"My vision for my instruments is to provide practical, affordable, professional level tools for discerning musicians."

My name is Tom Painter, and my passions are building laminated archtop jazz guitars, and the legacy of jazz guitar music. My formal education is in mechanical engineering. In addition to being a longtime hobbyist woodworker/boat builder from a very young age, I have worked as a full time professional cabinet maker/ yacht joiner for a period of four years. I have also been a serious student of jazz guitar going on 15 years now. I built my first archtop guitar my freshman year in college some ten years ago.

My focus as a guitar maker is on laminated/composite archtop guitars. Why a laminated guitar? I think many experienced players will agree that very often a laminated guitar is more practical from a live performance and durability standpoint. Furthermore, if built correctly, they will have a respectable acoustic volume, and a very even tone with good separation throughout the range of the guitar when amplified. The top, back and sides of my guitars are vacuum formed veneer laminates produced in my own workshop on specially designed forms that took many years to develop and perfect. The top is carefully braced exactly like a fine acoustic archtop. Matching maple or mahogany necks are expertly contoured and perfectly mated to the body with the time honored dovetail joint. Setups are performed by me with a player’s sensibility and an engineer’s attention to detail.