For all the artistry seasoned musicians put into playing handmade electric guitars, it takes comparable craft to produce one.
In the first in a series of articles examining the inner workings of the equipment that musicians use, the Tribune visited the Heritage Guitar factory in Kalamazoo, Mich. The plant, which dates back to 1917, was originally home to Gibson Guitars (which made instruments favored by Scotty Moore, Les Paul, the Beatles and Pete Townshend, among others).
When Gibson moved to Nashville in 1984, a group of employees bought the old plant; the following year, they set up shop as Heritage Guitar. Between them, the four owners (Jim Deurloo, Marvin Lamb, J.P. Moats and Bill Paige) share more than 150 years of guitar-making experience. Here’s how they put that experience to work to create one of their semi-hollow body electric guitars, the H 535.
