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My name is Ben Wilborn, and I build fine acoustic instruments in Reno, Nevada. I specialize in smaller-bodied steel string acoustic guitars, but I also build the occasional Dreadnought-style guitar. I tend to make very lightly built, simply appointed guitars with an emphasis on extremely refined details and a powerful, balanced sound.I use only the finest grades of wood, hardware, and finishing materials. Unlike a factory or production-minded luthier, I personally select, plane to thickness, cut, assemble and finish every part on every one of my guitars.This means that I personally perform every aspect of an instrument’s construction, and can respond to any variables in the process and materials. The result is a truly custom instrument, one which has been thoughtfully and dynamically built to maximize every aspect of its character, from tailblock to headstock.I am a lifelong stringed instrument player. I’ve been playing as long as I can remember. I graduated from Berklee College of Music with a film composition degree. I then spent more than a decade as a full time musician, touring and recording as a bandleader and a sideman. Plus a number of years as a fine cabinetmaker. Which is why I’m now a luthier!I have spent my whole life listening closely to guitars, mandolins and violins, always searching for that special quality that makes an instrument demand to be played. I have studied a zillion instruments, held them in my hands, listening to the way they respond to my fingertips, their weight and balance, the way they reflect sounds in a room. It is my passion as a builder to create instruments that can respond intimately to a player’s intention, and become as much an extension of the body as a beautiful tool for the creation of music.

My name is Ben Wilborn, and I build fine acoustic instruments in Reno, Nevada. I specialize in steel string acoustic guitars, though I also build the occasional archtop, mandolin or ukulele. I tend to make very lightly built, simply appointed guitars with an emphasis on extremely refined details and a powerful, balanced sound. My focus as a builder is on my own unique designs, which I have created as a response to my desires as a musician, and my knowledge as a craftsman. These guitars are sleek and modern and employ all of my hard won techniques and secrets for voicing and responsiveness, but they are not strange. In your hands they feel timeless and alive, and in your ears, they create all those sounds that you always imagined a guitar should produce: warmth, harmonic sophistication, intensity and articulation. As a guitarist myself, I put particular emphasis on the way they feel and perform. These guitars are built by a player, for players. I’m afraid that is more rare in the hand-built guitar universe than it should be. I use only the finest grades of wood, hardware, and finishing materials. Unlike a factory or production-minded luthier, I personally select, plane to thickness, cut, assemble and finish every part on every one of my guitars. This means that I personally perform every aspect of an instrument’s construction, and can respond to any variables in the process and materials. The result is a truly custom instrument, one which has been thoughtfully and dynamically built to maximize every aspect of its character, from tailblock to headstock.

Reno, Nevada

Gillian Welch

Comma Series, Period Series

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