Guitar builders look close to home for eco-friendly materials

STORY AND PHOTO BY JANN EBERHARTER

At the neck of the guitar that Will Bright holds, a small, imprinted number reads “51.” Crafted from two thin slices of dark-brown walnut wood sandwiched between three pieces of light maple, the neck will soon hold the strings of the 51st guitar Bright has handcrafted during his career.

His small garage-turned-workshop where he builds and repairs acoustic and electric guitars is filled with hand tools, carpentry machines and a large workbench.

Bright is the sole luthier — a craftsman who makes and repairs stringed instruments — at his Bellingham business, Bright Guitars.

“A perfectly built acoustic guitar is right on the verge of failure,” Bright says. “It’s right on the verge of exploding under tension.”

When crafting a guitar, the goal is to find a balance between its strength and weight, Bright says. The wood must be strong enough hold the tension of the strings, and flexible enough to allow the body to resonate sound well.

Luthiers use classic woods such as mahogany, maple, alder, walnut, spruce and rosewood to build the guitar’s components. Luthiers have lost the ability to use some of these types of wood due to endangerment.

In the 60s and 70s, Brazilian rosewood was over-forested due to the fact that many people agreed it produced one of the best sounds in an acoustic guitar, Bright says. Today, it is considered an endangered species, and is barred from international trade.

Choosing wood to work with requires many ethical considerations.

“Who’s cutting this wood, where are they getting it from, who’s paying them, how are they being treated — it’s something we’ve had to think about more and more over the years as guitar builders,” Bright says.

A majority of Bright’s guitars are made entirely from wood that comes directly from or near the Pacific Northwest.

Pacific Rim Tonewoods, a sawmill based out of Concrete, Wash., supplies many guitar makers, including Bright, with wood grown in North America.

Bright began building guitars in Santa Cruz, Calif., where he worked at a music shop. He worked his way from sales into the repair shop, where Bright received his official introduction to lutherie.

Since 2011, Bright has transitioned into full-time guitar building and repair. About 60 percent of Bright’s business is repairs.

“A guitar takes three or four weeks, start to finish, but it’s a bigger paycheck when the guitar sells,” he says.

Just as no two pieces of wood are the same, neither are any two guitars, giving each guitar distinct characteristics.

“Everyone has their own quirky things that draw them to a guitar visually, and sometimes they couldn’t even tell you what they are,” Bright says. “It’s a very personal thing.”

There’s a guitar for every person — or as Bright says, a person for every guitar.