Max Krimmel is fortunate to have learned from an early age what it felt like to be a successful artist. At age 8, he won his first prize for a Kachina Halloween costume that included a spectacular headdress, leggings, and moccasins. “At age 12, he won first, second and third place in a 1960 Denver model car contest. His prized vehicle was a reproduction of a maroon wooden surfer wagon with velvet curtains and working door handles (still a family heirloom), and two similar outrageously decorated reproductions.” Max says, “As an adult, I haven’t been able to repeat that act of sweeping all the spots in a competition.”
Max likes to do things, all kinds of things. Often the creation of him begins with a new hobby, such as playing the guitar. Shortly after he started playing the guitar, he wanted to build one. So Max signed up for a class called “Build Your Own Peach Box Guitar.” At the time, boxes of peaches were discarded from grocery stores after the peaches were put into storage, so there was plenty of free material available with which to practice guitar building.
For his third guitar, Max had moved on to higher quality woods and between 1965 and 1982 built 167 guitars for such notable musicians as: Jerry Jeff Walker, Stephen Stills, David Bromberg, Bob Shane (of the Kingston Trio), Carla Sciaky, Mary Flower , Chuck Pyle and Bonnie Carol. Max states that he “was doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time”. He is being modest with that statement; If he didn’t have the incredible talent and skill that he does, no one would have paid attention to his guitars in the first place. Max made excellent quality acoustic guitars and musicians bought them.
Max Krimmel’s next “right place at the right time” came after he started working with wood. “My early woodturning jobs were an extension of my lutherie work. My guitar necks were cut from a solid piece of Honduran mahogany, so each cut of the guitar neck created a nice wedge-shaped scrap .For some reason, I kept all the shims.One day I did the obvious and glued some of these shims into a solid block.Around the same time I became the caretaker of an antique Craftsman lathe from 1950.I didn’t know what was going on. what to do with this big mahogany cake, but lathe and turning came to mind. In the end, I took several plates out of wedge blocks. This was around 1973. It took me about two years to build guitars to make enough shims for a wedge plate. So after I used up all my available shims I didn’t do much with the lathe except an occasional small piece of solid wood.”
Max’s next step in woodturning came a few years later, inspired by his partner, Bonnie Carol’s quiltmaker. The extensive collection of interesting wood remains from him ended up in Mondrian-type bowls (photo). Max began turning alabaster in 1986 after seeing Lee Carter give a quick alabaster turning demonstration. He finally abandoned wood in favor of alabaster. “It’s hard to say exactly why, I liked the precision of alabaster and the homogeneity of the material. I had also seen quite a bit of beautiful wood in my life and the stone was new. There are still wood chips that I would like to make and if I live long enough, I probably will.” says max. In 1988 he sent slides of his work to the International Exhibition of Turned Objects and five pieces were accepted into the show, two in wood and three in alabaster. It was quite a prestigious show, “I didn’t know the pieces were so good,” says Max.
From June 1999 to July 2000, Max Krimmel had one of his wheel-turned alabaster vessels on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC The piece is now a permanent part of the Smithsonian collection. This was the second time he had the honor of having his artwork on display at the Smithsonian. The first was in 1979 when one of his handmade guitars was part of the Harmonious Craft: 20th Century Musical Instruments exhibit. Max’s work is also in art collections at the Hoyt Art Institute in New Castle, PA, Boeing Aircraft, the Denver Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
While having your work displayed in a gallery as prestigious as the Smithsonian is an incredible honor, visitors don’t necessarily equate the exhibit with someone trying to make a living selling such pieces. The most challenging part of her job is marketing. Basically, Max, like all of us, still needs to market his work and make a living. Max’s pieces are available in fine art galleries across the country, as well as through his website at. maxkrimmel.com
Max belongs to the Association of Professional Turners and has taught at various symposiums. He loves to create and he also loves to see how people react to what he creates. He writes tutorials and posts them for free download on his website. Max embodies the artistic process of perfecting your creation and then taking it to the next level. He currently plays in a marimba band and builds marimbas as a result.
From his marimba bass construction process: “The idea for this bass originally came to me at Zimfest ’99, while looking at the beautiful balafons made by Marimba One. These instruments, which have roots in traditional balafons, look like a bowed marimba, the ends are raised, the center is depressed The balafon was great fun to play, the mallets seemed to bounce over bars and with just a bit of vector correction land on another note – great I had been thinking of a bass for Chimanimani why not a balafon bass Phew what a mechanical nightmare, well maybe just bend it a bit, or maybe bend it in the horizontal plane instead of the vertical plane Hmm that would waste a lot of space,…unless I had to do the bars in wedge shape….Would wedge shaped bars work?….then the frame would be one big curve….And that would be a lot of trouble to do.So the idea stayed there, I made some drawings but i got stuck on an easy way to ha close the frame med like too much trouble. So I thought of an easy way to make a form and my fate was sealed. I had a two week window in October 1999, I thought that would be plenty of time. OK, I’d build that bass. If it worked, great, we’d have a bass. If it didn’t work, he would have interesting and expensive firewood. Now, months after that two week window, I’m still tweaking the bass, other projects are being embarrassingly delayed or scrapped altogether. Aren’t there twelve-step programs for bass-building addicts?”
“So, to save others the trouble, or perhaps create more members for BBA (Bass Builders Anonymous), I offer the following information,” says Max: maxkrimmel.com
Top 10 Max Krimmels Tools
1. Rockwell Monoplane – 30 years
2. Rockwell Belt and Disc Sander
3. Rockwell band saw
4. Rockwell thickness sander
5. Lathe – workhorse for turning
6. Craftsman lathe – first lathe he was given
7. Radial arm saw
8. Hercules Dust Collection System
table saw, carpenter, planer and mortiser
9. Various hand tools
10. Alabaster
