As a 15 year old, I received my first guitar as a birthday present – a Yamaha acoustic guitar from the SEARS catalogue. The rest of the night was spent in my bedroom trying to make sense of tabs, watching YouTube videos, and plucking away a truly horrible rendition of Come as You Are. I was hooked. A few pieces of wood and some strings, and someone could make beautiful music. Not me, but someone.

A few years later, I decided to try my hand at building my own guitar. I always wanted a Telecaster, but could never seem to get the money together to buy one. So my father and I ordered a kit and used it as a template to make a body from scratch. I got to pick the wood it was made from, the finish, the pickups, everything! Right down to the knobs. It was a transformative experience for me. I was never going to be a rockstar (my musical ability hadn’t improved much from that first day), but thanks to me, there was one more guitar in the world.

A few years later, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, my wife and I moved into our first home. She was excited about the yard and the living room; I was excited about the garage. I immediately began acquiring tools, ordering guitar parts, and falling down a YouTube rabbit hole of guitar building. Before long, I had built another guitar. Then another. Then another. Ravencroft Guitars was born. I had no where to put them and had long since abandoned dreams of being a successful musician, so I started giving them to charity to auction off for our local children’s hospital. The more I built, the more I experimented with different woods, shapes, construction methods, and features. My passion grew, until one day I decided that maybe other people would pay me for my guitars. I’d still build for charities, but maybe I could sell a few builds to help fund those projects.

These days, I sell the odd guitar while mostly building for charities and deserving individuals. I want to use my skills to help people, whether that is to put music in their hands, or to raise money to help those in need. I keep pushing myself to make guitars that are different from the others I see on the market. I’m still working out of my garage, building part time. I keep building because I am passionate about it. The more guitars I create, the more music there is in the world. Can’t ask for much more than that.