Well Maton Predominantly makes acoustic guitars and we have staff of about 50, with perhaps 90% of these people working in the Acoustic production areas.
These areas include Body Building (taking bent sides and gluing on kerfing and attaching the face and back) Body Prep (Binding and sanding the guitar) Assembly (Fitting the Neck and fingerboard and fretting the guitar) Then paint shop and setup. These are the main areas but there's also smaller operations, such as Machine shop, Side bending, CNC and Multicam. CNC and Multicam are the areas I work in, I started in CNC roughing necks, fingerboards, bridges, Electric guitar bodies etc.. Currently I'm on Multicam which cuts the rosette and soundholes, face and back profiles, routs the dovetails amongst other things...
I actually moved here from Adelaide about 8 months ago to work for Maton...I looked in apprenticeships and other ways of getting into it professionally but in the end Maton seemed the best move to make....its really been fantastic, its quite a small operation and there's heaps of training available and very passionate staff. For me I feel its really been a worthwhile move...
Yeah I actually work with Rob, I trained him on multicam 1, currently he's doing body building on Multicam 2... hes a good bloke, i think management are pretty stoked to have him...Hmm it was probably Patrick Evans you spoke with, bloody smart guy, full of all sorts of info.