Luthier Tim Jagmin in his workshop, surrounded by the tools of his trade.
By Valerie Chandler
Most everyone enjoys listening to music, but how many have thought about where the melodies begin, with the crafting of the individual instruments? I’d like to introduce you to a northern Michigan man, an extremely talented luthier named Tim Jagmin, who has become like family to my husband and me. He truly has led a life worthy of a movie script.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a luthier is a craftsperson who makes guitars.
Tim, now 80, has rubbed elbows with some of the top names in the guitar world, both musicians and manufacturers. Through it all, he has remained humble. In fact, when my husband and I first met Tim, we had no idea how interesting and diverse his life had been. Imagine being friends with and making guitars for band members from Rush, Grand Funk Railroad, Bob Seger, The Allman Brothers, Kid Rock, Insane Clown Posse, and many others that he’s not revealed. Money alone won’t buy you a guitar from Tim. He is good friends with most of the guitarists he has built instruments for and told me, “If we don’t click or gel somehow it won’t, and at times didn’t, happen.”
Tim still makes, repairs, refinishes and tunes guitars but has also taken on a few apprentices. He has mentored and apprenticed a couple of young men from the Traverse City-based band The Smash, and two years ago he began mentoring my husband, Matthew.
Acquiring skills
Tim developed his woodworking skills as a child by building model airplanes and boats, preferring wood models over plastic because the wood needed to be shaped and fitted together. To those skills he added learning about and fixing electronics on ships during the 10 years he served in the U.S. Navy, including overseas in Vietnam.
After his military discharge, Tim settled in Detroit to be near his wife’s family. His marriage was short-lived, and after the divorce his youngest brother came to live with him. Tim was a maintenance supervisor on the midnight shift at the largest snack-producing plant in Detroit. One morning he came home to find a strange guy sleeping on his couch, which in the 1970s was no big deal. The guy told him his name was Harry, his brother’s friend. After making a pot of coffee, the two started talking and discovered they had an overwhelming number of similarities, including the same birthday ⸺ December 28, 1943. From that moment, a new friendship blossomed.
Tim’s new friend Harry owned a small guitar repair shop, Savannah Guitar, in Redford, Michigan. Their excitement about being astrological twins led Harry to ask Tim if he’d like to try guitar repair. Tim’s brother Tom was a guitar and bass player, but Tim knew nothing about guitars himself. Since his job at that time was going nowhere, he decided to give the guitar gig a try.
When Tim first started working at the repair shop, his friend told him the weakest part of guitars, sound wise, are the pickups, transducers that convert mechanical vibration of the strings into electrical energy. Tim was curious and became determined to find a way to improve pickups. After examining all the models available at the time, he concluded the only difference between a stock model and the “Holy Grail,” also known as the Gibson PAF (Patent Applied For) humbucker, was a few more winds of wire on the bobbin, the casing that held it. Tim rewound, overwound and changed everything he could on stock parts before deciding that more wire and magnets were needed. He found an old coil-winding machine at a garage sale that “saved his life.” Forty years later, he still uses it.
Building a reputation
After a year working at Savannah Guitar, Tim built his first guitar for Alex Lifeson, co-founder and guitarist for the rock band Rush. Next, fellow Rush member, Geddy Lee, wanted a lighter encore instrument. Geddy gave him his “P” (precision) bass and asked Tim to make it smaller, lighter and stereo. So, Tim added a jazz bass pickup after shaping the body like a teardrop. He painted it pearl white with a blue burst. Tim is pretty sure this was the first “P” jazz bass ever made, and he remained the repairman for all of Rush’s instruments for many years.
Tim only built neck-through electric and bass guitars because of Gibson’s Firebird guitar and Thunderbird bass, the company’s only neck-through guitar models. A “neck-through guitar” means the neck extends the full length of the guitar in one piece of wood. Since Savannah Guitar was a warranty repair center for Gibson, Tim and Harry made regular trips to the company’s factory, headquartered in Kalamazoo. Tim said that Gibson admitted that the neck-through design worked better than glue or bolt-on types of construction, but the former wasted a lot more wood. Tim decided that if Gibson was willing to admit the design worked best, then neck-through guitars, with no glue or bolt-on, would be how he built his.
