It has been exactly 40 years since František Furch completed his first acoustic guitar in his makeshift home workshop and thus laid the foundation for Furch Guitars. On this special anniversary, we asked him to share some interesting and unknown details about his life over a glass of wine.
It Started With a Banjo
I got into music when I was ten. My brother, seven years older, then came up with the idea that I should learn to play the banjo and together we would go to the tramp settlement of Askalona, where a number of well-known tramp bands performed. I remember that I was so impressed by the idea that I immediately started making a banjo myself. I used an old aluminum drum for this.
After a while, I also got into guitars. I got my first instrument from my brother. During ‘67 there was a temporary political loosening in Czechoslovakia, and many things were suddenly tolerated. In our village, the Czechoslovak People’s Party began to take an active part in social events, and they gave my brother’s band money for instruments. One of the instruments that I got my hands on was a hollow-body electric guitar. That same model appeared in the well-known Czech film Starci na chmelu (The Hop-Pickers).
Later, I also owned one of the first Czech jumbos, by the Cremona Luby brand. I redesigned the original six-string model into a twelve-string one. It was an instrument with very strong bracing, which was able to withstand even greater string tension without any problems. I copied the neck design from an acquaintance who had a twelve-string guitar at home. Then I bought the machine heads in music stores as service sets. I had to buy about six of those sets.
At first, I mainly played tramp songs, which I learned from songbooks. I still remember my first song. It was Blizzard by the Czech singer and songwriter Jiří Grossmann.
First Guitar From an Old Piano
Then came the first guitar that I built from scratch. By that time, I was already yearning for a really good instrument. Unfortunately, it was not so easy to get a hold of one: the year was 1980 and in the then socialist Czechoslovakia there was a suppression of political and religious beliefs, the right to education and private business and the right to freedom of speech. People could not travel freely across the border, and similar rules applied to most goods. Products from the West could only be found either on the black market or on the shelves of Tuzex stores. They were expensive and sold in exchange for foreign currency or “Bony” vouchers, also available mainly on the black market. The most frequently sold guitar in Tuzex was a plywood Yamaha for about $ 465 / 385 €, which was almost three average monthly salaries at the time.
Editor’s note: Tuzex – was a series of state-run shops in Czechoslovakia from 1957 to 1992 which did not accept normal Czechoslovak currency but only vouchers which could be purchased from banks using foreign currency. They supplied luxury items: local goods in short supply and in particular foreign goods. The Tuzex vouchers were effectively an unofficial parallel currency.
I was missing information and the Internet did not exist.
The other alternative would be to rely on instruments from local builders, especially the aforementioned state-owned company, Cremona. But their quality was really terrible. Therefore, I decided to build a guitar myself. It wasn’t easy. I was missing information and the Internet did not exist. However, I got my hands on Ovation’s product catalog with details on their roundback guitars. They were very popular instruments, so I was inspired by them.
It took me about a year to build the guitar. I made the soundboard from an old spruce piano and the back from laminate. At the beginning, my guitar just laid nearly finished in the corner, because I didn’t trust myself with the bridge and the scale. When I finally got the courage, I used an adjustable bridge, which is normally used on electric guitars. However, the resulting sound was too metallic and it definitely didn’t sound like an acoustic. Later, I replaced it with a traditional rosewood bridge. The neck, however, which I made from plastic, also turned out to be a problem.
At that time, I briefly lent the guitar to an acquaintance of mine who worked as a railway postman and who liked to play it during his free time. He just carried it in a cloth bag. One winter, when it was really cold, he bumped it against something on the train and the temperature-sensitive plastic just couldn’t stand it, and it broke. I glued it back together at first, but later I decided to replace it with a mahogany neck.
Mahogany was a relatively readily available material for me. In the nearby town of Břeclav, there was a veneer shop which had a lot of leftover wood. I remember that I bought six meters of nice long logs there for two dollars / euros. They couldn’t use them, but I made necks from them for many years to come.
Friends, Musicians
In the end, I sold that guitar for $ 233 / 193 € at one of the gatherings where I originally took it for a demonstration. Roundback guitars were still quite rare in our country then. I bought a new sander with the money earned from the sale, so I could start sanding the soundboards. I knew I would keep making guitars in the future. Many of my friends had trouble finding a good guitar, so I started making them for them as well.
I didn’t have the necessary equipment, so getting ahold of better stuff was the first priority. I bought a little at a time, like the sander. However, I made a lot of machines myself, for example a vacuum press for guitar backs, a fret cutter and a fingerboard radius shaper. It served me well that I was a metalworker and that I was able to make the tools myself. We still use some of them in production today.
I gathered material wherever I could get it, like the old piano which I already mentioned. My friend, who played in a Brno tramp band also helped me a lot. He came to see me in ’82 and asked me to make a guitar for him. In exchange, he promised me soundboards for 25 instruments, so I agreed. Although, in the end he really had to chase me, because I took a break for several years: I was newly married and building a house. He even threatened to take the boards back. That type of wood was not readily available, so I didn’t want to lose it. That motivated me to finally build the guitar for him. It was one of four dreadnoughts, a shape to which later I gravitated towards, as opposed to the classic roundback body style. I have to say that it played extremely well.
With the Secret Police on His Tail
In the 80’s, in addition to tramp settlements, we also went with the band to the Czech competitive music festival Porta; we even won it in ’89. Porta was known for its opposition to the current politics. There was an opportunity to meet a number of well-known and interesting musicians from all over the country. I remember one of them had an original Ovation guitar. I sketched it at his home and created a template from the sketch. It consisted of an internal and external form. Using those, I was able to make one guitar body a day.
