Custom Builds

Fretted Strings offers a variety of one-of-a-kind handmade instruments: acoustic guitars, electric guitars, electric basses, and ukuleles.

Base Prices
Steel-String Acoustic Guitar$2,950
Classical Guitar $3,000
Electric Guitar or Bass$2,500
Concert Ukulele$1,000

Base prices include instrument-grade wood, bone nut and saddle, shellac french polish, single rosette (shell or wood), dot inlay on fingerboard, and tuning machines.

Additional features and/or upgraded materials are available at additional cost.


Our most popular custom orders are for acoustic guitars. We’ve made Dreadnought, Jumbo, “Richmond Talbott,” OOO and OO Parlor sizes, although any size and shape guitar can be constructed. 

Possible added features include: cutaways (Venetian or Florentine), K&K pick-up, beveled armrest, side soundport, binding along fingerboard, fanciful inlay work (peghead, fingerboard, and/or rosette), & fan frets.


A note on our extensive collection of high-quality instrument-grade wood:

While working in Art Overholtzer’s Chico California shop in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Harrison began searching for and collecting premium instrument grade wood.  Thousands of spruce tops were evaluated and only the best selected.  Gabon and other genuine ebonies from Africa, rosewood from Brazil, Honduras, Asia and East India, mahogany from South America and other woods were carefully selected for tone, beauty and stability.

All our custom acoustic guitars are made of hand-selected Spruce tops that we have air-dried in our shop for over 30 years.

All our custom acoustic instruments feature braces made of premium instrument-grade Spruce that has been air-dried for between 60 and 100 years.  This brace wood is extremely light and strong allowing us to build guitars with exceptional strength with minimal bracing materials.  The result is a guitar that can vibrate more freely, amplifying the strings’ vibration and producing sharp, clear, and loud resonance.

Please talk to us about the tonal and aesthetic qualities you are looking for; it’s likely we’ve got what you’re looking for in our collection.

Examples of book-matched tops & backs from our collection:


Some of our past custom builds: