider than most to distribute the energy directly across the top grain and to engage side braces coupling the width of the vibrations more completely.

Delivery is imminent on several models, please Email us/phone for more details.

Tight stiff tops favor treble response. Loose tops favor bass response but sacrifice definition and sustain. A top that is stiff in the center, under and around the bridge and tapers off to very thin edges can be stiff enough for the local, short coupled treble vibrations beneath the bridge and still allow the entire top to flex under the influence of bass strings. This design copies good acoustic speaker design with flexible margins to enhance the bass, and a relatively stiff center section for the tweeter action.

John likes to use padauk for the bridge plate for several reasons. It is musical. Tap a plank and you will see that it rings like Brazilian. At the same time, it is lighter than most really hard woods, so it fits the good stiffness with minimal mass criteria rather well. The top is arched like the side of a barrel. It is mostly cylindrical. His form is cylindrical, and the sides of the body are sanded down to a cylindrical arch to match the top.

Here is a small selection of the models and guitars John has built over the years:

Mini Jumbo: The ultimate versatile guitar; with a slightly deeper voice this guitar can handle just about any style of play.