The Commander of the Auxiliary Security Guard lived across the street from me, and police and other unknown cars regularly parked in front of his house. I didn’t feel good about it at all.
Making and selling that many guitars brought a certain risk. Private business was illegal in what was then Czechoslovakia and was punishable by imprisonment for up to several years. The Commander of the Auxiliary Security Guard lived across the street from me, and police and other unknown cars regularly parked in front of his house. I didn’t feel good about it at all, because I spent most of my evenings in the workshop, and anyone on the street could recognize what I was doing. Recently, I learned that one of the members of our band had allegedly been a collaborator with State Security, so I am certain the Secret Police knew about my activities and that I was under surveillance. And if the comrades wanted to, I suppose they could have locked me up.
The maximum permitted annual earnings were $ 4 650 / 3 852 €, while $ 3 720 / 3 081 € were paid to the state as a tax. From $ 930 / 771 €, no tax was paid. This ensured that nobody could earn more money than the regime allowed.
On the other hand, I had a very good relationship with the local Chairman of the National Committee (today known as a mayor) and also, as a band, we were well respected in the village. The village governance held a protective hand over us. Also, the mood within the state slowly but surely began to change.
Guitars With a Taste of Freedom
By the end of the 1980’s, perestroika began in Czechoslovakia, which brought about a loosening of the regime and allowed people to start private businesses. According to the tax tables, the maximum annual permitted earnings were $ 4 650 / 3 852 €, while $ 3 720 / 3 081 € were paid to the state as a tax. From $ 930 / 771 €, no tax was paid. This ensured that nobody could earn more money than the regime allowed.
I was officially working only part-time, although my friends had warned me against it. They were afraid that the regime might tighten again and I would pay for it. Thank God it didn’t happen.
At that time, I was able to make one guitar a month, and I sold each one for about $ 650 / 540 €, including a case. In the beginning, making the cases took me almost as long as making the instruments themselves. I carved the very first cases from styrofoam and then covered them with laminate. Later, I left their production to my cousin, who did everything, including the locks. A friend of mine, who owned a hobby joinery shop with all the necessary equipment, helped me with the guitar necks for a while. He supplied me with rough necks including glued reinforcement.
In 1988, I enrolled in a distance learning course for luthiers. I signed up for it together with a friend who was the head of the Petrof piano development center. We learned more formally how to put a guitar together. The first year we focused on the soundboard, the second on the neck. Then we put it all together during a final exam. The advantage was that we could choose the specific type of guitar we wanted to focus on. I chose a purely western guitar with cross bracing.
In 1989 the Velvet Revolution came, which signalled the end of the communist regime. All at once, things began to change. In May of ‘89, I finally left my day job and started making guitars full-time. After the revolution, I rented a larger production facility and hired my first employees.
We sold guitars directly to the end customers. I wrote each one down in a little green notebook. Gradually, we began to contact the first stores. Together, with increased production, they helped us to survive the initial rocky period after the revolution when guitarists shifted in large numbers from domestic guitars to the previously unavailable foreign brands. And whenever we had an excess of instruments, we simply loaded them into a car, looked up the addresses of music stores in the phone book, and made our rounds.
Campaign to the West
One time, we set off like this with a large consignment of 150 semi-finished necks. We drove a Fiat 127. The supplier was looking at us in disbelief at the time. He didn’t understand how we planned to fit them all into such a small car.
The Velvet Revolution also opened the path for us to the West. We started our expansion to nearby Germany, where my colleague, Jiří Macháček, who is currently in charge of quality management, accompanied me to the Musikmesse trade show. We had no idea what was going on there, we only knew we had to go. I remember changing into the then-fashionable purple suit and white socks on the last rest stop before Frankfurt. I still have to laugh at that. There we met the owners of the traditional German company Hopf, who later allowed us to present ten guitars at their booth.
In addition to the trade show, we started going to Germany to look for materials. The border checks between European states were still in operation then. We never knew what to expect. Everything depended on the mood of the customs officers. We often had to wait in a kilometer-long line at the border, alongside trucks.
One time, we set off like this with a large consignment of 150 semi-finished necks. We drove a Fiat 127, which I got from the son of the Slovak actor Michal Dočolomanský in exchange for a special black and white banjo. The supplier was looking at us in disbelief at the time. He didn’t understand how we planned to fit them all into such a small car. We succeeded, however, even though the car was absolutely packed. We used to drive like this regularly for material. We would usually drive a shorter route with just a few stops, which would take about two days. No highway had been built yet, and the local roads in winter were more like ice rinks. With time, however, as our requirements changed, we needed to rethink this method and start looking for better solutions.
From Laminate to Wood
We have remained faithful to solid-wood acoustic guitars to this day. They have become a lifelong love affair for us.
A big change occurred in ’94 when the popular roundback guitars were being quickly pushed out in favor of solid-wood ones. Due to the force of this new demand, we had to act immediately and adjust our entire production process or face falling completely behind the times.
Among our first solid-wood instruments were dreadnought guitars, a grand auditorium and a super jumbo. Over time, however, we expanded the range to include other versions. We have remained faithful to solid-wood acoustic guitars to this day. They have become a lifelong love affair for us.
A Few Words in Conclusion
Over the course of forty years, František Furch and his team have produced more than 97 000 guitars. In addition to the already mentioned roundback and traditional semi and solid acoustic guitars, his portfolio also included mandolins, and jazz and gypsy guitars. He approaches the creation of each of them with love, care and precision. His aim has always been to push the boundaries of the guitar industry forward. His son, Petr, who took over the reins of the company eight years ago, now continues in this spirit.
Did you enjoy this issue of Furch Insights? Please feel free to contact us at with any questions or feedback. We look forward to hearing from you!