Savannah Guitar got the reputation as the go-to place for anything needed for a guitar or bass. They had their own pickups and Tim built guitars, which was unheard of at the time. Most stores didn’t even have a repairman or technician on hand; they usually only sold the instruments, but Savannah had a crew of seven. They also had a delivery service twice a week to most of the stores in the Detroit metro area. They were one of the only places to offer instrument refinishing, and at any given time they had approximately a dozen waiting for refinishing or customizing.
Making refinements
Every time Tim made a trip to the Gibson factory, he wanted to see how a particular process was done, like refinishing. He said Gibson heated 55-gallon drums of lacquer to thin it, so that all of the clear coat could be sprayed at one time. Since large drums like that are way too big for smaller-scale projects, he just sands and sprays as many coats of lacquer as needed for each job.
Around 1974, Tim decided to start using stainless steel frets in his guitars. A friend had a 1932 Martin C-100 arch top acoustic with steel frets that Tim observed were still usable, unlike nickel or silver frets which would have worn out during 40-plus years of play. Since the frets were harder, it made it easier to bend strings and they lasted longer. Most of the players getting their instruments refinished were playing 5-7 nights a week, and after a year or less of rock-guitar playing, their frets would wear out. Tim used other materials, such as silicon bronze, and they worked very well, but due to the expense, he only used them on special instruments.
When it comes to making a custom guitar, Tim’s philosophy is: “Throw out what doesn’t work, and only use components that work better.” At first, he exclusively used Schaller tuners, but for the past 20 years or so he has used Gotoh tuners which he believes are superior to all others. For the fingerboards he only uses ebony wood (his favorite), and the pickups are his own because he thinks they sound better than any others. Bridges are mostly hardtail straight toppers. (This is a style of bridge with a straight top, versus curved or other design, that allows the strings to run across the top of the guitar rather than through the guitar body and out the topper.) A piece of silicon bronze is fastened under the bridge to aid and enhance sustain.
Tim has never duplicated any guitar or bass he has built. He builds them uniquely for the customer and ends up personalizing them with inlays, so there are no duplicates.
Naming names
While in Detroit, Tim managed to work with an acoustic guitar he believed was the best-made, best-sounding instrument at the time; it was a Harptone guitar. He took a jumbo 12-string Harptone and ported (a luthier’s term for smoothing and polishing) the interior. Every guitarist who needed a 12-string sound would visit his shop because they wanted to play that guitar, and they would play it for hours. As luck would have it, Sam Koontz of Harptone Guitar in Hoboken, New Jersey, offered to sell the company to Tim and Harry in 1975. Little did Tim know that Harry, his friend and partner, was wanted by the FBI. His real name was Warren, and he had carefully avoided any dealings requiring background checks. Eventually, however, he was caught. The Harptone sale didn’t happen, and to settle his legal troubles, Warren sold Savannah Guitar to Tim. The small shop was then renamed Pyramid Guitar.
During his Detroit years, Tim acquired a couple of nicknames. One was “The Tone Pimp” from Mikhal Caldwell, named one of the top 100 guitarists in the world, because Tim’s pickups hone lots of tone. The other was the “Kahler Cure” because when a Kahler bridge was installed on a guitar, tone and sustain were lost; however, if Tim’s pickups were installed, the tone and sustain came back.
Bouncing back
Tim has had many ups and downs in life. An original design for a pickup he invented was copied by a major manufacturer after its representatives bought two from Tim’s shop. (He said his only satisfaction is that they got it a little wrong.)
In the late 1970s, his second wife decided they should move north to Traverse City, his birthplace. He went along with the idea, sold Pyramid Guitar and moved north, but their marriage didn’t last. It was a shock for him to go from a customer list of 4,000-plus guitarists in Detroit to literally nobody in Traverse City. To make ends meet, Tim worked at a factory in town, then at an exotic-wood store. He also spent time as a certified marine mechanic. Through it all, Tim continued to build and repair guitars, mostly for Detroit guitarists, and make his pickups to sell in Detroit-area stores.
