It Started With One Guitar: How Fatherwood Began
Every guitar we build starts with a conversation. Fatherwood started with one too, between my dad and I.
A simple request
It was the late ’90s. I was sixteen, and I’d just bought a new acoustic guitar from a local music shop in Sioux City, Iowa. I couldn’t wait to show it off to my dad, Dave. He was already an accomplished woodworker and furniture maker, a man who knew his way around a workbench. He looked that store-bought guitar over and figured that with his experience and his love for woodworking, he could build a better one. So I asked him the question: “Can you build me one?”
An acoustic guitar is its own kind of project, though. It has to be strong enough to hold the pull of its strings and light enough to ring. It has to look right, feel right in your hands and, most of all, sound right.
Dad took to the task.
Learning from the book
Good furniture skills were a head start, not a map. To learn how a guitar is actually built, Dad bought a copy of Guitar Making: Tradition and Technology by William Cumpiano and set out to learn.
I still like that title. Tradition and technology is a fair description of how we work today. We use modern tools where they help, and we still build every top with time-honored handwork and voicing. One doesn’t replace the other. They meet at the bench.
Naples, and a shop of our own
When Dad retired from his business, he moved to Naples, Florida, and I followed soon after. Together we formed Fatherwood Guitar & Co. The name says most of it: a father and a son, and a shared passion. Today we work side by side to build beautiful custom acoustic instruments, made to the highest standards.
Family in the grain
The family thread runs right through our models. They’re named after my daughters, the concert-size F1.Clare and the F2.Addie. It started with a father building a guitar for his son, and now our guitars carry the names of his granddaughters. That feels about right for a shop called Fatherwood.
A lot has grown out of that first request, but the heart of it hasn’t changed. Someone asks for an instrument, and we take to the task, slowly and by hand, for that one person.
Welcome to From the Bench
This is the first post on our new blog. From the Bench is where Dad and I will share what goes on in the shop: the woods we’re working with, builds in progress, and the stories behind the instruments.
If you’d like the rest of our story, it’s on our About page. And if there’s a guitar you’ve been dreaming about, I’d love to hear about it. Custom guitars start at $6,200, and every build begins the same way ours did, with a conversation.
– Tom
