Local luthiers craft instruments from specialty wood, castoff paint and found materials

By Ross Boissoneau

Sun contributor

Walk into Bob DeKorne’s garage outside Maple City, and your eye is immediately drawn past the Subaru to the phalanx of guitars in front of a work bench. There are more against the wall, and others in various states of assembly: from guitar bodies and necks to slabs of wood, alongside various amps, electronics and gear.

Welcome to the home of Pyramid Point Custom Guitars. DeKorne is a luthier, turning wood, wire and other materials into unique, one-of-a-kind instruments.

He’s not the only one plying the trade. Just a few miles away, his friend Kim Hillard proudly shows off his latest creation, a ukulele. Then its near-twin, and his recently completed guitar, one of five acoustics he’s made over the last few years.

While the two share a passion for making guitars, they come from different directions. Hillard is a builder and designer of wood and wood products. “Woodworking has been my passion since school,” he says.

DeKorne, on the other hand, came from the musical side. He’s played originals with His Boy Elroy, classic rock with the Corvairs and folk and blues favorites with Blind Dog Hank. He’s also part of a group dubbed the Burdickville Boys, which gathers Tuesday nights at a friend’s place for an informal jam session and played its first gig this past summer. Hillard also attends the sessions, though as a listener, appreciating the music and camaraderie.

DeKorne says he was always messing around with his factory-built guitars, but his interest was really piqued when a friend gave him a Mosrite bass that had been severely damaged in a flood. “It was kind of fun,” he says of the process of completely refurbishing the instrument, from replacing the peeling wood and paint to installing new electronics. “I fixed it and played it for years.”

Things really took off when he took down a large ash tree just outside his garage. It had been damaged by the emerald ash borer and needed to be removed before it fell on the building. He couldn’t bear to just use it as firewood, so he built guitars from it, highlighting the trails in the wood made by the invasive insect.

He fell in love with the idea of using special wood to make one-of-a-kind pieces. Some have live edges. Others feature burled wood or wood that’s survived a fire, custom painting, inlays of wood, stone or other material. Petoskey stones on the body? Yes. Knobs, control cover, and neck markers made from Centuryite, leftover layers of boat paint from the Century Boat plant in Manistee? Absolutely. One particularly striking guitar shows the view from Burdickville across Glen Lake, the wood’s grain suggesting waves, another color wood as the skyline of Alligator Hill, with inlays depicting the rays of the setting sun.

“Pat Niemisto had a walnut cut down, the wood sitting in a barn. I made him a five-string bass. It’s beautiful and has meaning to him. And it’s special to me,” says DeKorne.

Perhaps most notably, he took the ammo box his father had used to carry camera equipment in World War II and fashioned it into a guitar, which was then auctioned off to raise funds for Honor Flight. He also fashioned one with purple heart wood, military pins and beach stones, which he donated with a hand-painted one to Reining Liberty Ranch. It fetched $13,000 as an auction fundraiser.

DeKorne estimates he’s made 40 to 50 guitars and basses since really diving in over the last ten years. “I’ve sold 15 to 20, and donated a like amount,” he says.

With their unique materials and custom look, DeKorne’s guitars are as much works of art as they are instruments. That applies to those Hillard makes as well. His zeal for creating things in his shop eventually led to building a guitar. “I can make really nice boxes, so I can make a round one,” Hillard decided.

The challenge appealed to the exacting craftsman and woodworker, and was a means to sharing his passion with both his and wife Donna’s family. His first effort went to daughter Joanna, the second to her brother Jeremy, then son Dane, with Kim keeping one.

Naturally enough, the first one was the most time-consuming. Not just because he hadn’t done it before and spent time studying tutorials and examples online, but because he found it necessary to build the tools to actually create the guitars. Bending, shaping, sanding and glueing wood obliged him to create a number of jigs, clamps, molds and other tools.

He learned a lot from first to last. “I found out it’s a very dusty hobby,” he says with a smile. Undeterred, he subsequently took on the challenge of making a ukulele, which of course meant making more molds and other tools to fit its diminutive size. He’s since made four ukuleles to go along with the five guitars.

Hillard says much of his early work was trial and error. “I found out early which wood bends and which don’t. Walnut loves to bend. Cherry bends pretty well. Maple, not so much.” Other woods, such as bubinga (African rosewood) or purple heart wood, lend their color, grain and properties to his creations, just as they do DeKorne’s. It’s all about finding woods that work together in terms of their look and properties.

While that first guitar took the most time, Hillard found his most recent particularly challenging. “I almost threw this out, many times,” he says. That’s because the wood was problematic, cracking and forcing him to install additional braces.

Hillard and DeKorne are both friends and resources for one another. In fact, they’ve basically formed a mutual admiration society. “He’s so sweet. He’s helped me out so many times,” says DeKorne of Hillard.

“I’ve learned so much. He’s an artist,” says Hillard in return.

So where can you get one of these unique instruments? While Hillard’s exquisite guitars could no doubt fetch a pretty penny, he’s not interested in selling his babies. They’re for family.

DeKorne does sell many of his guitars, often as special orders to people who bring him the wood with a story. Others he displays on the Pyramid Point Custom Guitars Facebook page. The ones he’s most proud of, though, are those he’s donated to raise money for causes he supports.