My Story
Hi, I’m Jon, owner and luthier at Derelict Guitars.
After two decades as a CEO/executive in technology and advertising in London, New York and New Zealand, I hopped off the hamster wheel in 2010 to study French Classical Cuisine in Rennes and to renovate and let as chef-patron, an 8-bedroom 17th Century farmhouse in Normandy. After a successful decade in hospitality, the pandemic really clusterfoxed my main business, and I had to diversify to keep me and my pooch, Henry, in kibble. Since I have always been music-adjacent (I’m a drummer/multi-instrumentalist who refuses to allow a lack of talent to dissuade me from making noise), and as a prolific woodworker and eager amateur hobbyist luthier, I thought I’d have a go at turning lumps of wood into one-off hand-built guitars for my friends. It turned out I was pretty good at it, so I started Derelict Guitars in order to sell these unique instruments to you, the unsuspecting public. I now have a small roster of regular clients that I build bespoke instruments for, as well as many ideas and prototypes I put out for general sale. I’m also one part of a charitable initiative called Elle’s Guitars that provides new life to old unloved guitars to girls and young women aged 13-21, in an attempt to encourage a new generation of Grrrl Rock.
Discover more about my past on LinkedIn here, follow the Derelict Guitars Instagram here, or (warning: politics and dad-jokes may offend) follow me on Facebook here.
So that I can dedicate enough blood, sweat, tears, energy, care, artistry and precociousness into each one that I build, I only build the guitars that I want to build, and plan on never exceeding two dozen per year.
If you are looking for sleek, clean, computer-controlled design, I’m not for you. While the finish and attention to detail will be high-end, I deliberately won’t sand off all the hand tooling marks and blemishes so that you have some part of the story of the guitar’s creation in your hands. These are ‘Derelict’ guitars after all.
Each instrument tends to have an unusual combination of colour or hardware that you simply won’t find in a music shop, and has a unique name (dredged, most often, from the dark recesses of my comic mind), and comes with an outline of its creation myth (including multiple pictures of every stage of the design and build), plus often its own unique, hand-built hard case.
Check out the Catalogue for currently available instruments.
Derelict Guitars is a trading name of Derelict Stuff Ltd (reg’d in England & Wales, #13711679) 56 Green Lane, Burtonwood, Warrington, Cheshire WA5 4AQ United Kingdom