Watson Bailey is a small and dedicated musical instrument manufacturing house, operating from Brunswick, Victoria.

The two founders, C. B. Watson and the reverend Archimedes Bailey, keen musicians themselves, decided to develop their own range of fretted instruments. With knowledge picked up through a lifetime of playing, from books (both on instrument making and general woodworking), from fathers with backyard sheds, and from this here internet, they set about the task, and very quickly discovered that the information available was horribly inadequate.

Not to be discouraged, they decided to undertake the job, from scratch, at home, and to share the tale with others. As so often happens with these projects, it took on a life of its own. They started getting offers of fine, instrument grade woods from private properties in the Victorian countryside, and they started to build a backyard workshop with tools purchased at machinery auctions across the city.

Their designs were rendered on computer, and redrafted hundreds of times, before even a single instrument had begun construction. Angles were changed by 1°, lengths by 1mm, again and again- all for the sake of perfection. Multiple instrument styles were combined to produce simpler construction methods across the board, and finally after more than 6 months of "research", using nothing but a computer design software package, finished templates were laser cut from stainless steel, along with various parts for the finished instruments. Starting with the simple banjo, they soon moved into all-manner of guitars, ukuleles, mandolins, mandolas, and myriad custom designed instruments for the enthusiast

They made all of their designs freely available on the internet in a range of formats, for public scrutiny and criticism, as a testament to the confidence they had in the quality of their designs. They wouldn't suggest you build one yourself, based on these plans alone, but if you insist, who are they to stop you attempting to build some of the finest instruments available in the world today. If yours end up better than theirs, then good luck to you, and all those you care about

This entire web site exists as a testament to what can be achieved by those who stop waiting for excellence to come to them and start excelling themselves. You can use the plans to construct your own instrument or design based on our templates, or you can order genuine handcrafted Watson Bailey originals, online

Remember what we say here at Watson Bailey,
"It doesn't matter how many strings, what shape the body is, or even what it sounds like. If it sounds the way you want it to, it is your instrument, and no one can ever take away your music. If you want a guitar, go to a guitar shop. If you want a Watson Bailey, there is only one place you can go."