Bob Rose

Rose Guitars

I’ve been making instruments for 25 years. I began while I was still working as a surgeon, and discovered I liked going to craft fairs and trying to make others’ visions of their ideal guitar a reality.

My wife bought me a basic used Martin guitar in 2000. I loved it and wanted a higher end model, but didn’t want to pay the high price. I heard Martin sold kits, with a booklet for instructions, so I got one and built it on the dining room table. I was thrilled with its sound and vowed to master the build. I took lessons from Dave Nichols, A Martin luthier and owner of Custom Pearl  and also from Wayne Henderson. Ive gotten lots of good advice from Bob Smakula. 

Eventually we built a garage for the cars so I could convert our attached garage into a workshop. I took more lessons on pearl inlay and saw I could make earrings and chopsticks smaller things like with leftover pearl, abalone, ebony and other woods.

It occurred to me the metal guitar stands I had were not up to the furnishings we had, so I designed one made from local cherry. It’s now in its 5th iteration as a folding stand using neodymium magnets to hold it open or shut. A few years ago I branched out into ukuleles as they are simpler to build, just as much fun to pick exotic woods, plan an inlay, and a joy to see sparkle with 20 coats of nitrocellulose lacquer.