Tom Bartlett engages in extremely patient work as a way to address his impatience.
The result is a line of handmade electric guitars that are highly sought-after around the world, and breathtaking to behold.
Bartlett makes his Bartlett Guitars in “batches” in his Guelph workshop. He started out about nine years ago during the winter lull in the cabinet making trade he once worked in.
As a birthday present to himself he bought some very good woods, some top-flight hardware and took a month to make his first instrument, he said during an interview in his St. Patrick’s Ward neighbourhood workshop. He has been a guitar player since he was in grade school.
As it sometimes happens in the beyond-your-control world of online social media, an image of his first guitar – a gorgeous rendition of a classic Gibson Les Paul – took on a life of its own.
Images of the guitar went viral, and a buyer came forward and paid a lot of money for the one-of-kind instrument. Tom used the profits to buy materials for three more guitars. He hasn’t built a cabinet since.
“One day I was a cabinet maker, the next day I was a guitar builder, and that was it,” he said. “I guess people saw the detail I put into it and thought, I can trust this guy, even from a distance, to build something for me. I was happy spending a lot of time and energy doing it.”
While he has tried to limit his output to about a dozen instruments a year, recently he has committed himself to building two batches of 16 guitars each to address a growing waiting list.
His wife Anne Trzcinski takes care of the business side of the operation, and Tom took on an apprentice in the workshop, who became an employee about a year ago.
“I’ve played guitar my whole life, since the middle of grade school, I guess,” said Bartlett, wearing a felt, retro Pittsburgh Pirates hat, and a pair of classic Adidas tennis shoes on his feet. He is self-taught in the craft of guitar building. Many of the tools he uses are the ones he used to build cabinets.
The shelves of his studio are filled with mostly locally-sourced hardwoods, many of the boards decades old, and quite rare.
These are the valuable woods that go into a guitar line that includes about four models, one of them the “Retrospec,” a ’59 Gibson Les Paul look-alike, another the “Parlor,” a small-bodied electric with about the same playability and punch as its big brother.
“There are a lot of factory-built guitars that are great guitars,” he said. “Right now I think we are in a highpoint for guitar building. But the big companies can’t procure the quality of lumber that makes mine and other Luthier-built guitars really stand out.”
Canadian maple is the “fingerprint” of each guitar, and the showpiece of every instrument, he said. A big part of his craft is searching for exceptional pieces of maple. The mahogany he uses comes from South America, and the rosewood is from various places around the world. He usually finds these woods in local collections.
“Believe it or not, I’m kind of impatient,” Bartlett confessed. “You would think that wouldn’t lend itself to a great skill set for building guitars. But the great thing about building a guitar is that it’s about a thousand steps. I only build two batches a year, so I only have to go through all those steps twice a year.”
Bartlett wants to sustain his enjoyment of guitar building, and to do that he has to build less, he said. He plans to reduce his production back to about 12 guitars annually.
“The more you build, the less you enjoy it,” he said. “If I can sustain my joy in this craft, I can build guitars until I die. That is my hope. I never want to be bored of it.”
Most Bartlett Guitars are shipped abroad – to the US, Asia, and Europe. Only a small percentage stay in Canada.
The “Parlor” starts at around $3,200 US, while the “Retrospec” can get up to about $11,000. View the guitars and learn more at www.bartlettguitars.com.
