Guitar Build Workshop

So happy to have Chase and his brother Edward in the shop today for a surprise pop-up partial class. Edward had no idea what his brother had planned, but judging by that smile, I’d say it was a pretty big success.

Thank you guys for trusting us with the surprise and spending the day with us at Guitar Build Workshop.

Legendary guitar builder Kelly Butler held down the fort as instructor for the day while we were over at the Nashville Fairgrounds with Advanced Plating and Tennessee Electric at the Goodguys show showing off some of our hot-rodded guitars.

Days like this are what it’s all about.

Sunday grind at the shop today because Traci keeps booking these corporate classes faster than we can build for them. 😋 Another batch of six guitars up on deck and waiting for the next team-building crew to roll through Nashville.

Not a bad problem to have.

This weekend we had Christine and Michael in the shop while we were out at the Dallas guitar show, and Kelly and Gustavo held it down for us.

Michael built one of the most unique guitars we’ve seen come out of here in a long time. He upgraded his body with a smoked barbecued finish and it turned out smoky sweet in all the right ways.

That’s the best part of these classes, every single build has its own personality, and this one definitely stands out.

Thank you Christine and Michael for spending your weekend with us.

Steve and I hit pause on the day job, loaded up the guitars, and pointed the truck toward Dallas for the next few days. We’re taking Tennessee Electric on the road and sharing it with a wider audience, one guitar at a time.

Here’s to new conversations, new connections, and seeing where this thing goes. Wish us luck.

Last week’s corporate build class brought out some wild ones. Here’s a little snapshot of a few of the more unique flavors that rolled out of the shop. Always fun watching people from different divisions come together for the day and leave holding guitars they built themselves. More fun shots from this event coming later this week.

A few weeks ago Carson was scheduled to jump into a partial class, but a cold had other plans. So we subbed in his old man, Art, and he showed up ready to go.

This turned into one of our first live FaceTime builds, Carson calling the shots from home, picking his body and colors in real time. He went with our GBV body upgrade and a rosewood neck, solid choices.

Since it was a partial class, Art headed back to Phoenix and we took it across the finish line here at the shop.

Now the family’s packing up and making their way back to Nashville, and we’ll be waiting with a one of a kind GBV guitar ready for Carson.

We had a fantastic day in the shop.

Ben, all 6 ft 17 in of him, was in from the Seattle area with his mom Andrea and chose to spend his upcoming 14th birthday building his first guitar, and I have a feeling it will not be his last.

He went completely off script in the best way. Purple base coat, treble side teal, bass side red. A combo we have never seen in class before, but something tells me we are going to see it again.

We are calling this one the Benjamin Burst.

Thanks for spending your birthday with us, Ben.

Hope Nashville treated you well. Help us spread the word up in the Northwest.

Name this finish?

We have Corporate class coming up and we're experimenting with some new finishes.

We need your help with their new names

MCG what you got?

Spring break keeps delivering.

Max came in from Washington, DC on Saturday with a few builds already under his belt. He went with a cherry cola burst up top and a dark mahogany back, and the ex*****on was flawless. Clean, confident, dialed.

Fantastic class all around. Expect big things from this guy.

We even got into a full discussion about aliens, not my doing this time, and we were in unanimous agreement that the pyramids were built by aliens with advanced concrete technology 😉

Thanks for spending your spring break in the shop, Max.

Spring break done right.

Amelia, aka not Frank, rolled in from Washington, DC with her mom Michelle and immediately got to work. Small hiccup… your instructor (me) accidentally set her up with a guitar body instead of a bass. No problem. She knocked out a flawless guitar body for practice, we recalibrated, got the correct bass body on the bench, and she recreated the whole thing in record time.

Even got out early.

Big thanks to Uncle Doug and Aunt Melanie for pointing them our way after their visit last year. That kind of word of mouth means everything.

Thanks for spending part of your spring break with us.

Spring break brought us Amelia and Max, both in from Washington, DC… both in 9th grade… both from rival high schools… and somehow both ended up building guitars in the same room without knowing each other.

As a Gen Xer, I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts about the younger crowd… but I’m here to report back, we’re gonna be just fine. These two showed up, got after it, and built some killer instruments.

Feeling pretty optimistic about the future after today.

Now for the millennials… we’ll circle back on that. 😉.

Here’s the two of them together. Individual builds coming tomorrow.