Hand made instruments, luthier

About me:

Violin making in the Doyle family started in 1890 by paul's grandfather Frank Doyle snr. No information exists as to what quantity he or his sons might have made but his son frank junior and 4 of his brothers followed in his footsteps, Pauls fine instrument making came from this musical gifted family. Paul was the only son to take up the Instrument Making but only after he had successfully studied Architecture in Bolton Street College of Technology Dublin and later in the London college of Furniture in Aldgate East. He had dabbled a bit in Electric Guitar making from the age of fifteen and had become quite an accomplished guitarist and while in London played in various groups and did session work in the Olympic Sound Studio in Barnes near Hammersmith. The Studio was the starting point in Pauls interest in Instruments. During the daytime he worked in various Architects Practices, while at night he went to the Olympic Sound Studio and spent long hours with Phil Chapman a sound engineer from Manchester. He used to go to the Studio at around ten o clock at night and lay down all kinds of tracks both for Phil's own use and also for the studio. When asked what his most memorable time from then was, he tells us: "the most memorable moment was when Phil gave me my first single called "Get your dance hall shoes on" by Micky Anthony". he had spent long hours doing the backing guitar parts for this single and knew it backwards. However, all attempts to come to grips with his inferior Hofner electric and plywood arch top for acoustic work led him to engage in major surgery of instruments and also prompted him to examine all the fine instruments lying around the studio." That was when he come in contact with a Martin Acoustic guitar, the first solid wood top he had played. The sound seemed to go on forever and soon he enrolled in an evening class in Tufnell Park making a classical guitar. The next nine months were spent making his first instrument. It was about this time too he found the Club Django in Harringay, North London, he met up with Bert Niblett and started a study on Selmer / Maccaferri guitars, Bert worked in a photographic shop and as Paul regularly used that shop for work photos, printing and developing, he could slip in the back and talk to Bert about construction and saw him making the famous Tailpiece in brass, during that period a meeting was aranged for paul to visit Louis Gallo in Wood green who welcomed him in and showed his original Selmers,as paul was an Architect he proceded to make a outline drawing, several sketches later and 2 years of chat Paul boxed up his material and information which he used to design his own models of mandolins, guitars and bouzouki's with the D shaped soundhole which he still uses to this day, Between that and the late night studio work his day job on the drawing board became so tedious that he had to use the excuse that his eyesight was getting bad when he was caught snoozing on his drawings. By the end of 1976 as he was nearing completion of his first guitar he saw a mandolin player accompanied by a guitarist busking in Amsterdam. So That then started Paul out seeking information on mandolin construction and he finished both the guitar and mandolin in June of 1977. The end of 1977 saw three more instruments completed, 2 Appalachian Dulcimers, and a 12-string guitar. On the 29th of November 1977 while driving home in London on his motorbike he was in collision with a car that was to alter the course of his life forever. His only companion in Whips Cross hospital was an old Italian mandola made in 1857 it was on the back of his motorbike when he crashed. Two weeks later he knew every piece of wood in it and had decided to make a career of building instruments. I have had 10 different workshops so far and have been at my current shop for 15 years now, its a bit small and cluttered but i managed to build many a fine instrument here, from 1976 to 1983 i spent designing my own model of everything i make, i have kept up the same style since then but in the fire of 1986 a lot of my patterns were destroyed so new ones were made after that, now i keep with the times by checking out new pickups and alternative woods that save the heavy use on standard guitar woods, The rest as they say is HISTORY. .. ..