A friend of mine who lives in Orillia, Ontario, Canada is becoming a topnotch luthier, turning out extremely fine guitars. His name is Ron Belanger, and he's a fellow folk musician who decided about 5 years ago to start making guitars in his spare time. Well, he is now making guitars that are so darned good that it's a real thrill to play them!

I bought his tenth guitar a couple of weeks ago. It's a dreadnought with spruce top, rosewood back & sides, and herringbone-style purfling, and it just sings! I darned near bought his 8th guitar, a beautiful dreadnought with bubinga back and sides, but one of our mutual friends beat me to it. I made sure that didn't happen with number 10. My friend Mike Latter bought the 9th Belanger guitar, another beauty with a different body style...it's shaped more like a Martin M-38, I'd say, and has mahogany back & sides. It's also a superb instrument with a beautiful tonal clarity.

It's just downright amazing to me that a person can be making guitars that are this good in his first 10 instruments. I'm selling a $3,000 Martin D-28H (and a good one) because it's simply not as good as the Belanger guitar, which cost less than half as much!

Yowsa! Ron deserves mention in the acoustic music community in Ontario, and that's why I am launching this thread. I figure his guitars can only get better, and they're already at the level of guitars that go for $3,000 and up as far as I'm concerned.

At the Orillia song circle last Monday there were more Belanger guitars present than all other types put together...6 Belangers and 5 others (Martins, Larrivees, etc.).

We joke that he is "conquering the World one guitar at a time".

This thread is my salute to a truly fine new luthier, Ron Belanger. I hope he builds a hundred more guitars, and I will probably buy one or two of them.