Page 8 - Georgia Forestry - Fall 2017

INNOVATION
Sound & Beauty
by Susan Bernstein
Deadwood Guitar Company gives fallen trees a new life
Deadwood Guitar Company’s beautifully crafted instruments represent the passion the com-
pany’s owner, Jason Booth, has for music and woodworking. The secret to the unique tones and sounds each guitar produces is in the wood itself: Deadwood uses wood from local trees that have fallen or needed to be taken down for other reasons.
“Outside of the beauty of these local woods is their nice tonal qualities,” said Booth, who worked as a carpenter for
many years before founding Deadwood Guitar Company in Lexington, GA, in 2008. “I have a passion for the guitar itself as a beautiful musical instrument, and a passion for woodworking.”
Booth’s passions intertwined when he started building his own guitars as a hobby four years before he launched Deadwood as a business. He’d built stair- cases and carved mantels, but was looking for a new woodworking challenge. He bought a book on guitar construction and started making instruments at night
when he got home from work. Booth mastered the art of guitar build- ing, yet the cost of high-quality woods needed to make guitars was another challenge.
“That’s where the idea of using local woods came from. I couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money on rosewood, which many guitars are
made of, or imported exotic woods. I had two kids to support and lots of bills to pay,” said Booth. “So I started using woods from construction projects. I used this material because it was inexpensive and because I knew it so well. But I fell in love with the beauty of these local woods.”
Georgia offers a diverse supply of woods that each provide the finished instruments with unique sounds, said Booth. He and his business partner have forged relationships with local tree sur- geons who tell them about available logs. Deadwood guitars are made with local woods like Eastern cedar, heart pine, pecan, cherry and black walnut. Each instrument has a unique composition and may use different woods for different parts of the guitar.
“We have so much pine and cedar available here in Georgia, so I thought, ‘Why wouldn’t it work?’ ” he said. “I love the way these woods sound. They have a natural beauty. We keep our guitar making rustic and natural, and embrace that whole wide of it. We use dead, fallen trees or ones that have had to come down. Everything is handmilled, and we don’t order anything except the metal hardware.”
6 | GEORGIA FORESTRY
DEADWOOD GUITAR COMPANY
DEADWOOD GUITAR COMPANY