Earnie Bailey: Tribute To Dave
Earnie Bailey, one of America’s most celebrated guitar techs and head technician for major groups and individuals, talks about his contacts with Dave Bunker. https://youtu.be/1PytLEUIv_E
Dave Bunker 1935 – 2021
Dave Bunker died of a heart attack on Thursday morning, March 18, 2021. He was the last person to think it was his time to leave us. He was energetically preparing for another decade or more of work before him. https://youtu.be/9d8K72ZUV18
Build Your Own Guitar
Build your own guitar? Can I do it? How do I begin? What do I need? What are the steps involved? Hear Dave Bunker help you lay the groundwork. https://youtu.be/JKhP2N0Bggo
How To Process Guitar Wood
The Process of Guitar Wood finishing is critical to its sound, durability, and overall quality. Identify those critical factors here…and be sure to send us your other questions. https://youtu.be/7yAydf12ktk
About Bunker Basses
Bass Guitars by Bunker Guitars. This is everything you need to know, and if there is anything else besides academic questions like the Capitol of Chile or how many years we have left to live because of global warming…please let us know. https://youtu.be/8U7ySxQ5I_E
How To Fix Worn Guitar Frets
Come into the weeds with Dave as he presents a Do It Yourself explanation of how to repair or replace worn guitar frets. This was also a question posted on Quora.com. https://youtu.be/HZZVOz_8EOE
Is Mahogany The Best Guitar Wood
Hear long-time luthier, and former logger, Dave Bunker, give his opinion about Mahogany when used to construct guitars. Is it too heavy? How is the tonality? Are there better woods? https://youtu.be/FTBY5FutEAc
Why I Became a Luthier
Luthier is not a commonly heard name. Hear Dave Bunker talk about why he became one, and ultimately had a great impact on the guitar industry. https://youtu.be/vTeLvdM2Z60
Value of Individual Bridges
Improving tone, cutting cross-talk by 60 percent or more, separating strings, easier tuning, cleaner sound, quicker reaction. Hear Dave answer why your guitar can benefit from Individual Bridges. https://youtu.be/SXA5auysMnc
Are Double Necks Legit?
Country and Rock bands both use double-neck guitars. Hear Dave Bunker talk about his own experience with their use. And if you’d like to learn more about the Touch Guitar, you’ll find a lot more about its history, SPECS, and FAQs within our pages. https://youtu.be/Sw9XAnZ7SQc Photo Credits from YouTube: oleracoon, blackeyedjoe, Rush, Old Tapes
Why Tapered Guitar Necks
Why tapered guitar necks anyway? In this video Dave Bunker explains whether this long tradition is important or not.
Parallel Guitar Strings
Parallel Guitar Strings on a straight neck make fingering easier from the first to the eighth fret by widening the distance between strings.
Credit For Inventing Tapping?
I was honored to see Stanley Jordan reply to my answer (posted on YouTube and Quora). While Jordan and van Halen did not invent tapping, they both embody the very best of its potential. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fw0jq4VAkg Photo Credits in order: Gretsch, Joe Mabel, and Carl Lender
Listen To The Touch Guitar
Although Bunker Guitars today builds many different award-winning models of guitar, Dave Bunker initially developed, built and patented the precursor to the double neck Touch Guitar in 1955. Read more about the history of his tapping instrument in our pages. Young Dave was a logger in Washington State’s far northwest. But he loved to play […]
The NOVA Guitar
The AT-Nova guitar is a fully hollow body archtop guitar conceived and built-in 1993. This guitar is a full range, dynamic guitar that will accommodate styles from light jazz, to country, to hard rock and roll. (You will find more information about the AT-Nova in our Custom Shop.) The AT-Nova design created considerable controversy at […]
The Importance of Tonewood (2)
Most of the early solid-body guitars were made out of Western Red Alder. Alder has a very rounded sound with moderate low ends and nice rich mids. Grown in the same region as Big Leaf Maple, it is a perfect match as it will vent and change with the same motion as it shrinks and […]
The Importance of Tonewood
At Bunker Guitars, we know that the most critical part of a guitar’s tone comes from the woods and materials that make up its construction. Because of this, we have chosen to find and process and our own wood. With the large variety of guitars available on the market today, our timber selection lets the […]
The Ibanez Connection
Few people know that Ibanez Guitars is a Japanese company. The name sounds Spanish. Well indeed, the name comes from a small Spanish guitar firm purchased by Hoshino Gakki of Nagoya, Japan, in the early 1960s. An attempt to manufacture the U.S. made Ibanez guitar failed in the early 1990s when the Starfield line was […]
Bunker Electronic Mute System-2
Since the “DuoLectar” concept was first patented in 1959, I have wanted to broaden the strings sounds for any stringed musical instrument. So, I developed such an innovation through my work on the next-generation of the DuoLectar, which later evolved into the Dave Bunker “Touch Guitar.” It first had a felt mute placed at the […]
The Stolen Broadcaster Guitar
In 1962 I brought my guitar ideas to Leo Fender at a Chicago NAMM Show hosted by my friend Irby Mandrell, father of 10-year-old Barbara, later to become the famous country music star. (Shown in a photo taken at the Namm Show in front of her three neck guitar.) Because of those early designs, I […]