hey guys it's going to learn with iFixit
and today I'm at Butch's guitar and
repair I can't wait for you guys to meet
him he's got a great story let's see
what he's working on today
Butch's guitar and repair is my business
I started at about seven years ago and
here I do
acoustic guitar repair electric guitar
repair installations setups
modifications restoration and I even
build my own line of high-end acoustic
guitars I played guitar
I love guitars I always loved handling
them and it's just something I kind of
fell into hey butch hi Gwen thanks for
having me here this is an amazing shop
thanks for being here yeah so tell us a
little bit about Butch's guitar and
repair I started in guitars 22 years ago
I was in a band started working at the
local guitar shop and the owner saw that
I had a good knack and handling
instruments and it just kind of grew
from there was never really anything
that I thought this was gonna be my
career path it just kind of happened
that way do you do you have to have
certain certifications to work on those
types of guitars you can but it's not
really required I actually never went to
guitar repair school with all more just
learning by doing
now something you're doing lately is
you've been building guitars right and
when did that start I started building
about five years ago and it just kind of
felt like the natural next step for me
and I had a lot of encouragement from
customers saying you know you really
should you should build something build
something so I I built one I built my
prototype guitar and shortly after that
customers started playing it and wanting
to order guitars and I before I knew it
I had orders and I didn't even really
know how to take an order yet it just
happened so do you think you would ever
be building guitars if you hadn't
started with repair I you know I've
never thought about that but no if I
hadn't started doing guitar repair I'd
probably be doing some form of
structural engineering so tell us a
little bit about where you're headed
with your business well the guitar
repair side of things is always
number one for me but what I'm truly
passionate about is the guitar building
and as I get more orders in the guitar
building side I am pursuing that more
but guitar repair is always something
that I'm going to be doing every day but
the Boswell guitars is what I truly
truly enjoy do you have any great
stories about your relationship with
customers or sure I mean as long as I've
been doing it there's great stories
there's bad stories but one one customer
I could say I owe a big thanks to lately
would be a gentleman named Danny
Pelphrey didn't come to you for repair
or anything had it how did you can you
just he looked up the shop and came in
was just looking around and he had
actually been looking for high-end
acoustic guitar and he played mine and
right there on the spot decided he
wanted a Boswell so it was it was pretty
flattering do you feel like guitar
repair is something that anyone could
get into well sure I mean it's just like
anything else it's a highly skilled
field
there's definitely levels of guitar
repair there's the day-to-day restreams
there's a lot of shops have a on-site
guy who does restreams adjustments
things like that but as you get into the
more projects like this where you're
where you're restoring and literally
tearing apart and putting back together
a guitar that could potentially be worth
twenty to fifty thousand and maybe even
more the skill level has to be quite
high which this has been such a
wonderful education thank you so much I
think a lot of people have guitars and
maybe just don't know about the repair
and and what goes into that I even have
one and I'm not sure how to repair it
but I have been inspired being here this
is fantastic thanks for having us well
thank you so much for being here I
appreciate it yeah