Nick Lenski has been passionate about making guitars for most of his life, often out of local wood sourced from the forests surrounding his Berkshires home.
But a few years back Nick decided to turn his pastime into a career by teaching others how to make the instrument of their dreams. And after a week-long course with Nick at Berkshire Stringed Instruments, each student has a finished, hand-crafted guitar that they made themselves.
Executive Producer Tony Dunne stopped by North Adams for a lesson in musical woodworking.
Check out another custom guitar shop in a digital exclusive story about Dalton, MA’s The Music Repair Shop.
Read the full transcript:
Zydalis Bauer, Connecting Point: Nick Lenski has been passionate about making guitars for most of his life, often out of local wood sourced from the forests surrounding his Berkshires home.
But a few years back, Nick decided to turn his pastime into a career by teaching others how to make the instrument of their dreams. And after a week long course with Nick at Berkshire Stringed Instruments, each student has a finished, hand-crafted guitar that they made themselves.
Executive Producer Tony Dunne stopped by North Adams for a lesson in musical woodworking.
Nick Lenski, Berkshire Stringed Instruments: I always, you know, loved the forest, the woods.
During my younger years, I was a contractor for a while and me and my wife started to have a family, and so I was looking for a little bit more of a career.
I tried a few different things and wasn’t really, truly satisfied with what I was doing, and it was actually my wife’s idea for me to build guitars. I was just doing it on the weekends or at night in my home shop. I had a few people who said they’d be interested in making one. So I said, “Well, why don’t I offer a course?”
This is when I, you know, I met up with Steve, you know, who was my mentor.
Steve Sauvé, Sauvé Guitars: I just saw it as a golden opportunity to to have him here, and we could collaborate and learn from each other.
Nick Lenski: And so, that’s what I did. And it just seems to just keep gaining more and more momentum.
Steve Sauvé: I find the middle there should be this.
Nick Lenski: It’s a ten-day course, Monday through Friday, 8 to 4 every day. And basically, students come, they can hand build their own custom instrument, whether it’s a guitar, nylon or steel, mandolin or ukulele.
Spider Alton, Student: I’ve always wanted a hand-built guitar, would never be able to afford one, but…this worked out beautifully. So, I get my guitar and I get to learn how to do it and I’m going to try to build some of my own.
Steve Sauvé: It’s so much more personal if they spend that much time with their guitar. The issue of going into a store and handing somebody your credit card as opposed to actually being involved in the process is a pretty big deal.
Nick Lenski: Everything’s fully customized. You’re going to hand-carved your own neck, you’re going to make your own bridge, carve your own bone saddle and knot. You’re going to do all your own in-laying. It’s something they’ve designed. It’s — it’s, you know, ideally, what they want.
Okay, so I’m gonna go in kind of a round motion.
Spider Alton, Student: The beauty of this course is, I’m seeing how it’s built and being able to do it myself with a teacher who is really patient and shows you exactly how and why things are working together.
Steve Sauvé: And hopefully through that, they’re going to end up with an instrument that actually does what they want it to do.
Nick Lenski: Each wood possesses its own tone, and by pairing, you know, different top woods with different back and side woods, you can get different sounds out of them. So, what I do, you know, enjoy and what I try to do mostly is, is use local woods that I can.
We have a lot of great woods, you know, within western Massachusetts, such as black walnuts. We have Adirondack spruce, we have sycamores, such as this. We have, you know, a lot of great maple.
So, you know, I also do have a line of guitars, Berkshires Instruments, where I, you know, where I make the entire guitar out of locally sourced woods that I, you know, harvest myself. And, you know, the majority of the instruments, each part comes from a different town here in Berkshire County, which is a, you know, really great thing to do.
You know, basically anybody can do it. I’ve had people who’ve been woodworking for over 30 years, and I have, you know, some college students who’ve never even like ran a hand drill before.
Spider Alton: Between the nut and the first fret center?
Nick Lenski: Yep, yep.
Spider Alton: And I’m just looking forward to be able to sit down and build this and people go, “Oh, that’s a nice guitar. Where’d you get that?”
And I’m going to be able to say, “Well, I built it.”
Nick Lenski: I guess the best part of the build is, you know, when you’re — when you’re done with it and you and you hit that first note, you know, and you know, and it comes out exactly as you hoped it would.
Steve Sauvé: People are almost in tears when they finish their guitars here and hear those first chords from them. So, it’s — it’s pretty gratifying experience to go and build a guitar with Nick.
Spider Alton: I’m really looking forward to hitting the first couple of notes on this thing and listening to it and see it and hear how it goes together. I’m just I’m kind of chomping at the bit a little bit here.
Steve Sauvé: I think it’s the personal connection, quite frankly, and the fact that they know that I’m handling every piece of wood.
Nick Lenski: People are just — are just thrilled with the fact that they can — that they’ve accomplished this. You know, they start out with a with a pile of wood in front of them.
And, you know, by the 10th day, they have a, you know, a beautiful musical instrument that they’ve that they’ve handcrafted and they can play.
