IBM retiree Pete Mendel started making guitars in his basement in his Lexington neighborhood a few years ago. He was recently selected to become a member of the Kentucky Guild for Artists and Craftsmen for his high-quality work. Photo by Estill Robinson
The list of things Pete Mendel has crafted from wood is extensive: kitchen cabinets, office furniture, patio stairs, rocking chairs and even an intricately curved bathroom vanity.
But a few years ago, he took up a new woodworking challenge, one that had captured his imagination as a teen and stayed with him throughout his life: guitars.
He waded in cautiously, assembling a few Les Paul guitars from kits and gifting them to his sons. Then he refurbished an old acoustic guitar that had lost its shape and been left for dead. With a few projects under his belt and his confidence rising, Mendel set his sights on making some instruments from scratch: a series of homemade ukuleles, which allowed him to experiment with different kinds of wood and deepen his understanding of the luthier trade.
“Honestly, I figured I was going to mess them up,” said Mendel, 64, a former industrial designer for Lexmark and IBM. “But I didn’t, and they turned out really, really well.”
And just like that, Mendel’s retirement plans faded, replaced by a new idea: He would start his own handcrafted guitar company.
That company, Mendel Guitars, is still in its infancy. Mendel is the company’s only employee, and his factory is his basement woodshop. Aside from the ukuleles, his product line consists of five acoustic guitars that are still months away from being stringed and ready to play.
But that’s OK for Mendel, who said that by the time he finally gets around to selling his first instruments, he’d be lucky to clear even minimum wage given the countless hours he’s invested. Recently selected to become a member of the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen for his highly detailed luthier work, Mendel is more interested in the non-monetary rewards that come with the work, anyway.
“I’m not going to become wealthy doing this,” he said with a laugh. “But I’m having a blast.”
Mendel, who grew up in Cincinnati, said he’s been building things ever since he was a boy. His father was an architect and a “pretty handy guy,” and Mendel found himself taking scraps of wood from his dad’s bin to build furniture and whatever else inspired him.
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
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For his instruments, Mendel uses a variety of woods: mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics. Photo by Estill Robinson
His first stab at a homemade guitar – a 12-string, which he began when he was teenager – took a few years to fully assemble. He finished it while he was studying industrial design at the University of Cincinnati.
“It was kind of a failure,” Mendel said. “But this was all before the internet. So, for the time, it was pretty amazing that I got it done, and that it came out at all.”
In college, he worked closely with a few professors, one who made furniture and another who made harpsichords. The pair helped him develop as a craftsman. After graduation, Mendel took a job with IBM in Minnesota in the late 1970s, designing computer and typewriter components, and ultimately transferred with the company to Lexington. Whenever he and his wife, a graphic designer, wanted something for the house but couldn’t find exactly what they were after, Mendel retreated to his basement shop to make it himself. He built a suite of office furniture, rocking chairs for his sons and an assortment of other things along the way.
Instruments, however, are “a whole different animal,” Mendel, a lifelong guitarist who has played in a handful of different coffeehouse and church bands, acknowledges.
Over the years, Mendel became friends with a few Lexington guitarists who likewise were gifted luthiers: Lee Toliver, Rhea Umberger and Duffy Robertson. Under their tutelage, he rekindled his interest in instrument building, and he credits them for much of his knowledge about the craft.
These days, he usually spends 40 hours or more each week in his shop working on his instruments. It’s a process, he says, that begins – and ends – with the wood.
“The wood really is everything,” Mendel said. “It’s the speaker. Building an instrument is all about sound and sound transmission.”
For his instruments, he draws from a variety of woods – mahogany, rosewood, spruce, cedar, maple and a host of other exotics – and is always searching for those that are “quarter-sawn,” with the grain running perpendicular to the cut. This particular cut increases the wood’s strength and also, unfortunately, its cost. A one-inch board of the highest quality can easily run a few hundred dollars or more, Mendel said.
From there, the delicate craftsmanship begins. He cuts a board into several thinner pieces, which are further split into mirrored pieces (called “bookmatching”) for the guitar’s front and back. To shape the wood, he softens it by boiling it in a kettle over a turkey fryer. Then he wraps the wood in dampened kraft paper and bends it around a hot iron, getting the rudimentary shape he’s after. Finally, to preserve the wood’s curves, he clamps the pieces into molds to dry.
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Mendel credits several of this friends who are also luthiers and guitarist in Lexington for much of his knowledge about the craft. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel credits several of this friends who are also luthiers and guitarist in Lexington for much of his knowledge about the craft. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel credits several of this friends who are also luthiers and guitarist in Lexington for much of his knowledge about the craft. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel credits several of this friends who are also luthiers and guitarist in Lexington for much of his knowledge about the craft. Photo by Estill Robinson
“A lot of this I’ve learned through trial and error,” he said.
Mendel also cuts his own fretboards and fashions his own saddles and nuts (from cow bone) to ensure the best intonation and resonation possible.
“It can’t just look good,” Mendel said. “It also must sound good and play right.”
Then comes his least favorite part: endless rounds of sanding.
“I do hate all the sanding,” he said. “But that’s something you have to do a lot of.”
Finally, he finishes with eight coats of lacquer before the final sanding and buffing process, which gives the instrument its translucent sheen.
Still, all the painstaking hours are worth it once the instrument is stringed and tuned for that first play, he said.
“That’s the best part, when it finally comes to life,” Mendel said. “And until then, you don’t really know if it’s good or not.”
The feedback Mendel’s received from his luthier friends, he said, has been encouraging. His instruments not only play easily, they also sound great, he said.
Now, he said, the next step is to figure out how to market his new business. He hopes to soon be able to sell his instruments directly through his website, mendelguitars.com, and maybe through the site reverb.com, which is a sort of eBay for instruments.
But he adds that he’s in no hurry to make a name for himself right away.
“I’m enjoying my free time and my freedom,” he said. “But then again, this is what I love doing. I don’t really look at it as a job.”
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Mendel spends an average of 40 hours a week in his workshop, building new guitars and ukuleles and restoring vintage beauties. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel spends an average of 40 hours a week in his workshop, building new guitars and ukuleles and restoring vintage beauties. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel spends an average of 40 hours a week in his workshop, building new guitars and ukuleles and restoring vintage beauties. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel spends an average of 40 hours a week in his workshop, building new guitars and ukuleles and restoring vintage beauties. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel spends an average of 40 hours a week in his workshop, building new guitars and ukuleles and restoring vintage beauties. Photo by Estill Robinson
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Mendel spends an average of 40 hours a week in his workshop, building new guitars and ukuleles and restoring vintage beauties. Photo by Estill Robinson