Guitar Maker: Instrument player turns hobby into business
SUMMIT TWP — Gary Neyman isn't letting any grass grow under his feet.
When he retired in 2012 from Lebanon Seaboard Corp., a supplier of home lawn and garden products, he began a hobby that he is turning into a business.
Since 2016, Neyman has been building steel-string and classical guitars in a workshop in the garage of his home at 184 Valley View Drive.
Born and raised in Butler County, he learned to play guitar in college in the early 1960s.
“I kept up with the guitar on and off,” Neyman said. “I hadn't played for a long time, and when I picked up the guitar, it sounded bad.”
Neyman took his ailing instrument to a professional luthier: someone who builds or repairs stringed instruments.
That got him to thinking.
“I'm a tinkerer,” he said. “I've built my own computers. Building a guitar would be a challenge.”
He read books on guitar making and studied the subject for years before he set out to build his guitar.
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