Atkin Guitars

This month, we head to Canterbury and the workshops of one of the UK’s fastest growing acoustic guitar builders…

- David Mead

Many acoustic players worldwide will agree that the acknowledged golden era of guitar building was from the pre-war period. But the cost of these instruments is infamously prohibitive and so how does a contemporary player access those celebrated sounds of yore without breaking the bank? Enter Alister Atkin whose instruments acknowledge the building traditions of yesteryear and look, feel and sound like they could have been built more than 70 years ago. Subtle ageing processes complete the illusion and the Atkin guitars we’ve reviewed in the past have always scored highly for their classic tones and played-in, lap-friendly appeal.

The workshop boasts a six-man team that combines years of hands-on building skill with up-to-date technology, which includes a CNC machine for shaping necks, a vacuum press for setting bracing and laser engineering to cut the tops. But at every stage it’s good old-fashioned hands-on finesse – along with a special formula nitrocellulose finish – that combine to ensure each instrument leaving the workshop is something really special.

“I wanted to be a rock star, like most people, and then realised that probably wasn’t going to happen,” Alister laughs after guiding us around the facility. Thus defeated in his quest for a stadium-filling rockstar life, Alister took the alternative path of guitar building – and we were surprised to discover that his enthusiasm for manufacturing his own brand of acoustics actually began with a love of taking other instruments apart.

“Whenever I bought guitars, I would strip them down,” he tells us. “You get a Strat and you’re like, ‘Brilliant, how does this go together?’ We had craft, design and technology at school and I did a project building an electric guitar, loved it and then found out the London School Of Furniture had a course.”