Depner Guitars

I began building my own guitars in 1989. Not because of any great artistic drive but because I couldn’t afford a decent guitar. What I really wanted was a Carvin but I couldn’t afford one so I bought Melvyn Hiscock’s book Make Your Own Electric Guitar and did it myself. This was, of course, pre-internet. Now you can just go to YouTube University but back then you were on your own. I ended up making 6 custom guitars, two for friends and four for myself. I played my own guitars for about 10 years and then got to the point that I could afford that Carvin I wanted. At that point I sort of lost interest in making guitars.

Since I retired my main hobby has been gigging with my band but in 2018 I received an email from StewMac advertising a Strat kit for a ridiculous price. Since I’d never owned or played a Strat I decided to give it a shot. The kit was mediocre at best. It turned out okay but I fairly quickly realized that I was not a Strat guy. I also realized that I could make better guitars from scratch than any kit I could buy. I put together a few Strat and Tele style partscasters using ready made necks but I knew I could make necks that were just as good as what Warmoth was selling. All of this, of course, got me in to buying tools (it’s an addiction). Since 2018 I’ve made 24 guitars, most for me but some for my friends. Of those 24 I’ve given away four or five, made eight for friends (including one bass).

For the last five years or so I’ve been having back problems so I started making crazy light weight guitars. I’ve also got arthritis in my left (fretting) hand so I’ve had to go to a 24.07″ scale (like a Mustang or Jaguar). I tend to build guitars with a theme (e.g. Mardi Gras, Halloween, Casino). The guitar pictured above is my Casino guitar.

In addition to my guitar making endeavors I have also been running sound for my band using a Behringer XR18. I have put together a 3U rack case that contains the XR18, a TP-Link travel router, a Raspberry PI 4, and a bluetooth receiver. I can record all 16 XR18 tracks to the Raspberry PI during live performances, then load them into my DAW when I get home. I’ll be describing that, as well as other interesting things, under the Misc menu at some point.