could say that building guitars
is half engineering, half art.
What was your first guitar like?
I built my first guitar and my
first acoustic—a Rickenbacker
12-string—using Rickenbacker’s
wood, and copying their acoustic guitars. I brought all my
different skills to bear on it
to make sure that it was built
heavy enough and was geometrically correct—it took a while
to get right. That guitar is still
in use, and it’s still performing
very well.
Wilczynski installing pickups in a newly refinished double-bound 360/12.
How did you originally get
into building guitars and end
up meeting John Hall?
I was a car collector for years,
but in 2004 I decided that I
was tired of working on cars.
After moving to the Bay Area,
I no longer had space for all
nine of my cars and ended up
selling them. I always loved
guitars and music, so instead of
cars I decided to get into gui-
tars as a hobby. I sold a Porsche
and decided to buy some-
thing I had always wanted—a
Rickenbacker 12-string.
