George S. Leach
George S. Leach spent most of his career as a design engineer and engineering manager at Intel Corp. He began working on guitars as a hobby in 1988, and in late 1989, he built his first guitar. A local musician saw this guitar, ordered one, and suddenly George found himself in business. He continued to build guitars in his spare time until 2006, when he took early retirement from Intel, and went fulltime into the guitarmaking business. Since that time, he has taught numerous guitarmaking classes, including steel string, archtop, and classical guitar construction, and continues building guitars out of his new shop in Torrance, California.
Reviews:
“George Leach’s new book, The Phoenix Guitar Company’s Guide to Guitarmaking for the Small Shop, provides a straightforward, expertly-photographed, and thorough overview of steel string, archtop, and classical instrument making. This is a great and completely understandable introduction to the craft.”
—Dick Boak, Museum and Archives, C. F. Martin & Co.
“. . . After years of teaching and many students, George knows what students need to know and captured it with good photo angles and tight text. This is . . . a great reference manual to have at your fingertips.”
—Kathy Wingert, Wingert Guitars, Master Luthier
“What a great book! George has done an amazing job of boiling the very complex process of building several types of guitars in one masterwork . . . I will be recommending his book to my students as required reading!”
—Tom Ribbecke, Ribbecke Guitars, Master Luthier and guitarmaking instructor
