2025 flew by! It was a big year for me, lots of exciting builds, a never ending carousel of repairs/set ups and my first year exhibiting at some guitar shows. My little shop front is doing well too, seems to be growing from strength to strength. Thank you to my all my customers, your continued support is greatly appreciated and means I can continue pursuing this rewarding career. Now on to this year, 2026! My 9th year! I was hoping for a slightly easier start to the year, but alas it was basically 'back open', here is a load of repair/set ups! I also have a few orders in the books so will have more builds on the go, Including making a new guitar to display at this years Classical Guitar Retreat, this one is going to be a bit of show piece from me. One of my orders is going to Australia, so that is rather amazing! I will have a guitar on the other side of the world!

I have also been making some changes to my shop, I have expanded the retail area with a bit of a joinery project (still in progress). I have created an enclosed space within my shop, this has allowed for more wall hanging space and floor space so I will start to look at increasing the range of items I offer in my shop, more strings/more accessories/ more guitars. Let me know what you might be interested in seeing in the shop. In this retail space I have introduced a built in bench, creating a hangout/playing area. I am going to make two of my own guitars as permanent demo guitars that are always available to play in the shop. Along with this expansion of the shop, my hours in the shop are going to increase, and I will have set hours, looking like Wed-Sat 10-5 (but not every week, so I will post hours for that Month). Throughout the last 8 years I have always had a part time job, I work in a local wine/whisky shop. I am reducing my hours worked there and increasing the hours in my own shop, however I will still be doing the odd shift at the wine/whisky shop and help the guys with holiday cover too. At the end of last year, you might of seen already, I got the Scottish guitarist 'Graeme Armstrong' in to do a guitar demo on one of my latest guitar builds, I will embed it at the bottom of this post. I borrowed some equipment to put this together, I am not a recording tech in any regard but I was quite pleased with my efforts here. I have subsequently bought myself a basic recording kit, so I can do more videos in the future. I am going to create a series of videos called 'The Workshop Sessions', I will be inviting guitarists to come in and do video demos, come in a play a tune or two. I already have some musicians lined up for this, so looking forward to getting this of the ground. 2026 is already shaping up to be an exciting and busy year! Which will lead me nicely into my 10th year, I have a plan to celebrate a decade of 'Mark Burnet Guitars', so keep an eye on that...

The Guitar Graeme is playing is my parlour model (MBG-S02), this one sports a Redwood top and Cocobolo back and sides. Has an old stock Mahogany neck. Here are some photos of this guitar: