Departments

Guitar Maker

Bruce Petros, owner of Petros Guitars in Kaukuana

“After a year at college, I still didn’t like it so I got a job at a dude ranch in Colorado. There was a tourist store that had a guitar kit for $15 so I bought it and I built this guitar in my off hours. When I actually played it for the first time, a lightbulb went off. I got the bug and have been making guitars ever since. My parents made me take piano lessons and made me practice the cello, but the guitar was mine. I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to, so therefore I wanted to. It takes about 100 hours to make one guitar. After another four or five guitars, we will be on our 500th guitar, so we are getting it down. We want our guitars to sound the same in that there’s a balanced response and there’s a good, solid fundamental on the low note which is what most factory-made guitars lack – the low string being full and rich. Our guitars go all over the world. Paul Simon [Simon & Garfunkel] has one. Richie Furay [Buffalo Springfield, Poco], he’s got one. I sell to a lot of lawyers, doctors and collectors, but musicians love them because they are easier to play. They sound better so you have a larger palette of colors to choose from where as a factory guitar is much more limited. To be artistic is to be able to come up with colors and designs that go well together. You could make a guitar-shaped object and not think of any of those design elements, so yeah, there’s a lot of art that goes into [guitar-making]. I’m my own boss and the beauty of that to me is I get to have the lifestyle of an artist.”