JOI Guitars

JOI Guitars is the work of Reuben Forsland, who builds alone in a one-room studio on a wooded hillside above Vancouver Island's southwest coast. Born in central Alberta, Forsland spent most of his working life as a master carpenter — furniture, houses, skateboards, surfboards — before turning to lutherie full-time in 2014. The name states the intent: "inspired guitars for inspired players," JOI with an "i." The work rests on a deep respect for traditional methods, sharpened by his proprietary Ellipse top-and-back bracing system — more than a decade in development — and a collector's instinct for woods that carry history: British bog oak, Ancient Sitka spruce carbon-dated at 2,850 years, the famed "The Tree" mahogany, and Teredo-bored spruce whose natural holes become part of the voice of the instrument. Most builds are shaped around a narrative. The Harmonic Hendrix Home series, licensed with Authentic Hendrix, LLC, is built from wood reclaimed from Jimi Hendrix's childhood home in Seattle; Slash commissioned two JOI guitars and called the first "the most amazing acoustic guitar I'd ever played or heard." The work has drawn features from Smithsonian Magazine and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A build takes about two months, output is tiny, and almost everything is custom — so JOI rarely appears on the secondary market, and each instrument is treated as a collectible object in its own right.