One of Tim’s apprentices was working at a Detroit music store when a representative from a large Midwest guitar manufacturer walked through the doors. The representative was shown Tim’s pickups and was enormously impressed. Nine months later, Tim had a multi-million-dollar, five-year contract with the company to distribute his triple-coil pickups in 23 countries. However, his apprentice tried to acquire the contract by taking over Tim’s newly formed corporation, Jagmin International, Inc., and the deal fell apart.
Helping hands
The odd thing about Tim is that he doesn’t play the guitar. He decided he would build guitars and leave guitar-playing to his brother Tom, who, when he lived in Manistee, performed with Red Apple Road, Big Rig and Wooden Nickel. Tom also played in other bands in Canada. When one of his bandmates was diagnosed with leukemia, he asked Tom to play the Allman Brothers’ “Melissa” on Tim’s 12-string Harptone at his funeral. Tim said that to this day he gets goosebumps when he thinks of how that 12-string rang out in the funeral home without a sour note or missed chord.
Through the years, Tom helped Tim refine his electrical pickup. Another person who was helpful in assessing Tim’s pickups and guitars was Steve Stefanski, singer and guitarist for the Detroit band Standing Room Only. Everything Tim has built or designed, Steve has tried out for him.
Tim’s pickups have been accused of being secretly battery powered, but he uses passive pickups, which means no batteries or electronics are used. He has also used his acoustic pickups in acoustic pianos, harps, upright basses, cellos and every type of acoustic guitar. When Tim’s passive pickups are used, people tell him they have never heard their instrument sound so good. He explained that the main reason amplifiers are needed in most acoustic pickups is because the latter don’t have enough output, and the frequency response is all over the place when an amp is used. His acoustic pickups are flat response; therefore, there’s no change in sound when transitioning from acoustic to amplified acoustic.
Building guitars
After repairing all kinds of issues with acoustics ⸺ from cracks in tops and sides and broken and loose braces, to resets on bridges and necks ⸺ Tim began experimenting on his own. While working at a music store in Traverse City, he would buy the cheaper acoustic models they purchased, so he could try out his ideas.
He told me when he makes guitars, he talks to the wood. As he sands the wood, he might tell it, “Now the world’s going to see what you really look like.” I also asked Tim if he had a favorite guitar that he’s made. After a little thought he said. “Yeah, one for a best friend that played in Detroit. It was made of padauk, an orange wood, and I made it hollow. It was really light; I don’t know what it weighed, but it was much lighter than a regular guitar, and this is the one that had the bronze frets.”
Mentoring Matthew
Tim began my husband Matthew’s apprenticeship the way his started, by teaching him to cut and shape the guitar from a piece of wood. That was followed by a lot of hours of sanding, all by hand, because Tim’s idea is “if a tool breaks, you’ll still know how to work and finish the guitar without the fancy tools.”
“I think that’s the most important thing I’ve learned from Tim,” Matthew said. “When I’m sanding, I’ve learned how to hear when to stop … because you can listen, and each grit will have a sound.”
He considers Tim to be his best friend, a respected Elder and a comrade. He looks forward to seeing him each week and learning more, but sometimes they take a break to just talk. As military veterans with similar interests, they have a lot to talk about and often lose track of time. They bounce new ideas off each other, always looking for ways to improve their product, so the session becomes part of their research and development.
Thanks to the guitars, Matthew has developed a love for woodworking. He designed and built a carrying box for a pedal board for one of the guitarists of The Smash.
He explained that when he is in Tim’s basement, he’ll be asking questions, leaning and watching over Tim’s shoulder, because someday he wants to be able to say, “Yes, I didn’t make this pickup, but I learned from the guy that made this perfect.”
Tim shared his own observation. “A lot of these people think that making guitars is a numbers game; the more you make, the better … but I look at it this way; if you get it right the first or second time, do you really have to make thousands of them to prove your point?”
Tim’s brother Tom passed away last year. He has a brother, Terry, and a son, daughter, grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Many friends check in with him and visit over cards or a cup of coffee. Though Tim is currently undergoing experimental treatment for a second cancer diagnosis, he has no plans of slowing down.
Editor’s note: This story is updated from the original printed version. It includes
additional photographs and subheadings for ease of reading online.
Valerie Chandler lives in Wellston with her husband Matthew and their border collie/Australian shepherd. A citizen and employee of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, she is also a cancer survivor who loves to spend time with her family and has many interests.
