About me

My name is David Mák and I make acoustic guitars. I studied luthiery at the Musical instrument and furniture building school in Hradec Králové, where I fell in love with the craft. I started bulding bespoke instruments throughout my studies and created my brand Salz Guitars following graduation.

My workshop is located in Prague and all my guitars contain a piece of this city’s history. In my stuctured sides construction I’m using veneer made of reclaimed bog oak that used to be a part of our oldest bridge, the Charles bridge.

Throughout the build I test the instrument and collect data to ensure repeatability and consistency. In my building style, I aim at longevity and repairability, so my neck joints are completely bolt-on bolt-off with carbon fibre reinforcements, sides are structured, and the finish is an epoxy base with oil top for easy repair of those nasty little dings.

about my guitars

In my approach to crafting instruments, I prioritize two key aspects: materializing the full potential of the wood in front of me and future-proofing the instrument. Most of the modern techniques that I use check both boxes.

While I have previously crafted guitars following the styles of Martin and Gibson, this experience informs rather than dictates my current methods. While I respect traditional styles, I also see room for improvement and adaptation in certain structural elements.

I elaborate on the reasons for my unique approaches below, as they significantly contribute to the distinctive sound of my guitars.

Fully bolt-on neck

Despite the popular belief, a glued neck isn’t any stronger than a bolt on neck. I would even challenge this belief and say that it’s inferior to a bolt-on in many ways. For example when you’re glueing a dovetail neck, you must accommodate for the wood swelling caused by moisture in the glue, and thus purposely make a looser joint.

This is not even taking into consideration the time and effort it takes to perform a neck reset once the guitar needs it. With a fully bolt-on neck, you can make a really tight fitting joint and take the whole instrument apart in just minutes.

Structured sides

The technique developed by Jeremy Clark of 52 instrument co. that has influenced a lot of builders including me. This technique creates rigid and strong rims which leaves more energy in the top.

Imagine a wave on a canal, if the banks are soft transitions ,like sand ones, the wave calmly dissipates into them. But if the banks are reinforced or made of concrete, the wave (and its energy) keeps bouncing from one side to another. That lends itself to a more energy efficient top.

Live back

There are many styles to think about the function of back plate on a guitar, but generally can be divided into two camps- reflective and responsive.

Reflective, as the name suggests, tends to be stiff to reflect energy from the soundboard back at it.

Responsive or "live" takes some of the energy, couples with the top and adds complexity to the overall sound. There isn’t THE right way to build, there is only what you want to get from the instrument.

Frequency response analysis

I test my materials from the start to the very end using frequency analysis and tap responses. I measure the wood’s properties to determine the optimal stiffness I want to achieve.

Using this style of build I can move the main resonant frequencies (top, air volume and back) off chromatic scale tones and prevent Wolf notes from ever appearing.

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