BUILDER PROFILE > HERITAGE GUITAR
While most guitar makers increasingly rely on automation and mass-production methods,
Heritage Guitar builds their instruments the old-fashioned way: one at a time, by hand.
BY CHRIS MCMAHON
Heritage Guitar has a history of going its own way. While other guitar manufacturers increasingly build their instruments in Mexico,
Korea, China, Indonesia, and other places
known for inexpensive labor, and in a
market where computer-aided manufacturing is the norm and mass-produced
instruments dominate, the team of craftsmen at Heritage do the exact opposite.
premierguitar.com
By designing and building small batches
of handcrafted, high-quality guitars from
solid woods right here in the United States,
Heritage is able to pay attention to those
crucial details that define a great 6-string.
“You can instantly hear it if you are a
professional, and usually you can feel it,”
says Rendell Wall, a second-generation
guitar builder at Heritage. Wall has been
making guitars in this same factory for 48
years— 26 with Heritage and the previ-
ous 22 with Gibson, where he worked
in research and development. His father
worked for Gibson for 37 years.
PREMIER GUITAR JUNE 2012 127
