Bashkin Guitars

Michael Bashkin came to lutherie sideways. He was a scientist first — graduate work in forestry at Colorado State, post-graduate research at Duke, and time teaching tropical forest ecology in Belize. That training shaped how he sees wood: not as inventory but as a material with history, climate, and acoustic personality. He apprenticed with Ervin Somogyi and Harry Fleishman, two of the foundational figures in modern American boutique acoustic guitar making, and opened his own shop in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1998. Bashkin builds four core models — the small-bodied OO, the OM, the mid-sized JM, and the jumbo SJ — and each is heavily customizable. Across them the consistent thing is voicing balance: fundamental and overtones in careful conversation, with neither overpowering.