Instead of spending up to thousands of dollars on a guitar, why not create your own? Senior Max Keilson has been making his own guitars since he was about 16 and it has developed into a great hobby of his.
“I got interested in making guitars because I wanted ones I couldn’t afford so I thought a guitar was really just some wood and metal pieces, how hard could it be to make one?” said Keilson.
Making guitars, however, does obviously involve some necessary supplies such as lots of raw lumber/wood and various guitar specific parts (the bridge, tuners, frets, tress rod). To access these materials, Keilson uses one of the about 10 or so websites that sell wood and other parts for guitars. Websites such as these are a major resource, as well as the people who construct guitars professionally that were glad to share their knowledge with Keilson.
Keilson has just recently started using these supplies to make guitars from scratch, when originally he made two guitars that were much more simple in design. He is now working on a guitar that he started with just six blocks of wood.
Keilson enjoys this hobby because he is able to create his own unique guitars without spending the exorbitant amount of money for what guitars usually cost. And without anyone formally teaching him how to create these guitars, he is able to seek help from other sources if he has any issues.
“No one taught me. I did get help from people, Terry McIntyre in particular (he builds beautiful guitars), but that was confined to me calling them up and asking a question every once in a while when I was completely stumped,” said Keilson. “Another great help was the internet. All sorts of people build guitars and write about it online and I was able to use some of their advice, but most of my experience so far has been my experimenting and hoping to get things right with just a bit of guidance.”
Keilson says that in the future he can see himself selling his guitars once he gets better at making them, but for now he’ll just do it for his own enjoyment.
