Our Story — Dehradun Guitar Company

During the early months of 2010, in a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas, a few young locals became friends with a luthier from Tennessee named Dave.

We spent much of our time making music and trading stories.

Before long, we decided to try making a few instruments. We went down to the local wood market to look for materials and found out that you couldn’t buy lumber….

You had to buy the whole log.

We went out hoping to find enough materials for four guitars. We came back with enough for forty.

Those first few were built on the kitchen table, entirely with hand tools. Just for fun, just for us. But after sharing photos of our work on a makeshift website, several friends contacted us to see if the guitars were for sale.

Within a couple weeks we had booked ten custom orders and were thrust into the realm of guitar-making entrepreneurship.

And new requests kept coming in.

So we rented a neglected old building and transformed it into a fully-equipped woodworking shop.

Together, we trained intensively in the art of building world-class, custom guitars. Each new instrument was designed for the client, from the ground up. Each was a labor of love, with construction taking 150 man hours or more.

It’s a good thing our first commissions were for friends and family, because they had to be exceedingly patient and gracious, as we did our best to deliver the most responsive, beautiful instruments we could.

It was a great education in guitar making and design, and we were grateful for the chance to to please our customers with completely unique, once-in-a-lifetime instruments. Over next few years, we continued to grow together, in skill and in friendship.

Five years in, without any warning, Dave’s family was deported from India. Despite this setback, the team continued to build together, while Dave & family petitioned for the right to return. This was a challenging time, but it was also a great triumph, as the the team persevered and kept delivering instruments.

After four years away and 17 court hearings, Dave and family were finally able to return to India, just in time for the Covid-19 pandemic. This added a new layer of difficulty for manufacturers around the world and like many, we were forced to shut our doors for a season. Today, we’re back and growing again. Focused on our favourite three designs, we remain committed to building high-quality instruments while supporting one another through thick and thin… as the Dehradun Guitar Company.