For Bolton man, being a luthier is truthier

“It is like pulling a guitar neck from the heart of a tree,’’ the Bolton resident said of the slow, steady process that has occupied much of his time in the past four years.

Beckwith is a luthier - the name given to the artisans who craft stringed musical instruments such as guitars.

Fashioning guitars, local luthiers say, often spurs a personal quest bordering on obsession. With tasks that include designing inlay patterns, shaping a guitar’s curve, and choosing woods from an international array, boredom is rarely a guitar maker’s complaint. Their fixations with the comfortable weight of a guitar in hand, the wood’s silky feel, and the just-right tone thrill musicians seeking the perfect blend in an eye-catching instrument.

“There was almost no guitar making of any kind between World War I and the middle 1960s,’’ said Tim Olsen, founding editor of the Tacoma-based Guild of American Luthiers quarterly publication. After the Industrial Revolution turned handcrafted goods into mass-produced materials, making a guitar with your own hands became obsolete.

Curious teenagers changed all that when they tinkered with making guitars in the 1960s, said Olsen.

Then, Eric Clapton’s 1992 acoustic set for MTV’s “Unplugged’’ lighted a spark on the current trend. “That was a symbol of the groundswell that was building,’’ he said.

Beckwith, half of Hooper and Beckwith, a “Texas folk’’ duo, started building guitars as a backup retirement plan.

“I just didn’t think that I couldn’t,’’ said Beckwith. “I just thought, ‘I have nothing to lose.’ ’’

When his high-tech company downsized and offered him a severance package, Beckwith took it and ramped up his guitar making, focusing anew on a wood’s tones or the reflective qualities of a finish.

Beckwith’s guitars cost from $1,000 to $1,300, a figure he said he purposely keeps low to make his models affordable. He sold all six guitars he made last year, and expects to double his output this year, with his eventual goal to produce 25 guitars annually. He also repairs guitars, something some see as supplemental, but a role he considers part of working at his craft.

Beckwith said he was in a unique position to start a business, but he disagrees with those who say you cannot make a living as a luthier. He anticipates that his company, Beckwith Strings, will eventually support him and his wife, Jan. Sometimes it all depends on timing.

“There are some reasons why it is hard to do this, and I have some advantages,’’ said Beckwith, noting that his long years working in high tech allowed him the financial cushion needed to switch careers. And he has the full support of his wife, who moved from a nonprofit organization into a full-time job in quality assurance just as Beckwith was leaving his job with Intel Corp.

“She told me it was my turn,’’ he said.

Some luthiers love tinkering in the wood shop and playing music, so the road to building guitars seems a natural fit. Beckwith, however, said he was never much of a woodworker, but as a musician he had his eye on an archtop guitar, a more intricately carved model whose wood the luthier must slowly plane and sand into a gracefully curved top.

“I was looking into buying one,’’ Beckwith said, “but they are collector’s items and expensive. I thought, ‘What would it take to build one?’ So I started with acoustic flat tops and will gradually branch into archtops.’’

What has surprised him is how quickly he took to the craft. Despite breaking wood and making cosmetic errors on his earliest guitars, Beckwith said, he found the process to be fairly simple. The trick is to do those simple steps perfectly.

“When you are doing inlay,’’ he said, “you only get one shot to get it right.’’

Northbridge musician Daniel Chauvin doesn’t make guitars, but he likes playing the ones that Beckwith makes.

He said things have changed for the better in his 35 years playing guitar, and luthiers are making the most of a music trend that is “going back to our roots.’’ Playing a handmade instrument versus a factory-made guitar is like the difference between driving a Mercedes or a Maserati, Chauvin said.

“I am not knocking factory made, but there is a science to making guitars,’’ Chauvin said. “As a player, I don’t understand it. But everything is so positive, and that energy just comes out when you play.’’

Glenn and Barbara Nelson, who make guitars as owners of Berlin’s Mockingbird Music, said musicians have a word - mojo - for the energy that makes an instrument special. The Nelsons believe a unique mojo flows from the luthier’s hands to the musician’s fingers.

“It is a soulful experience to build an instrument,’’ said Barbara, “that gives it its own soul.’’

The Nelsons started building guitars in the early 1980s. Glenn’s fascination with banjos eventually led to crafting custom instruments, including unusual ones like a seven-string microtonal guitar or a mandocello. Barbara mixes her own stain finishes and creates elaborate inlays, from a name to a fly-fishing scene.

“Everything about a handmade guitar is optimized,’’ said Somerville resident Steve Spodaryk, cofounder of New England Luthiers, a regional association of professional and amateur instrument makers. “The big draw is the challenge of taking raw materials and turning them into a really fine tool to make music.’’

Spodaryk works part time making guitars and part time as a software engineer, saying the guitars don’t pay all his bills in a bad economy.

Olsen said today’s luthiers share information, and make their craft that much more approachable.

“We have matured into a golden age of guitar making,’’ said Olsen. “Some of the best guitar makers ever are living right now.’’ The network, either through the Internet or local groups, gives amateurs access to information privy once only to an apprentice.

But luthiers continually tweak their products. The Nelsons tap and listen to each piece of wood for just the right sound. They use everything from Hawaiian koa to black walnut from a tree that a friend was cutting down.

“I think we are a country of paperwork,’’ said Glenn. “We stopped making things, and it is time to start making things again.’’

Beckwith said he finds satisfaction in purfling, painstakingly placing wood inlay around the edges of his acoustic guitars. Days and nights of shaping guitar necks, and cutting and sanding wood into mahogany-backed, spruce-sided, and ebony-inlaid guitars have melted the stress from his life.

“When I was in high tech, I made things happen, and I got away from the details,’’ said Beckwith. “Now I find the details very relaxing. I wish I had more time in the day to do this.’’

“It is amazing to start with something that looks like firewood and then see a performer using it on stage,’’ said Spodaryk. “It is really sort of a marvelous thing.’’