Mijail Kharash 2018
new arrival

Guitar made by our good friend the Granada-based guitar maker Mikhail Kharash. This is a clear example of the work Mijail likes to do. Traditional sound, beautiful, colourful, balanced and very good projection. The guitar is light and very comfortable to play, with a 5-struts fan bracing. In other words, the typical characteristics of the guitar from Granada. But we also find aesthetic touches in this guitar that lead us to Mijail’s guitar concept that every guitar he makes has its own personality. The edge ornaments matching the rosette, details on the joints and purflings are original Mijail’s touches that give his guitars that unique look and beauty and Mikhail shows his craftmanship talent.
The guitar, although second hand, is in a very good condition. We only found some scratch of normal use.

To go deeper into the work of this guitar maker we recommend you to watch the video we made in his workshop below.

Mikhail was born in St. Petersburg, when he was 12 his family moved to Israel. He also tells us that he lived again for a while in Russia and also in Canada.
He started working with wood at the age of 6 with his grandfather. He learned with him how to sharpen and use tools and the basics of woodworking.
It was also at that time that he started to play the violin and then the guitar. Gradually he started to study the instrument more and more. Knowing about woodworking and liking the guitar, he decided to combine the two worlds and wanted to build his own guitar. He began to investigate on his own until he reached the point where he decided that in order to make a guitar of a certain quality he had to find a master teacher.
In his search he saw that in Granada there were a lot of internationally renowned guitar makers and he decided to come and try to become an apprentice in a workshop.
He saw the romantic possibility that someone would take him on as an apprentice, perhaps for a plate of food a day or something like that. But he saw that finding this was impossible. The guitar makers were too busy with their own work and had no time for this.
He met a guitar maker in Ronda, Málaga called Carmelo González and this time he contacted him and said he would teach him how to make a guitar. He went to Ronda and together with him he made his first guitar there.
He returned to Israel and set up his first workshop there, dedicated especially to repairing guitars. In the meantime, in his spare time, he kept on researching and trying to make some guitars on his own. But again he came to the point that he saw that he still had a long way to go to make quality guitars as he wanted to.
He tells us that at that time learning how to make guitars from books or information that he could get his hands on didn’t give him what he needed.
In 2009 he decided to return to Granada with the idea of staying and setting up his workshop with literally just a box of tools that he had. He was getting the information he so badly needed from visiting workshops in the city, such as that of the guitar maker Feliz Moya, who often visited him to ask him questions and watch him work, and who taught him a lot, he tells us. He visited more workshops for the same purpose and names John Ray as another person who was very kind to him. Also Rolf Eichinger and other teachers like José Vigil who learned from him that notion of perfection when making a guitar, new concepts and visions for Mijail. He considers Vigil a friend and the knowledge he acquired with him was fundamental for his way of working.
Little by little he was already making his new guitars, more and more in the style of Granada. He began to notice a change when he focused on using the 5-struts fan bracing system, which gave him a sound that he liked. Since then, he has always used this fan bracing, changing it very little depending on the needs, the angle of the struts, the thickness or the height.
Another change was made in 2017 when he applied a new template to his guitars designed by him.
Apart from achieving a quality sound, one idea he has for his guitars is aesthetics. Each guitar should have a concept but not be too repetitive. Each guitar should have its own personality. He also likes to apply artistic and original elements to them, and a continuous research on different ideas and concepts.
Because he believes that he got into this profession to do different things. And of course always doing it in the best possible way.