At Collings Factory, Heart and Soul Go Into Guitars

AUSTIN, Texas —  Buzzing. Humming. Squealing. Sanding. For Bill Collings, some of the sweetest music comes from the machines that fill his guitar-making shop.

The instruments are world renowned. Paul Simon, Lyle Lovett, Joni Mitchell and Keith Richards are among those who own Collings originals at prices of $14,500 or more.

Collings says what led him to Texas from Cleveland in the mid-1970s was a combination of recklessness, a love for motorcycles and a lack of interest in medical school. As he got deeper into instrument making, he came to feel a magic in the machines as well as in the music.

“Tools are artistic,” he says, clutching the wooden shell of what will be a mandolin. It’s his 20th attempt in a year at making the perfect instrument. Though smooth and beautifully cut, it’s not good enough, he says.

Covered in dust and wood shavings, Collings, 51, emerges wearing rainbow-rimmed glasses, blue jeans and a mock Department of Corrections T-shirt to show off his artist’s studio, a 9,600-square-foot factory in Austin.

“I just love good stuff,” he proclaims. “I don’t care if it’s a piece of sheet metal or a guitar. I love good, quality stuff.”

Good, quality stuff is exactly what Collings Guitars are known for. Each instrument must pass rigorous inspections before being sold. Those with slight imperfections are sold at a 40 percent discount. Some never make it out of the shop at all.

Twenty-seven full-time employees will use machines and old-fashioned craftsmanship to make 1,000 guitars this year. The business began as a tiny guitar building and repair shop in the late 1980s.

Most of the employees are musicians who often accompany the machine music with tunes of their own.

“I’m mostly a guitar player,” says Marty Christian, who carefully folds climate-controlled and aged wood into shells. “But I put a lot of soul into my work. Like playing, you’ve got to put a lot of soul into it. It’s totally like a piece of art.”

Mark Frank programs a computer that tells a machine how to perfectly cut the neck, the long handle of the guitar other workers will eventually string by hand.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Frank says as he loads a piece of wood into the machine. The amateur guitar player says he called every two weeks for a year before Collings finally hired him. After five years, he remains delighted to be there. “I guess as musicians, we appreciate this.”

General manager Steve McCreary says heart and hard work go into the guitars. “It’s the heart that drives it,” he said. “We’re building guitars for people who have a lot of heart. We’re in a building of people who have a lot of heart too.”